His cell phone rang and he looked at her finally. “I will ensure that Rosa packs up your stuff with utmost care.”
Rosa was going to pack her stuff, she was going to leave for New York...
Leah stared at the empty space he left behind for a few seconds. The shock slowly blunted, bringing in its wake utter panic.
Throat dangerously close to tears, she found him in the study that offered a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.
He was on the phone, listening, but his gaze stayed on her face. And that’s when Leah noticed the white pallor to his skin.
She would have welcomed his blistering contempt, or even his lacerating fury. But the resignation in his gaze... As if he had lost something precious. As if he had finally given up.
The minute he disconnected the call, she stepped inside.
“If he comes for me, he has to get through you, doesn’t he?” she demanded, anger coming to her rescue. She wouldn’t let him treat her like this again. Not after the last month.
He looked up, a bitterness curving his mouth. “I’ll be busy trying to stop him from taking the story to the media, from turning my life and Calista’s...and yours into a cash cow.”
“What?” she said, fear spewing into her words now.
“If you go to New York, you’ll be free to do as you please. I know how much you don’t like being told what to do. I’ll make sure Ralston doesn’t follow you.”
“Why does it sound like you’re sending me away?” She sounded desperate, pitiful, but she didn’t care. It seemed she had no armor left.
He stood up from the chair, his every movement precise, his skin tautly pulled over those sharp features. There was nothing anymore of the man she had known this last month. The man who had smiled, laughed, kissed her, the man who had looked at her as if he would drown if he didn’t possess her one more time, nothing.
It was as if he was pulling himself back, word by word, second by second, until he became that Stavros she hated again.
Her gut twisting, she walked around the huge desk until he was forced to look at her. Placing her hands on his chest, she asked, “What did I do this time?”
He grabbed her wrists to push her away. But she didn’t let go. She would never hold him again if she let go, the fear clamored through her. “Tell me what’s going on, Stavros. Or I swear I’ll...” she broke off on a sob.
“You’ll what, Leah? Tell a new lie? You have won.” He became stiff, like he was a statue who possessed no feeling, no weakness. “I’ll sign the divorce papers, release your inheritance as soon as possible. You are just Leah Huntington again.” His gaze moved over her features with a hunger she knew he would deny. For all his withdrawal, she had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t untouched. That he was struggling just as she was.
Or it was the delusion she really wanted to cling to, she thought pitying herself.
“There’s nothing binding you to me or to Katrakis Textiles now.”
Her breath whooshed out of her in a painfully long exhale. Legs shaking beneath her, Leah grabbed the table. Tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over. Just breathing became a chore. “You’re punishing me again...”
“Punishment, pethi mou? No. I’m finally freeing us both. Giannis is gone, and you’ve proved beyond doubt that you can take care of yourself, ne? What is left of our relationship, if it could be called that, if we take away my duty and your lies, Leah?”
“The last month—”
“Last month has been nothing but sex. Five years of celibacy and you...it would mess with any man’s head, even a stone like me.”
That he would reduce the last month like that, that he would cheapen what they had shared so easily...she couldn’t even breathe.
Fear stole coherence from her. Slowly, she thought back to how the dreadful afternoon had begun. “What did Alex say?”
“Threatening to go the media with a colorful story about Calista and her monster of a brother who neglected her and then married the heiress... The pictures he has of her, the horrible things he’s threatening to say about her...” Restrained violence simmered in him as he moved away from her. As if he didn’t trust himself to be near her. “The parties, the drinking, the men... Cristos, I didn’t know my sister at all, did I? And you knew it all along.” He turned toward her again, accusation and pain in his eyes.