Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
W RAPPED IN A TOWEL , wet hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head, Helena looked tiredly at the dress she was supposed to wear to the lunch Leander had arranged for them at a trendy restaurant that also just happened to be owned by a potential client for his company.
Helena hadn’t for a second begrudged Leander using these opportunities to drum up prospective business, at least...not until he had disappeared and left Leo and her in this mess.
She let the printed silk of the dress slip through her fingers as she wondered what would have happened if Leander had stayed. What if she had arrived at the church to find him rather than Leo waiting for her at the top of the aisle?
Yes, everything would have been easier. She and Leander would have smiled and pretended to be the perfect couple. Kissing Leander would have felt silly and stupid, and not far off what it would have felt like to kiss Kate!
But kissing Leo...
Goosebumps pebbled the skin on her forearms.
It can’t happen again.
She forced away the throb of desire that undulated through her body like a wave against the shore. Three days. She just had to get through three more days. As long as they kept to the schedule, she’d be able to make it.
She’d won a huge victory with Jong Da-Eun and Leo had wanted to celebrate that. Yesterday had been wonderful, she admitted to herself. Seeing Leo like that again, talking to him like she once had. He’d been impressed by her, she’d seen it. And that meant more to her than he’d ever know. So much so that she’d confessed her secret doubts—that saving Incendia wouldn’t be enough. To make up for the board’s doubts in her, her mother’s rejection.
He’d told her that it needed to be enough for her, but she couldn’t help but feel that nothing she did would fill the hole created by her mother’s mental absence and the loss of her father.
Helena shook off the sad thought. What point was it yearning after things that could never be?
Throwing on a pair of loose trousers and a short shirt-top, she went to have breakfast, to find Leo wheeling a cabin bag into the living space.
He was leaving? Now?
‘What—’ She stopped herself midsentence because she didn’t even know what to say. She’d thought that yesterday had brought them closer. At least to a point of understanding. And now he was leaving?
Leo looked up and must have seen the shock pass over her face.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, concern stark on his features.
‘Why do you have that?’
He looked down, said, ‘Oh...’ and grimaced.
‘Look, if you have to leave—’ Helena said, trying to sound nonchalant rather than panic stricken.
‘Leave? Why would I leave?’ he replied, confused.
‘You have a packed case!’
‘Yes,’ he answered as if she were missing something.
‘Why?’ she nearly cried.
He smiled then and the sight was so at odds with the entire exchange she wanted to throw something at him.
Oh, this man!
‘We’re going on a trip,’ he announced.
‘What trip? We’re having lunch at Thentroliváno.’
‘ Leander wanted to have lunch at Thentroliváno, but us? Not so much.’
‘We don’t?’ Helena asked, feeling, against all odds, the tug of Leo’s good humour working on her.
‘Nope,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We do not.’
‘So, what is it that we want to do today?’ she asked, playing along.
‘We are going on a boat trip,’ Leo announced with an uncharacteristic flourish. ‘So go pack a bag,’ he commanded.
Helena’s mind completely blanked. ‘What am I packing for?’
‘Swimming, sun, sea and an overnight stay.’
‘O-overnight?’ Helena stuttered, never once having suffered from the affliction before in her life.
Leo looked away, hoping that Helena didn’t see his body’s reaction to her simple question.
‘Yes, just a change of clothes,’ he confirmed as he fiddled unnecessarily with the handle of the case.
Gamóto , he was behaving like a schoolboy.
He glanced up at Helena, who was staring at him, an unfathomable look on her features. He paused, fearing that he’d done the wrong thing, that he’d made a terrible mistake. All he’d wanted to do was to throw Leander’s damn agenda out of the window. They’d been playing by the rules of a games master who wasn’t even here. And if they only had three days left, then Leo didn’t want to waste them doing things that would only benefit his brother.
Yesterday had been a breath of fresh air for him and he was surprised to find he wanted more. It had nothing to do with the fierce arousal which was banked, as much as was humanly possible, by what couldn’t be. He had enjoyed spending time with her. Talking to her. Hearing about her life. And, masochist that he was, he wanted more. If this was all they could have, he would take it all .
