Leah flopped onto him, the words stealing into her with a sickening thud. “No...” she whispered, futile tears filling her eyes.
“Look at me, galika mou,” he pleaded with such tenderness that she did.
Clasping her cheeks, he looked into her eyes. “He passed with a smile on his lips, Leah. He said he loved you, that he...he was so happy that you spent the past few days with him. I have never seen such peace in his eyes in all the years I have known him. You brought such joy to him.”
“Why didn’t you wake me? Why didn’t you at least let me say goodbye?” She pushed away from him, bitterness and anger and pain all roping together. “He was my grandfather. You and Dmitri...I had just as much right to be with him.”
The pads of his thumbs caught her spilled tears. “He insisted that I did not disturb you, Leah. Said you were not fond of goodbyes.”
A sob rising through her, Leah ran back upstairs without another glance at Stavros.
He had known. Her perceptive grandfather had known how scared she had been, he had known what it had cost her to reject him again and again...
In just a few weeks, Giannis had become such a huge part of her life and now, he was gone...Leaving her alone again to mourn him.
And for once in her life, Leah didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to be ruled by fear. For once, she wanted to reach for the man she desperately needed. She wanted to lean on his strength, she wanted to take everything he would give of himself, everything she had always been too scared to ask.
* * *
It was almost evening when Stavros entered Giannis’s house again that day. He came to a halt in the vast foyer, the image of Leah standing at that last step, her expression of such fear and pain, the first thing he saw.
He had never seen her like that. Never heard that desperation in her tone. Over the last couple of weeks, he had accepted the fact that he had been wrong about Leah on so many levels. Yet he realized tonight that he had been no closer to truly understanding her.
She had desperately wanted him to say anything other than what he had, he knew. And the force of his own need, of his own desire to offer her anything but the hard truth, it had knocked him where he stood.
He wanted to wipe away those tears, he wanted to protect her from that grief, he wanted to...and all of it, it had nothing to do with duty.
The silence tonight was so different from all the other nights. He had done everything he possibly could to do all that Giannis had asked of him. All the arrangements had been put in place for the funeral to happen in a few days.
He was about to call for his housekeeper, instruct her to check up on Leah when she emerged from his office, rubbing her eyes. The yellow top that had looked so bright this morning was rumpled. Her hair was tangled all around her and dark circles hung under her eyes.
“Leah, were you waiting for me?”
Grabbing her hair away from her face, she pulled it tightly at the back. “Yes.”
The innocent action thrust her breasts up and he swallowed his hunger.
Cristo, this was not the time for his control to shred. He was literally shivering with need.
It had been easy to offer comfort this morning. Yet now, he couldn’t move, couldn’t form a coherent thought. The shock of losing the one man who had ever tried to understand him, who had tried to care for him hit him hard in that moment. And he felt curiously weak, as if a strong gust of wind could knock him down.
He must have swayed because suddenly Leah was almost bowed back trying to support his weight. Her breasts rubbed against his side, her scent kicked him in the gut.
Her eyes were molten pools of concern and vulnerability as she held onto him. “You look like you are ready to fall apart. Have you sat down for a minute since last night?”
Putting her away from him, Stavros searched for his fragmented willpower. “I just need some sleep. What did you want?”
Would she ask to leave tonight? What would he do if she did?
The three months were almost up. After seeing her with Giannis these past two weeks, after talking to her about Calista, he had questions about himself.
He was drowning and he so desperately needed the very woman he had doubted.
“Nothing important. Come, I’ll walk you to your room.”
He smiled then, the weight on his chest lightening. “You, pethi mou?” She looked so lovely that his eyes hurt. “You will break in two if I so much as lean on you.”