An offer? Could she trust him? Had she finally got through to him?
Will scream if I see your ‘security guys.’
She waited, her breath hanging in her throat.
Enough drama, Leah. Come down or I come upstairs.
The thought of Stavros invading her private space, as much of a jail as it was, sent her fingers flying over the phone.
Fine, see you in a bit.
Feeling more hopeful than she’d been in months, she was about to step into the shower when it pinged again.
Leah...Dress appropriately.
Leaning against the bathroom wall, she made an utterly juvenile face at the phone. The small space thundered with the boom of her heart.
Stavros was here because he had bought her bluff. It wouldn’t do to let on how petrified she was inside, to let him set the tone for this conversation.
It was like a mask she had to wear and the more she did it, the more it felt like she would become that uncaring, selfish person that he had always despised.
* * *
He had said ten minutes.
By the time he spied her crossing the street from her building to the café, it was well over half an hour. In true Leah form, she had also blatantly disregarded his last text.
The peach-colored silk blouse pressed against her body, neatly delineating the globes of her high breasts as a gust of wind blew across the street. He saw her shiver and grab the edges of the long-sleeved cardigan together.
Heat uncoiled under his own skin, a soft, sinuous gathering of something molten.
The silk blouse was paired with an even more flimsy pair of shorts that showcased her long legs. The glint of a toned thigh muscle, the way her wavy brown hair swept into a high ponytail swung with her long-limbed stride as she walked toward the café in her knee-high leather boots turned more than one male head.
She walked with the innate grace of an athlete, confident in her own skin. There was nothing of the Leah he had married and not because she had grown into her beauty. It was like a fire burned within, one that made her something to behold.
Was it truly as she had claimed and about her career? Or was it a man? Every cell in him went on high alert at the thought.
The last man Leah had been close with had been a crook of the first order—Alex Ralston, who was in jail even now for possession and distribution of drugs.
“When will you learn that defying me only wrecks your own life, Leah?” he said, dragging her down to the seat next to him.
Crossing her legs in a languorous gesture, she curved her pink-glossed mouth in a too sweet smile. “When will you learn that you cannot order me around, Stavros?”
As silky soft as her skin had been to the touch, her pulse had been pounding a thousand beats a minute. She was nervous. And yet, she was doing everything she could to not let him see it.
He waved away the waiter that arrived at their table with a beaming smile for her.
She waved him back with a friendly smile. When he glared at her, she sighed.
“I am hungry, Stavros. I rarely, if ever, eat out so I’m going to pretend you enjoy my company and make the most of it.”
He waited in silence as the young waiter appeared again. Watched in mounting fascination as she ordered three appetizers and two entrees in fractured but perfectly accurate Greek.
“I’m not eating,” he said dismissively as the waiter left.
“I know. It’s Friday evening and you’ll have dinner with Helene Petrou, ex-lover and—” a curse flew from his mouth “—current friend.”
Leaning forward in an elegant move, he pinned her gaze. “How do you know about that?”
“Philip has his resources.”
“So your little lawyer asked you to casually throw that into the conversation?”
“Actually, quite the opposite. He told me not to even betray the fact that I knew anything about her,” she said with that blunt and reckless honesty.
Stavros settled back slowly.
Leah had zero self-preservation. How was he supposed to believe that she could look after herself?
“Then why did you?”
“I don’t want to wage a war against you, Stavros. It’s... my last choice. I bring it up because I was...shocked to hear her name after so many years. That you see her apparently on a weekly basis.”
“Shocked to learn that I keep in touch with a woman I admire?” he said, choosing his words carefully.