‘Why a boat trip?’ Helena asked.
‘Because whenever you visited the island it was the first thing you’d ask to do. You’d run straight up to us and demand to know when we were going to take you out onto the water. We used to call you—’
‘ Delfíni. You used to call me dolphin.’
Leo nodded, his lips curving into a smile against his will. ‘Naí.’
Helena smiled. It started off small and slow, but grew until he felt it in his heart. There were many things that he could never give to Helena or be to her. But this? This he could do.
‘Go pack. We leave in ten minutes.’
The look of excitement that lit her features stopped his breath. Eagerness, joy, a flush that was so damn innocent he nearly choked.
She spun on her heel and ran off to her room, giving him a brief respite from the impact of her presence, and time to calm his body’s innate response to her.
And then, with startling clarity, he realised just what kind of hell he’d let himself in for over the next twenty-four hours.
The driver let them out at the large marina where the yacht Leo had organised last night waited for them. It wasn’t presently on the market, but the owner was a friend and Leo had paid an exorbitant price to have the yacht’s staff sail through the night to have it here on time. And while he’d seen pictures of it, knew its reputation, even Leo couldn’t help but be impressed by the thirty-three-metre-long yacht.
Helena drew up beside him and stared, eyes wide and mouth open.
‘Boat trip.’ The words fell from her lips.
‘Mmm?’
‘You said boat trip. That’s not a boat,’ Helena said, the awe in her voice making him smile, giving him exactly what he’d wanted when he’d first had the idea.
As if in a daze, Helena drifted towards the yacht, where a uniformed staff member waited at the plank with a smile on their face.
‘Mr and Mrs Liassidis? Congratulations on your recent wedding.’
Of course, Leo had told his friend that it was a wedding gift for Leander and his new bride. But he’d forgotten what a nuisance it would be having to keep up the pretence in such close quarters. And he’d wanted this to be a true escape for Helena. A chance for her to just be herself. As he hastily looked for a way round it, Helena let herself be guided onto the yacht.
As directed, he left their bags by the gangplank and followed Helena for a basic tour of the beautiful yacht. Split over three levels, the lower, main and upper deck, the yacht could comfortably house eleven guests along with the five crew members serving on their trip. There was a Jacuzzi on the back end of the main deck and a dining area on the upper deck.
‘Your bags have been taken to the master suite on the main deck, but we’d first like to welcome you with a glass of champagne,’ the staff member offered.
Helena’s eagerness was immediate and infectious, and Leo smiled, enjoying the excitement rolling off her in waves. He gestured for them to lead the way towards the glorious view from the back of the upper deck. The Captain joined them for a toast, congratulating them on their nuptials, and then returned to the cabin, where she piloted them out of the marina and into the Mediterranean.
One by one, the staff members retreated unobtrusively, leaving them alone on the deck. Helena leant against the rail, the wind playing with the strands of hair that had come loose from where it was held back. He wanted to see it down, he wanted to run his fingers through it, grip it in his fist as he...
Maláka.
He needed to have better control over himself than this. Much better.
‘How long do we have?’ she asked, without turning to look at him.
He wanted to say as long as she wanted, he wanted to give that to her. But he couldn’t.
‘We’ll return to the marina tomorrow afternoon. But if you want to return earlier—’
‘No,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘No,’ she repeated, as if wanting to hold on to this moment as much as he did.
He nodded, and even though she didn’t see it, he sensed she knew in that strange shared understanding that existed between people who had spent so long together it didn’t matter how many years had passed since they’d seen each other.
Needing to break the moment, he excused himself, heading off to speak to the Captain about the arrangements for that evening.
Helena gazed longingly at the horizon for just one more minute. It was perfect. There was nothing marring the clean sliver of sea beneath the weight of a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at it. She had only ever felt this kind of serenity looking out at the sea. Maybe Leo and Leander had been right, maybe in a past life she had been a dolphin, content to swim the oceans.
She laughed, knowing that if she’d said as much to Kate, the veterinarian would have reeled off facts and figures about their lifestyle and personality, and the pods they swam in. Kate would have been in her pod, Helena decided. And Leander, of course. But might there be space for Leo?
