Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks

“Why not?” The taunt in his words shamed him.

The brown of her eyes transforming into a dazzling color, she glared at him. Her pulse at the neck fluttered belying the anger in her eyes. “Because I don’t think it’s a good idea.

“You can’t stand me, for sins I know and some I don’t. And I…you’re arrogant, you’re a hypocrite and I…” she said with that standard animosity she seemed to reserve especially for him. Yet he heard the quiver beneath those words.

She was trying so hard to hide her awareness of him. So hard to fight it.

The Leah that he knew, that he thought he had known, had never fought anything she felt. Gave in to every juvenile urge, every self-serving impulse until she crashed and burned.

And had dragged Calista down with her.

This effort now…it sparked a curious fire in him just as much as the fluttering pulse at her neck did.

He came to her bed and leaned against it, blocking her. “So that you could continue to live in this hole like some damned martyr?”

A silk skirt in hand, she turned that gaze to him again. “It is what you chose for me.”

“I never meant for you to live like a prisoner. I sent you everything you needed.”

“To do what with?” Throwing the skirt and a couple more things into the bag, she zipped it up vehemently. “I have no friends, Stavros. No family…”

“You rejected the one you have for years. You still do,” he couldn’t help but point out, a gnawing frustration in his gut.

She didn’t even flinch as she continued. “Even the staff at the fashion house, people I have been working with for five years, they treat me with this—” he saw her swallow and a wave of tenderness, shocking and acute, rose inside him “—nauseating combination of dislike and affected regard.

“I don’t know if they think my designs are really good or if they are just saying that because I’m Leah Sporades, the wife of the textile magnate of Greece, a shame he hides from the world.

“You married me even though you despised the sight of me. You…you kissed me in front of the media that day for the express purpose of warning away my friends, the entire world. You might as well have branded me like they do livestock.”

“Leah—”

“No, Stavros…I was nineteen. I lost the one friend I had, Giannis had just had a heart attack…”

“Whom you still refuse to see,” he cut in.

Do not give up on my Leah, Stavros. Please…she is very fragile…

Fragile was the last thing he had ever thought of Leah…She had barely ever sat down for five minutes with him, yet even surrounded by tubes and equipment, she’d been all Giannis could think about.

Every inch of her slender frame vibrating with anger and pain, she clutched the lapels of his shirt. “…and in the next two days, you took my entire world away from me. You locked me up here and promptly forgot about me.

“Did you ever feel even an ounce of shame that you coerced a nineteen-year-old into marriage?”

Stavros felt her words dig into him like the serrated edge of a blade, drawing blood.

For five years, he had ignored her very existence, had let her live like this, had informed Giannis again and again that Leah was well…

How had he committed such an unforgivable mistake?

“Answer me.”

“No, I don’t regret it. I would have done anything to save you from that drug-induced-drink-all-night-reckless-party life.”

No denial rushed out of her this time. Instead, she closed her eyes and bent her head to his chest. The raw intimacy of the gesture flayed him, reaching a part he didn’t know he possessed.

Her shoulders pushing at his chest, the scent of her coating the air he breathed, her lithe form was so tempting. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, he wanted to bury his mouth in… Feeling like an iron anvil was sitting on his chest, he clasped her wrists to push her away.

Instead, the pad of his thumb moved over the plump vein of its own will.

Her breaths came in a slow rasp until, suddenly, she looked up. His lungs burned for air as her fingers laced around his, as a blunt nail raked the center of his palm, her molten brown gaze clung to his lips.

Something so desperate and wanting flashed in her gaze that Stavros dropped her hand.

It was so unlike Leah that a shiver raked down his spine.

Jerking away from him, she drew a deep breath. “Deal with the consequences of what you did then,” she said, moving her hand over the room. “Alleviating your guilt about this…it’s not my responsibility.”

It was the most adult thing she had ever said to him. And just like that, his world tilted an infinitesimal inch.

