Had not even blinked when he had told her that they would be attending a small party, would be staying away for a week and that he’d arranged a stylist for her.
He had stood there, as solid and magnificent as ever in a white shirt and tight jodhpurs and riding boots, sweaty and sexy and insanely real, waiting for her to argue and throw a fit.
She had rubbed a hand over her chest, as if she could appeal to her heart to stop its frenzied clamoring. Delusional really, that she still thought she could beg, force or control her body when it came to Stavros.
Did he hate how she dressed? The stinging question had come to her finally. But she had nodded and thanked him, like the dutiful Leah he wanted her to be.
So here she was, on his private jet this time, ensconced in sheer luxury. Thick cream carpet that swallowed her, spacious rear cabin with a huge king bed, and the man who was turning her inside out, as always.
Sighing, she locked her fingers in her lap when all she wanted was to sweep her fingers into the elaborate updo the stylist had twisted her hair into.
The weight of her thick hair piled into that unceremoniously tight knot pressed against the back of her head and neck. Tension piled into her shoulders.
When the stewardess arrived and inquired after her, she requested sparkling water and aspirin.
“You do not feel well,” he stated in that final tone of his.
In a movement that was as graceful as it was quick, he reached her side of the aircraft. His seat was not attached to hers yet he was far too close.
She remained stubbornly silent, determined to win the war against herself.
“You’ve been fidgeting uncontrollably for the past hour.”
“If I’m disturbing you, I—”
“Theos, Leah. For once, just answer my question.”
“I... I don’t like this hairstyle or this dress. They make me feel like...” Closing her eyes, she leaned back against her seat. God, she couldn’t have sounded like she was ten years old if she had tried harder.
“Like what?” his tone hovered between resigned amusement and curiosity.
She took the water and aspirin from the stewardess and swallowed it while it watched her.
“Answer me, Leah.”
Fighting the urge to burrow into herself like a turtle, she said, “I look like your version of me.”
“My version of...” He looked stunned. “Explain.”
“In this dress and jewelry, I am Leah Sporades, the demure and dutiful wife of respected billionaire Stavros Sporades. There’s nothing of me in this. It is all you.”
He froze and it seemed air and sound, the very matter around them froze along with him. “I do not understand.”
“That stylist you hired, she—” she forced herself to breathe “—this is what she presented me with.”
Frowning, he ran his gaze over the straps and over the tight ruffles of the bodice.
Her skin warmed up as if she was a flower and he was the very sun she craved. Leah tightened her fists to stop from covering herself.
He cleared his throat, his nostrils flaring. “I agree that it is not your usual...style.”
She nodded, wondering why she couldn’t have just shut her mouth. Why some stupid, irrational, brazen part of her always insisted on putting herself in his line of fire. Why, even as she hated his overbearing interference, she recklessly courted it.
“You are saying that this stylist, that someone in my staff picked, chose...this demure, dutiful little outfit,” he repeated her words, “based on how I want my wife to be presented to the world?”
“Yes.”
He lounged in his chair, his expression thoughtful. “Why did you give in then? You won’t even breathe air if it means following my orders.”
“You commanded an army to help me get dressed for a party. Like any sane person would, I assumed that you hate how I dress. Just as you hate how I breathe, talk and generally conduct my life.”
“I don’t hate how you dress. You do, somehow, own and wear the flimsiest articles of clothing of I have ever seen...”
“That is my style as a designer—light and dreamy bohemian pieces,” she sputtered, affronted.
“...and will probably expire either because of the sun or the cold one of these days, but you always look sexy and sophisticated.”