There was no one in his office room. Her heels clicking on the marble floor, she walked around. Her nape prickled and she turned.
Standing at the entrance to his private suite, Stavros studied her.
He looked as he always did, arrogant, implacable, larger than life, except for the haunted look in his eyes. He wore jeans that molded those powerful thighs and a gray shirt that stretched against the muscled expanse of his chest.
He was so achingly gorgeous, so painfully beautiful that her throat closed up. She just stared at him hungrily for several minutes.
“I found the land you were looking at to build a factory.”
Leah flinched at the sight of him, at his raspy voice, at his blank expression. That was the first thing he said to her? Not even hello?
“I don’t need your help,” she said flippantly. “Where are your lawyers?”
“We don’t need them.”
“Then why did you summon me here? Why not just sign the papers and be done with it? Or have you gotten addicted to me begging you for things like cash, sex and the minimum courtesy that you believe me?”
Something slumberous glinted in his gaze. “I don’t remember you begging me for sex.”
“Maybe because it held no meaning to you except for relief after five years of...” He prowled toward her with such dangerous intent that she stopped talking.
“I remember every moment, pethi mou. I just don’t have a memory of you begging me for it. All those nights, and days, not once.” A dark current tinged his words as if he was very much fantasizing the prospect of it now. “You teased me, you taunted me, you seduced me...and I just gave in every time, your willing slave.”
“I’m leaving,” she said, his strange mood making her weak everywhere.
He blocked her way. “Dmitri told me that you attended the board meeting. That you caused quite a stir. A walking powerhouse, that’s what he called you.”
She sent a silent thanks to Dmitri for hiding the ugly crying from Stavros.
“Are you surprised? I will not slink away from what is mine like a coward anymore. I will sit on the Katrakis board, I will launch my label from Athens. I will not hide as if the fiasco of our marriage is my fault.
“I won’t let you browbeat me into anything I don’t want to do ever again.”
He looked tortured, his mouth pinched. “Forcing you to marry me was the biggest mistake I have ever made, thee mou. I can’t believe—”
She had no idea that she had thrown herself at him. That with her weight and fists she had pushed them farther into the rear room of his private suite. Pain, and ache and a bone-deep hunger, everything deluged her.
Tears flew freely down her cheeks as she continued attacking him.
How dare he call knowing her a mistake? How dare he hurt her when all she had wanted was to protect him? How dare he be so heartless when she cared so much about him?
“Do you, agape mou?” he whispered when she hit him in the gut and she realized she had been screaming the words at him. “Do you care so much, Leah?”
She wouldn’t say it again, wouldn’t beg for his love when it had to be hers, when it was what she deserved.
“Leah, pethi mou, look at me,” he begged continuously, yet she couldn’t stop.
She was so afraid that he would disappear if she stopped, so afraid that she would wake up and realize it was a dream. That she would be achingly alone again.
“I’m sorry, yineka mou,” he whispered, without even trying to stop her. “I’m so sorry that I sent you away. I’m so sorry that I didn’t listen to you.”
“You’re a heartless bastard and I should hate you,” she said, with another push and then they were falling into the bed.
“Theos, no more than I hate myself, Leah,” he said on a ragged whisper.
Her breath jarred out of her as Leah landed on top of him. Fear and relief gave way to something else as her mouth lodged in his neck and his arousal pressed against her belly. Moving of their own accord, her legs straddled him, until his hardness pressed against her heated core. Her thighs shivered with the repressed need to ride him.
Her hands in his hair, Leah lifted her head and looked into his eyes.
Their harsh breaths thundered in the silent room, joined by the whisper of the satin sheets.