A world in which Leah was right and he was wrong. A world in which he had let himself be led by pain and resentment until he had neglected his duty…neglected the vow he had made to Giannis.

“You’re right. It’s not.”

“What?”

“I said you’re right,” he said willingly, the bright wonder on her face drawing it out of him. “What I did that day had consequences that I didn’t own completely.”

“Am I actually hearing this?” Her brows rose into her hair, her mouth opened in a long O. Mirth overflowed in those eyes, making her look absolutely stunning. “Boom!” The scent of her skin swirled around him, drugging him so insidiously that his blood became sluggish. “Did you hear that, Stavros? I think the sky just exploded…”

He stole another greedy look at her. And like a snake waiting to strike, the most incredible urge to press his thumb against the lushness of her lower lip, struck him.

He collected himself slowly and stepped out, wondering if this sinuous desire for her was his true penance.

“Show me your workroom,” he said, over his shoulder.

Her workroom knocked the breath out of Stavros.

It was as though a veil, the veil that separated Leah from the rest of them, had been lifted. A tentative smile on her face, she walked around touching things here and there in the chaotic room, eons different from the Leah who usually glared at him with such hatred.

Sunlight poured in streams into the high-ceilinged room, exposing the beams. Everywhere he looked, there was color, such a vivid contrast to the rest of the apartment that it took him a few moments to actually see it.

Two racks hung around the back, with evening gowns in different degrees of completion. An old sewing machine lay on a table in the other corner. One whole wall was covered with sketches made in pencil, illustrations, even cutouts from fashion magazines.

Swatches of fabric were pasted on another wall. Reams of it spilled over from a rickety shelf in the corner—satin and silk and cotton, pretty much every fabric he knew of in his ten years in the textile industry.

Something tightened in his chest.

“The retail buyer that you were talking about, what is she interested in?”

“I’m putting together a collection of evening wear for her—cocktail dresses, formal gowns, and the prize of the collection will be one bridal dress.”

“That’s quite a workload for one designer…”

“Slash seamstress,” she finished, fingering the sheer fabric of one unfinished dress.

“You’re going to…”

An utterly confident smile dawned on her face. “Actually cut and sew the dresses, yes. I custom-design and sew every dress myself and that’s what I would like my brand to be. When the buyer was talking about what she would like, what she liked about my previous designs…I could see the concept from start to finish.”

Color flushed her skin.

He walked around and touched the cut bodice in ivory silk. “Has she seen the flat sketches?”

She shook her head. And he saw the surprise in her eyes that he knew the term. “We have had two discussions around it.”

“Leah, it’s a huge risk to create an entire collection for one woman’s tastes at this stage.”

She tilted her jaw aggressively. “You gave me your word not ten minutes ago.” Her lithe frame vibrated with her growing panic.

“And I will stand by it. But I’m also a businessman and in case, you have forgotten, I run a group of textile factories that export all over the world. All I’m doing is pointing out the pitfalls, as I would do with any business I want to invest in. Creatives have a tendency to run the business into the ground with their half-realized dreams.”

“But I’m not creating exactly what she wants. More like my vision of what she has in mind.” She turned to him, a frown on her face. “Anything I tried to design with some freedom at the fashion house ends up changed for the brand of the house. I want this collection to be mine. And I need cash upfront for all the raw materials.”

He nodded. “I want an expense report including quotes from all the vendors you’ll be sourcing the raw material from. I want every penny accounted for.”

“I will send you my spreadsheet.”

“You have one already?”

“Surprised, aren’t you? I’ve been having problems with one vendor based in Brazil though. He keeps upping the price of the cotton I need from him.”

“I can help with that,” he said, the fire in her eyes stunning him. “Do you plan to hire another seamstress?”

“Not at this point.”

“But it’s too much work for just one person.”

“I don’t want anyone else involved in this…in my first collection.”

