CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATEHADTO fight the painful ripples of her thundering heart to focus on what was radiating from Leander’s eyes. There was a hardness in them she hadn’t seen since the days before they’d become lovers. It was a hardness he’d deliberately adopted to drive her away. If not for her tripping over, he would have succeeded. She would not let him succeed now.
She couldn’t. Just to imagine it...
‘I do know the kind of man you are,’ she said slowly, not dropping her stare, knowing the second she lost her focus then the panic that had been building inside her since they’d arrived back at his home would take control of her. It had already come close to doing just that and with time accelerating at the same rate as the panic, she knew she had to keep her head together and fight, however hard, for both their sakes. ‘And that’s why I don’t believe you.’
His jaw tightened, an edge coming into his voice. ‘As you pointed out less than a week ago, I’m known as Leander the Lothario for a reason.’
She covered his hand and meditatively said, ‘You ran away from Greece and your wedding to Helena because of your feelings for me.’
His hand tensed beneath her touch. The edge deepened. ‘I didn’t run away. I needed time and space to get my head together.’
‘Because of your feelings for me.’
The bones of his jaw were straining against his stubbly skin. ‘No, for my conscience. How could I make vows to someone if it was the maid of honour I wanted to bed?’
If she wasn’t feeling so wretchedly sick, she would laugh. ‘Your conscience didn’t stop you agreeing to marry Helena to begin with though, did it? It didn’t bother you that you would be making vows that were lies. You thought it would be fun to marry her, and let’s be brutally honest here, you’ve bedded so many women that I’d be a fool if I thought I was the only woman attending the wedding you would have taken up with given the chance.’
Yanking his hand away, he pushed her legs off him and got abruptly to his feet. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing here, Kate,’ he said, pacing away from her. ‘I would give anything to have more time with you, but our time has run out and now we must go our separate ways. You need to accept that.’
‘How can I?’ she asked starkly. Rising unsteadily to her own feet, she fought with everything she had to keep the panic controlled and her voice calm. ‘The thought of leaving you behind and never seeing you again is killing me and I know it’s hurting you too.’
He lifted his head and breathed in deeply through his nose. ‘Nothing lasts for ever, not hurt and not lust. Lust always burns itself out.’
‘We feel more for each other than lust and you know it.’
Features unreadable, he opened the patio door. ‘I think it’s time to end this conversation before words are said that cannot be taken back.’
‘We are way past that point, Leander. The toothpaste has already been squeezed out.’
He moved so swiftly that he caught her off-guard, one moment standing at the threshold of his bedroom, the next his hands on her shoulders, leaning down so his taut face was right against hers. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Kate,’ he said roughly, nostrils flaring, ‘but when you leave here, that is it for us. You have to accept it. Move on and embrace your new life—God knows you deserve it after all those years of hard work.’
Seeing the implacability in his eyes shifted something in Kate. All these hours, time had been slipping away from her and now it was Leander himself. For the first time she understood on a cellular level that she was losing him and when he let go of her shoulders and made to step away, desperation had her snatching hold of his wrist. ‘Stop making it sound as if you’re doing me a favour and that I’m the one who needs to be all reasonable and accepting when you’re the one who won’t accept the truth. You know we’ve found something special—’
‘Oh, I know it, do I?’ Leander interrupted as blood that had been slowly filling with something that felt very much like fury at Kate’s refusal to accept things the way they were meant to be suddenly surged to his head. He had done nothing wrong except fail to follow some sad script Kate had written in her head where she expected him to declare his undying love and embrace a future he had never wanted and had never lied about not wanting. ‘Did sharing my bed give you magical mind-reading abilities?’
Her hold on his wrist tightened and her despairing face drew even closer. ‘I don’t need magical powers to know you’ve spent so many years hiding from human relationships that you’d rather throw away what we have than deal with your feelings for me.’
He only realised his hands were still clasping her shoulders when he had to fight to stop himself from shaking them. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never hidden from anything in my life.’
A visible shot of anger merged with the despair. ‘You’ve been hiding from emotions since you were eighteen and told Leo you weren’t going to join the business with him,’ she said, disbelief in her voice. ‘You waited until the last minute to throw that bombshell at him and because you knew how much it would devastate him, you ran away rather than deal with the wreckage that you created, and you’ve been running ever since. You wouldn’t even go home when the business was in trouble and he needed you most...’
‘He didn’t want me to go home,’ he reminded her angrily.