And there, looking out at the clash of deep oceanic blue and light denim sky, she inhaled deeply, easily, for the first time in what felt like months. Despite her ever-constant awareness of Leo, here, out on the Mediterranean Sea, at least there were no reporters. There were no staff members, utterly ignorant of the perilous state of the charity, no terrified board members looking to her to save them. Nothing to fix, and nothing to prove to anyone. She hadn’t realised how exhausting that had been for her. But here, just like it had been when she was younger, was refuge given to her by Leo Liassidis.
The sun had shifted and was no longer so harsh on her skin. It felt warmer, softer, almost as if it had known that she’d needed comfort rather than ferocity. She heard Leo’s steps on the wooden deck behind her.
‘What has you sighing like that?’ he asked, and she sent her smile out to the sea.
‘The realisation that I needed this,’ she lied. Because the truth was, it was the realisation that he’d known she’d needed this that had caused her heart to turn.
‘It’s so peaceful out here,’ she observed.
‘It wasn’t like that when Leander and I used to take you out in the boat when you were younger.’
‘No,’ Helena replied with a laugh. ‘No, it was not.’
She would shriek with delight as they guided their speedboat into a crashing wave, scream as the boat jerked and dipped beneath her, loving the salt on her tongue and the gleam of pure delight in the brothers’ eyes, and cry out for more.
‘You were the only ones to do that. Take me out on the sea,’ she confessed, remembering that her parents would have rather spent time with Giorgos and Cora than the child they barely saw through the school year. ‘I don’t think I ever thanked you for it,’ she said, frowning, trying to remember.
‘You never have to thank me for that,’ he replied.
Helena turned to look at him as he came to stand beside her at the rail. Her heart stopped for a beat. He was utterly devastating. The close-cut beard against his jaw, dark and inviting. A pair of sunglasses, hiding his gaze, his emotions from her. His cream linen shirt was open at the neck, just enough to tantalise with the dusting of chest hair she’d not seen on him as a younger man. This Leo was even more male to her. Age had honed his features to perfection and it was hard to ignore the impact he was having on her.
‘But this is wonderful,’ she said, forcing a bright smile to her lips as she looked back to the sea. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. ‘I think it’s the first time since discovering the theft of the money that I’ve actually just taken a breath.’
Leo’s heart went out to her. He could see what a struggle it was for her, not just because of how much the company meant to her, but because she was a young businesswoman who wanted to prove herself so much that she’d gone to such extreme lengths. Lengths that were dangerous, both financially and emotionally.
Surely it would have been much simpler just to borrow the money? Or was he just looking for something, anything, that would have removed the barrier of her wedding to his brother?
‘Why did you ask Leander to do this for you?’ he asked, struggling anew with the resentment he felt about this entire situation. ‘Did he not offer to lend you the money?’
‘Of course he offered to lend me the money,’ she explained. ‘But I have the money. It’s my money. I just...don’t have it yet .’
Before him was a woman who had to fix things herself. Who didn’t want to rely on someone else, who had learned from her father’s absence and her mother’s neglect that she could only rely on herself. Didn’t he know that for himself? But why, when he thought of Helena being like that—like him—did it feel like a punch to the chest? To the heart ?
‘But as to why Leander,’ she went on, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Because I trust him.’
Leo couldn’t help but scoff. ‘Trust? Leander?’ he demanded, his tone harsh, his instinctive reaction to his brother’s betrayal near primal.
‘Yes. Trust. I knew that he would be discreet and I knew that he would be there for me when I needed him.’
‘That’s just wishful thinking. As evidenced by the fact that he’s not here when you need him,’ Leo replied hotly.
But Helena shook her head. ‘I know him. I know that whatever it is that came up, whatever it was that he needed space for...it was something incredibly important.’
Leo shook his head, a bitter sneer across his face. ‘Leander is selfish. He will always put himself first, make choices that benefit him most, without any compunction or thought for anyone other than himself.’
‘That’s not true,’ Helena replied gently. ‘It’s just what you want to see in him.’