“Fine,” he said, noting that the stubborn streak of independence was still there. Also that whatever advice he gave now, she wouldn’t heed it. “You’ll have the money within the hour. I will be gone next week, and during that time—”

Walking back into the kitchen, she pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’ll be watched by your housekeeper and your new security head. Poor Dmitri, along with his arm candies, will be reduced to babysitting duties. Although, I don’t mind him.”

“No?” The question left his mouth before he knew he had thought it.

“Dmitri?” An almost dazed kind of smile glimmered in her expression. And he cut the irrationally possessive thought her expression evoked before it could form fully. “Of course not. He was always kind, even when Calista…” Sudden tension dawned in her gaze and she looked away from him.

“When Calista what, Leah?”

She cleared her throat and started again but resolutely kept her gaze away from him. “This one time, we snuck into his room and stole a bottle of whiskey. Only he caught us…”

“Whiskey, Leah?”

“We were just goofing around, Stavros. We were seventeen.”

“My father was an alcoholic who stole from his own parents, sold our house just so that he could drink, and drove my mother away. Calista wasn’t supposed to even touch that stuff.”

Shock flared in her gaze, widening those beautiful eyes. Only then did he realize how much he had betrayed. “I had no idea, Stavros.”

“What did he do, Leah?”

“Oh, he told us we could drink the whiskey—” color stole into her cheeks and she wouldn’t meet his eyes “—as long as we were also going to join him for a threesome after.”

“Cristo! Of all the things to say to—”

As if expecting his reaction, Leah sighed. “We dropped the bottle where we stood and we ran, Stavros. Dmitri was used to…he knew how to deal with us.”

Unlike you, her unsaid accusation screamed.

He had a feeling Dmitri definitely understood Leah far better than he did. A mistake he had to rectify…

If Giannis had asked me… He pushed away the scenario provoked by Dmitri’s taunting remark from his head and focused his mind on practicalities.

“Leah…fashion design is extremely hard to break into. On a given day, there are tens, if not hundreds, of designers launching new labels. And I don’t know whether you actually have any talent for this.”

“I know that. All I’m asking is a chance to do it, to access the resources that I do have.”

“And when—” he checked himself as she threw that trademark glare at him “—if you fail in this venture?”

“Then it will be my failure. All mine. Just as the success would be. It will be something I have put my heart and joy into, something that doesn’t scare me.”

“I thought nothing scared you, Leah.”

She offered him a perfunctory smile, and Stavros realized how much he didn’t know about the girl he had thought his bitterest penance.

CHAPTER SIX

A WEEK LATER, Leah walked over the white sandy beach on Stavros’s estate on one of the tiny islands along the Aegean coast. Stavros’s “house” turned out to be a hundred-acre estate close to the sea, a ten-minute helicopter ride from Athens that had thrilled her quite a bit.

Even with Stavros studying her curiously the whole time.

She had lived in Athens for so many years and yet she had known nothing about the little slice of heaven that was the island he called home.

Nestled amidst two tiny hills, the mansion was stunning in its simplicity. No glittering glass bars like Dmitri’s yacht, or a lifeless steel-and-chrome affair, which was lately the trend with billionaire homes.

The manor was made entirely of stone, with cathedral ceilings framed by exposed beams, whitewashed walls, a pool and a wine cellar. It was full of soaring spaces and light, stunning in its simple lines.

Austere, private and yet so breathtaking, the exact reflection of the man who owned it, it was an authentic slice of rural Greece. But even when it was only the wind chimes that punctured the silence, even when it was just the staff keeping her company as it had been at the apartment, Leah felt anything but lonely.

There was something very peaceful about the estate and the people surrounding it.

She smiled now about how worried she had been about being confined in a house with him. About seeing Stavros wherever she turned. Not only did the house boast seven bedrooms and attached baths, but Stavros, when he returned from Katrakis Textiles, she realized, worked in the estate.

Although if he had looked smolderingly arrogant in his suit, he looked painfully handsome in light blue jeans and a white polo shirt.