‘Stop lying to yourself,’ she cried. ‘He didn’t need your help but he needed you—just you, and if you would just take your blinkers off for two minutes you’d see that you need him too. But you’ve been so intent on proving to yourself that you don’t need anyone and that you’re more than just one of the Liassidis twins and that breaking your own twin’s heart was worth it, that you won’t admit how much you miss him or admit that you’ve effectively shut out anyone from getting close to you again. Properly close, I mean. Only people like Helena are safe for you to love because they don’t expect more than you’re prepared to give.’
The dark, dangerous fury on Leander’s face, an expression far beyond anything she’d seen before, was enough to make a sane person quail but in that moment, Kate was far from sane. It felt like only minutes ago that he’d been making love to her in the shower, only seconds since he’d tenderly wrapped a big fluffy towel around her, a mere beat since he’d touched the diamond studs in her ears and then kissed her as if she were the most precious thing in his world.
‘If I hadn’t come with an end date attached, you would never have made love to me,’ she continued, uncaring that she was close to shouting now. ‘You’d have carried on running because that’s what you were doing when you escaped from Greece and broke your promise to Helena and then treated me so cruelly—running from your feelings for me. Well, I’ve spent my whole life running too, so damn determined to be a vet and fulfil a dream that came to me when I was a child and so frightened of letting my family down after everything they’d done for methat the only friendship I ever properly embraced until you came along was with Helena. Learning was so hard for me and I was so frightened of anything distracting me like it did with Euan that I developed a tunnel vision I didn’t even realise I’d become trapped in. You smashed that tunnel down, Leander, and for the first time I can see how dreams can voluntarily be broken and discarded because being loved by you is the best feeling in the whole world. But now I ruddy well wish I hadn’t tripped on that stupid step because tripping pushed me into falling in love with you and now I’ve got to face the rest of my life knowing the love of my life is at heart a selfish bastard who—’
Kate’s unplanned diatribe came to a sudden halt when Leander clasped the hand gripping his wrist and brought his face so close to hers that the tips of their noses touched. ‘If you’d been paying the slightest bit of attention you would know I’m not a man to break dreams over,’ he said quietly but harshly. ‘I didn’t ask for your love. I didn’t ask for any of this. I came here to get my head together without any distractions so I could fulfil my promise to Helena. You forced your way in and refused to leave. If you hadn’t lived your life shunning relationships you would know that sharing a man’s bed doesn’t make him magically fall in love with you, and now I think it’s best that you leave.’
Prising her fingers off his wrist, he dropped her hand and stepped into his room.
Moments later she heard him speaking on the intercom. ‘Please bring a car to the front. Miss Hawkins is leaving.’
The white noise in her head was so dizzyingly powerful that she had to grab the side of a chair to stop herself from falling.
Somehow, she managed to stagger inside.
Seeing Leander shrugging a shirt on through the open door of his dressing room made her rapidly bruising heart thump painfully. He’d already replaced his shorts with a pair of black jeans.
‘Don’t do this,’ she whispered, clutching the door frame.
Fingers working deftly on the shirt buttons, he fixed his implacable stare on her. ‘Get your stuff together. Mason is going to drive you to the airfield. I suggest you call the flight crew so they can prepare.’
‘Please, Leander.’
Leander blurred Kate’s tear-stained face from his vision. He’d always known their parting would be painful and had prepared himself mentally for it. The only aspect he hadn’t foreseen and prepared for was Kate’s devastation. Theós, it hurt to witness it, hurt enough that he already forgave her ridiculous amateur psychoanalysis of him.
One day she would understand that he’d acted for the best, that he’d been thinking about her best interests as much as his own.
‘Assure Helena that I will be back in Greece at some point tonight,’ he said stiffly as he tucked the shirt into his jeans.
‘Leander, please.’
Clenching his jaw at her audible pain, he strode past her, making sure not a cell of his body brushed against her. From his bedside table he picked up his thick Omega watch and secured it to his wrist. ‘I have work I need to catch up on before I leave.’
‘Leander.’
Leander caught Kate’s stare one last time. ‘I wish you well with your new life. Embrace it, Kate, and forget about me.’
And then he left his room and strode the mezzanine to the stairs. On the ground floor he entered his study for the first time since he’d arrived in Marina Sands and locked the door behind him.
Only when he’d sunk into his office chair did he expel the breath he hadn’t even been aware of holding and cradle his head in his hands.