Helena’s open expression and flat denial floored him.
Hot anger, old, dark and thick, something nasty , built in him. He’d been softening towards his brother. He’d felt it. Not because of anything he’d done, but because he’d seen how others saw Leander. Right up until just then, when Helena had said that she trusted him. Because Leander had lied to him. Made Leo believe that his brother wanted what he wanted.
Right up until the moment when his father had asked the question, Leo had thought he’d known how his life would be. What it would look like, how it would go. Throughout their teenage years they’d developed a way of thinking that completed each other, balanced each other. Applying that to a business context for their family company would have made them unstoppable. But, beyond that, Leo had believed that they wanted the same things. He’d believed that he’d had companionship, trust, safety with his brother. It had been them against the world.
‘I want to take the money.’
That was what had been more important to Leander than he had been.
The shock, the pain, at discovering that everything he’d thought about his brother had been wrong was devastating to him. It had shaken the foundations of what he believed in, and the only way he had been able to survive it had been to cut Leander from his life. To cauterise the wound with abject denial.
He had taken the tattered ruins of his plans for Liassidis Shipping—the only thing he’d had left after Mina had abandoned him—and forged a path ahead alone. Until he’d eventually forgotten that there was a time when he had shared everything with his brother, and instead now shared nothing with anyone.
‘Leander,’ he told her hotly, as if he could convince her as much as himself, ‘would, and did , sell out his own brother for his own selfish whims.’
‘In the last ten years, Leander has made time for me to celebrate the wins and commiserate the losses. He’s been there to take me out for dinner, or dancing or whatever, because he knows that’s something that I need. He has given me so much and, in return, all he got is a forced fake marriage.’
Leo clenched his jaw against the picture she was painting of his brother. Trying to cling to his anger instead of the memories of the times that Leander had tried to reach out to him.
‘He was there even when I tried to avoid him because of how embarrassed I was over what happened with Liassidis Shipping and my mother,’ Helena said, looking at her hands.
‘That’s because he didn’t have to clean up the mess,’ he bit out without thinking. But the moment he saw Helena pale, he regretted it instantly.
‘That’s because he valued my friendship. So please don’t undermine my relationship with your brother just because you don’t have one.’
Her words sliced clean and deep.
‘It’s not like that,’ he dismissed instead.
‘You could probably say that to anyone else, but I know what you two were like before your father offered you the choice of inheritance between the family business or a financial lump sum.’ Her gaze on him was steady and knowing. ‘I know how close you were, how sometimes you were so similar only your parents could tell you apart. That kind of connection doesn’t just disappear.’
But she was wrong. He admired that Helena was someone who could grow up with parents like hers and still hope for more. Still reach for, want , that familial connection. But he couldn’t.
No. From that first moment, from the second that Leander had chosen to walk away, Leo had drawn a line. A hard line between them. He hadn’t wanted to speak to, see or hear from the person who had once been half of him. Leander had come home occasionally so he’d been unable to avoid him completely, but five years ago even those sporadic visits had stopped and Leo had refused all contact since then.
That was how he worked, that was what worked for him. That stubborn determination was how he survived.
Yet still Helena pressed on, unaware of his thoughts. ‘But I also know that Leander would have been miserable if he’d worked with you at Liassidis Shipping. And I’m pretty sure that you know it too.’
Everything in him wanted to deny her words. Refute them with all his might.
‘What I know is that my brother gave me absolutely no warning. The coward let me think that he was going to come with me and then took the money and ran.’
‘What do you think would have happened if he’d joined the family company with you?’ Helena asked. And his mind went utterly blank. ‘Would you have had help? Would you have had someone to talk to? To share your burdens and your fears?’ she asked.
Yes , he answered mentally. Yes , to each and every one of those questions.
As if she’d read his response in his face, she nodded. ‘But all those things are about Leander helping you, not Leander making his own life a success, doing the things that make him happy. Believe it or not, but your brother’s purpose is not to make your life easier.’
He wanted to be outraged. He wanted to be furious. But he couldn’t deny what Helena was saying. He couldn’t deny the hurt and the shock and the pain that her questions had uncovered. And he couldn’t stop his next words from falling from his lips.