The sounds of the helicopter blades had jolted her from her bed the first morning. Still in her cotton shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, she had run to the attached balcony, spurred on by what, she still didn’t know.

Dressed in a white dress shirt that draped lovingly over his broad frame and plain khaki trousers that looked way too sexy, he had been about to step in.

Except he had turned and looked at her, the breeze ruffling his hair.

Her heart thudding, her mouth dry, Leah had broken his gaze and gone back in.

Now returning from the beach, she waved at workers heading home to the small village from the vineyard, which she had been surprised to learn was operational. Several guesthouses were dotted across the grounds in addition to a horse farm.

When she had laughingly asked Stavros which one Dmitiri preferred when he visited, she had gotten a black look in response.

It was as she passed a couple, probably in their fifties, that she remembered another little tidbit. Stavros and Calista had been from a little village that surrounded Stavros’s estate. His grandparents, she knew, still lived there. Even though their grandson was a household name in all of Greece.

Feeling nauseous at the thought of how brazenly she had threatened to go to the media and how his face had blazed in contempt, she pulled in a long breath and broke into a run.

From the moment he had showed her around the estate, she had loved running through the trails cleared through lush acreage. In just the past week, she had found a trail that touched the horse farm and rounded through the orchard.

She turned the winding bend around it and came to a skidding halt near the glittering pool that was by the house.

The evening sun kissing the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones, Stavros was sitting at the poolside table.

A tall jug of the customary lemonade that she requested every day and a selection of fruits and assorted cheeses were on the glass-topped table between the two loungers.

His head was thrown back against it, and his eyes were closed. Her breathing still raspy, Leah stilled. Her gaze lingering on the corded column of his throat, the planes of his sculpted face, at the way his long lashes almost kissed those sharp cheekbones…

It was something to see the man in repose like that, to study him without his contemptuous gaze peeling layers off her. And the way her breath hitched and her gut folded, the frenzied clamoring of her heartbeat to the very sight of him, it was telling.

For the past week, she had seen the stamp of the man in the thriving estate.

In the tired but happy workers on the vineyard, in the affluent praise the villagers bestowed on him, in the way some of the women’s eyes had widened when they had realized who she was, the reverence in their tone when they addressed her as Thespinis Sporades…

The responsibility of bearing that name, the reality of being the woman Stavros would respect and know and want…it sent shivers down her spine.

The usual white dress shirt he wore was unbuttoned, showing dark olive skin. His cuffs, folded back, displayed his muscled forearms, to the veins extending from his wrist and down… The sight of those powerful thighs, encased in tight blue jeans, made her remember how hard and corded they had been against her own…made her wonder how they would cradle her if she…

Heat, that had nothing to do with her running, pooled under her skin. The stretchy fabric of her Lycra top rasped against her nipples, the soft hem of her shorts rubbing against her inner thighs…

She was breathing like she had run another few laps, her skin so overheated that dunking into the pool was so inviting. Just as she found her willpower and took a step, she heard her name.

Turning slowly, she saw his fingers laced against his chest, faint color bleeding into those cheekbones.

His eyes were still closed when he said, “Did you have a good week, Leah?”

He sounded hoarse, uneven. Very unlike him. Had he felt the way her gaze devoured him in that motionless state?

How could just looking at him fill her blood with this molten wanting?

“Come, sit here and tell me how it was,” he said softly.

While she still stood there stupidly, hovering between drugged inertia and fluttering panic, his gaze opened slowly. Traveled over her with such a thorough intensity that she could almost believe he had been dying to look at her.

In the seconds-long perusal, Leah knew he had noted everything about her, including her heightened color. Hoped he would put it down to the fact that she had been running.

She ran her palm over her forehead, wondering if she was feverish. Because that’s how she felt. Could a harmless, adolescent crush turn into a full-fledged obsession, she thought sarcastically. “I’m sweaty. I need a shower,” she finally responded, and began to walk away.