Cheek pressed against the car window, Kate cuddled her handbag tightly to her heaving chest. Tears she had no control over blinded her so greatly she didn’t notice they’d left Leander’s land until they’d made the turn onto the main road and flashing lights broke the darkness. The driver beeped his horn at a driver trying to squeeze into a gap between vehicles lined on the verge and making a right mess of it, but she didn’t have the energy to care about what they were there for or care why some of their owners had flashed their cameras at her car.
She’d never imagined pain like this existed.
Had she really got it all wrong? Had she only imagined that Leander’s feelings for her ran as deeply as hers did for him? Had it really been nothing but naive wishful thinking on her part?
The road her driver was taking her on that early morning was the coastal route. On the horizon, the first glimmer of light.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply in a vain effort to stifle the agony ripping through her that Leander had snatched their last sunrise together away from her.
He hadn’t even left his study to say goodbye. The last words he’d said to her were ‘forget about me’.
How could she do that when he’d brought her more joy than she’d experienced during the rest of her life combined?
She couldn’t.
Spotting a sign for Marina Sands Boulevard through the car’s headlights only hit her with memories of their one shopping trip. He’d sneaked away to buy her the earrings...
The earrings were still in her ears. She was still wearing his sweater. She’d failed to take any of her other mementoes. Had forgotten all about them. The agony of knowing she would never see him again had taken her over. She’d barely made it through the conversation with the flight crew, and thinking of this came with a vague recollection of seeing a missed call and voicemail notification on her phone.
Snatching at the needed distraction, Kate rubbed furiously at her eyes and pulled her phone out of her bag. The nausea that had been simmering in her belly bubbled higher when she realised the missed call was from Helena and that it had been left six hours ago at midnight.
She put the phone to her ear.
From the first spoken syllable, she knew something terrible had happened.
‘Kate, the press know.’ Helena’s panicked voice rang out. ‘Please, please be careful. They’re everywhere and they’ll be looking for you and Leander too...’ A sound like a sob being stifled. ‘I’m so sorry for dragging you into this. I’m sorry for everything. I should have known...’ Another stifled sob. ‘Please forgive me.’
The voicemail ended.
Leander knew he shouldn’t watch Kate being driven away from him. He knew it and still he did it, standing at the window long after the car’s lights had disappeared, still standing there as the first rays of the dawn’s light penetrated the darkness. For all he knew, he could have stood there for ever, haunted by Kate’s complete desolation, if his phone hadn’t rung loudly.
It was the ringtone he used for his PA.
No point in ignoring it. Today he must return to his real life and fulfil the promise he’d made.
There was a lethargy in his limbs that made him fumble to answer it and which carried through to his tired voice. ‘Yes, Sheree?’
‘Oh, thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.’
‘Have you?’ he asked dully. How many hours had passed since he’d put his phone in the study when he’d returned to the house so there was no chance of his last night with Kate being interrupted? It felt like a lifetime. It felt like no time at all.
Sheree cut straight to the chase. ‘There are date and time-stamped pictures of you and a woman who isn’t Helena kissing in a theatre. They were taken last night.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Tell the press it’s Leo.’
‘They know it’s you. A Greek blogger has been touring the Californian homes of famous Greeks for a series he’s doing.’
‘What?’
‘You know the kind of blog I mean.’ He dimly imagined the eyeroll she made at this. ‘He located your home and it’s your bad luck that he found it and was about to try his luck and explore the grounds when you drove past him with a blonde lady. He thought the place would be empty, seeing as you’re supposed to be in Greece on your honeymoon.’
Leander swore under his breath.
‘He followed you into the city last night and when he saw where you’d gone, found the staff entrance and bribed an usher on a break to get pictures of the two of you. The pictures were enough for the press to run with it. They’ve been looking at flight manifests and know that you’re the Liassidis twin in California and that Leo is still in Greece. They know Leo is masquerading as you. The only way to deny this is to play it that Leo used your passport to enter the US, which is highly likely to be a federal offence.’
‘We can’t do that,’ he said automatically. The weight that had been in his heart since he’d watched Kate drive away had sunk to his toes and filled his every crevice.
In one night he’d destroyed the three people who meant the most to him. If he’d ever held an iota of hope that he and Leo could one day rebuild their relationship then this would be its death knell. He doubted Helena would forgive him either. He wouldn’t forgive himself if he was in their shoes.
This was everything Kate had warned him about.
It was almost ironic that he hadn’t been recognised as himself but through his home.
‘I’ve got extra security coming to you. They should be with you any minute.’
‘Thank you. See that Kate has security when she arrives back in England.’
