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.
Her skin paled, leaving such a frightened look in her eyes that Stavros jerked her around to him.
Was that unwise desire that widened those beautiful eyes real?
Was the pain in her eyes when she spoke of Calista real?
The whole week that he had been gone, he had found himself running through every encounter he had ever had with Leah.
Wondered why she had done so many things he had forbidden her to do, wondered how someone who could be so rejecting and disrespectful of Giannis again and again could also turn around and mourn for his sister, Calista, for so many years.
She had lied about the apartment. She had lied today about liking the estate, a seemingly inconsequential thing that threatened nothing that she held dear.
A keening frustration spread through his veins. Like there was a pit full of dangerous truths that he had never faced and Leah held the key to it all. He forced a smile to his mouth and pressed his hand to her back.
She instantly stiffened and he gritted his jaw, fighting the shockingly strong urge to assert his right like an uncivilized thug.
Right then, it seemed he cared very little about duty, or what was right. All he wanted to do was touch her, to feel like this stranger who told him nothing but lies, that selfish, reckless girl he had married, was really present.
Right then, he wanted to claim something, a part of her, even an emotion, an expression, that no one else knew but him.
Right then, he wanted to be a self-serving bastard like Dmitri and assure himself that she would respond, even against her own surprisingly strong will, when he touched her. That she couldn’t pretend, fake, or lie to him in that.
It was as if suddenly there was a beast inside him that wanted to do as it pleased, that was railing against the cage after a lifetime of doing what was right.
And it was Leah that did these things to him.
“So your lawyer friend visited you on Wednesday.”
Resignation flattened the curve of her mouth. “His name is Philip.” He was only a few inches taller than her, and standing a step below her, his eyes were level with her mouth.
What would she do if he touched those lush lips with his?
Would she fight him and scratch him like the alley cat she had always pretended to be? Or would she sink into his kiss as that desperate desire in her eyes suggested?
Which was the real Leah?
“He was in a foul temper because I came away with you without taking his advice. Not knowing how autocratic you can be, he thinks I gave in too easily.”
Stavros wanted to figure her out, put her in a category and move on with life. He didn’t want this curiosity, didn’t know how to arrest this indulgent self-awareness that she incited in him.
“I think he sees his piece of pie from your fortune dwindling away.”
She walked around the table like a cornered prey. “Because he befriended me with nothing but an eye toward what I’m worth?”