“Rosa told me you like to swim after your run. Don’t change your routine on my account. Or am I one of those incredible things that scare you, Leah?”

It was so on target that her denial shot out of her mouth like a missile in a defensive tone. “I’m not afraid of you.”

His brows rose questioningly. Then he smiled, a real flicker of warmth lighting up those tawny irises.

She could deal with Stavros hating her, questioning her worth, and thinking the absolute worst of her. This…strangely speculative mood he seemed to be in, she couldn’t.

No way was she going to put on her bikini and parade in front of him. She would probably self-combust if he so much as looked at her, even innocently. “I ran far more than I intended today. I’ll skip the swim,” she said, turning around.

“How do you like the estate?”

She was so wired up into his every breath, every nuance that her foot slipped on a wet patch.

He was out of the chair and by her side in a flash, his hand around her waist. The side of her breasts squished against him, her midriff knocked hard against his. All of her breath jarred into her throat, her muscles groaning at the impact. He was so hard and hot…

“You are unhurt?”

“I’m fine.” She pushed the words out, feeling so out of control that tears prickled behind her eyes.

What was the matter with her? Where was this desperate awareness stemming from?

He was silent next to her, his large hands still resting on her hips. She didn’t have the guts to turn and meet his gaze.

The idea of seeing the same awareness in his drove her out of her skin. The idea of seeing nothing but a patient indifference made her skin crawl.

With the guise of reaching for the lemonade, she withdrew from his touch. “It’s remote and a little out of sync with the twenty-first century, don’t you think?”

For the first time in years, she had felt completely at home, had forgotten the pain of the past and the endless, lonely future stretching ahead of her. But she had nothing to fight her reaction with, if not with her lies. Nothing except to continue the animosity between them that she didn’t even know the origins of anymore.

“Remote, yes. Out of sync with the rest of the world, no.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glass. “Perfect for you though—stark, severe and forbidding.”

“That’s exactly what Dmitri says when he visits. Says he can’t stand the relentless silence.” He smiled. “So you do not like it then?”

She frowned, wondering why he was asking. “I just… I prefer something a little flashier and more hip, like Dmitri’s yacht. Or that infamous bachelor pad of his in the business district of Athens.” When had lying become this easy? She had been to Dmitri’s flat once and it had been a soulless, colorless monstrosity of steel and chrome. “This is a bit too isolated for my taste.”

“Is it?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought of leaving here. But if this was how she was going to react to seeing him after a week, she couldn’t imagine what she would do if she saw him daily. “Hmmm.”

A little knot tied his brows and cleared again. Something she had never seen danced in the depths of his gaze.

He was going to relent. He was going to send her back to that dinky flat, back to the dragon, Mrs. Kovlakis. A breeze could have knocked her down at how desperately sad the thought made her.

Dark gaze unmoving from her, he finished her drink. She looked down, rattled by the intimacy of the gesture. He put the glass down slowly and wiped his mouth while she waited on edge. “I think I will choose not to believe you, agape mou.”

The endearment ripped through her. It meant nothing to him but weaved an intimacy that she didn’t know how to counter. “What…what do you mean?”

“You are lying.” The announcement reverberated around them in the vast space. He didn’t sound angry though. “I probably have been arrogant enough in the past to take everything you said on face value. Even made it easy for you to manipulate me, ne? The why of it, I have not learned it yet.” A promise, that he would find out sooner or later, resonated in his tone.

“I think you love the estate. I barely took my jeep out when I got stopped so many times today. Everyone already knew your name, everyone had tales to tell about you. Rosa,” he said, coming closer, “even said she had never met such a hardworking and lovely young woman.”

Leah frowned, as if trying to keep her shock out of her face. “Of course, I was forced to be nice to her. Your housekeeper is an evil genius that bewitched me with that decadent dark coffee and servings of baklava.”

“The important question is how many things have you lied about?” he continued, as if uninterrupted.