‘That’s the blonde?’
His hackles rose at this casual, dismissive observation. ‘Yes,’ he answered shortly, well aware the dismissive observation came from Sheree having spent a decade dealing with a myriad of Leander’s lovers who never stuck around long enough for her to get on first name terms with. ‘I’ll send you her details. Tell them it might be necessary to travel to Borneo with her.’
He couldn’t be with her but he could keep her safe until she reached the safety of the Borneo rainforest.
No sooner had he put the phone down than it rang again. A different ringtone. One he’d programmed when he’d bought the phone new but had never rung.
It was the ringtone for his brother.
For the first time in five years, Leo was calling him.
Kate couldn’t bring herself to leave the car. The jet’s steps had been lowered, two members of the cabin crew at the opened door ready to welcome her in, and all she could do was stare at the photos of herself and Leander sharing a kiss and the headlines screaming about the Liassidis twins’ deception.
If she’d thought she felt sick before, it had nothing on how she felt now, but now it wasn’t herself she felt wretched for. All her tears were for Helena, the loveliest, kindest friend an eleven-year-old girl thrust into a brand-new overwhelming world could have wished for and whose steadfast loyalty and unconditional love had been a mainstay of her life ever since.
Just as she was about to press the button to call her back, the phone rang in her hand. It was Helena.
For a moment she was too choked to speak.
‘Kate?’
Hating to hear the hoarseness in her best friend’s voice, she swallowed hard. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined everything.’ And with that, she burst into tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ Helena beseeched. ‘Please, Kate, don’t cry. It’s not your fault. This is all on me. I begged you to find him when—’
‘You didn’t.’
‘I did. I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I ignored the signs that something was happening between you and sent you to him.’
‘Nothing was going on before the wedding, I swear. I never meant for anything to happen.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ Helena said softly.
‘He’s coming back to you today, and—’
‘I can’t be married to Leander, not now. Tell him to stay in California. It’s a feeding frenzy here and it’s going to get worse before it gets better because I can’t do this any more. I’m calling a press conference. There’s been so many secrets and lies and so many people hurt that I can’t do it any more. I need to tell the truth and—’
Panic scratched at her throat. ‘Helena, don’t! You’ll lose—’
‘I have to. I have to put things right. I’ve hurt so many people.’
Kate’s heart ached to hear the pain in her best friend’s voice. ‘You haven’t. You tried so hard to do the right thing and it was for the best of reasons. I’m the one who’s screwed everything up.’
‘What happened was inevitable. You and Leander are meant to be together.’
She had to summon every ounce of courage to whisper the admission, ‘It’s over.’
There was silence down the phone then, ‘Oh, my love, I’m sorry.’
Something in the way Helena said this sparked an understanding in Kate that made the ache in her heart sharpen acutely. ‘Oh, Helena. Did it happen for you as well?’
A barely audible, ‘Yes. And it’s over too. I wasn’t enough for him.’
Kate closed her eyes and sighed, wishing with all her aching heart that she could magic herself to Greece and tightly embrace the woman who was as good as a sister to her.
‘Helena?’ she said into the silence.
‘I’m here.’
‘Were the Liassidis twins born unfeeling bastards or is it something they cultivated individually as they got older?’
Helena’s surprised snort of laughter triggered Kate’s own laughter and though the laughter from them both was laced with a huge dollop of pain, Kate felt the better for it.
‘You know what, when all this is sorted I’m going to take you up on your offer and fly out to Borneo...’ A touch of alarm came into Helena’s voice. ‘Tell me you’re still going.’
Kate sighed heavily. What else could she do? Throw away her life’s plans for a selfish man who didn’t want her love? ‘I’m still going, and it would be the best thing ever to have you come see me there.’
‘I’m not going to kiss any orangutans,’ Helena warned.
‘Good, because that’s my job, remember?’
The silence after the next bout of laughter had a poignancy to it. It was time to say goodbye and face their individual demons.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Kate asked.
‘No, but I have to.’
‘I wish I could be there to hold your hand through it.’
‘I wish you could be too. Have a safe flight to Borneo.’
‘I will.’ She closed her eyes and said goodbye in their own language. ‘Loves ya.’
‘Loves ya too.’
The call ended, Kate finally got out of the car and climbed the steps onto the jet that would fly her away from Leander.
Taking her seat, she breathed in deeply and looked out of the window. The sun had fully risen and she welcomed its soft golden rays on her face. It gave her the strength she needed to make one last communication with Leander.