‘He left me.’
‘I know,’ Helena replied sadly. And in her, he saw the pain of a daughter who’d lost her father too young and whose mother had barely been present for her.
‘But he chose to do that,’ Leo insisted, clinging desperately to his resentment, terrified of what it meant if he didn’t.
‘Yes,’ Helena agreed. ‘He had a choice to go it alone, do it the hard way and make something from nothing...rather than slowly lose pieces of himself working in an industry he had no interest in, for a company that would have ignored him in favour of you. What choice would you have made?’
He was prevented from answering by the appearance of one of the yacht’s staff.
‘Mr and Mrs Liassidis? A sunset dinner has been prepared for you on the lower deck.’
Helena wasn’t sure that she could eat at that moment, but didn’t want to offend the staff, who had created a feast of absolute deliciousness. Laid out on the table that looked out over nothing but sea and sky were what looked like twenty or so plates of different Mediterranean delicacies.
Absently, she ran the little silver peony pendant across the chain at her neck as she took in the prettily set table and the romantic candles illuminating the deck. The sun was beginning to set, casting streaks of pink and ochre across a sky turning a shade darker with almost each breath she took.
She felt Leo’s presence behind her, the warmth of his body like a physical touch against her skin. Despite the difficult conversation they’d shared there was no animosity between them, but she could tell that Leo’s thoughts were heavy.
That wasn’t what she’d wanted or intended. But she could see the pain the separation between the two brothers was causing each of them. If she could do anything for either of the men who had been such important figures in her life, it would be this.
To bring them back together.
Once again, petals had been scattered across the table and the deck itself, but this time, when she looked closer, she realised that they weren’t rose petals. The shades of white, violet and red struck her immediately. Peonies. The colours of native Greek peonies.
Helena turned to look behind her as the Captain appeared on the deck with the other staff members.
‘We’ll be heading to the mainland now. Just call when you want us to return.’
Leo nodded as if he knew that this was going to happen.
Something like alarm rushed through her, not from fear of him, but from the thought of being alone with him out here. She could barely trust herself with people around. As if sensing her concern, he placed a hand on her shoulder, as if to anchor her, to reassure her, but that didn’t make it any better.
The Captain looked between them, and Helena forced a smile to her lips. ‘Thank you so much for all of this, it looks beautiful. I hope you have a lovely evening.’
Reassured, the Captain nodded and took her crew down to the main deck, where a small speedboat idled, waiting to take them back to the mainland.
‘I thought it would be easier not to have to pretend that I was Leander and we were married, so...’
Helena nodded, but was instantly regretful having lost the security that the staff members had provided. The barrier they had provided to her wants.
She looked back at the peonies on the floor and her heart hurt.
He remembered. He’d always remembered that they were her favourite flower.
Why did he have to do that? she thought, even as the lump formed in her throat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Leo asked.
Tears pressed against her eyes. She couldn’t let them fall, but it was all too much. Every time she wanted to put Leo in a box where she couldn’t touch him, he did something like this. He showed her that he was more than the unfeeling, cold, aloof man he pretended to be. Instead, he was a man who wanted her to have some fun, who had celebrated her success, who’d been devastated by his brother’s choice, and who still remembered her favourite flower. All of those complexities made it impossible to ignore her feelings for him. Feelings that she should deny, but she didn’t want to. Not any more.
As she ran the silver pendant across the chain again Leo’s gaze centred on it.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘For what?’ he asked, his voice as low as the last of the sun’s rays on the horizon.
‘For this,’ she replied.
He looked away to the table and took in the petals on the floor.
‘No,’ she clarified. ‘For this ,’ she said, holding the necklace with her fingers and his gaze with her eyes.
The muscle at his jaw flexed as his eyes blazed with golden shards.
‘You knew?’ he asked. ‘All along, you knew it was from me?’
Helena smiled, a little rueful, a little sad. ‘Leander said he’d picked it because it was a pretty rose.’
‘It’s not a rose,’ Leo replied almost indignantly.
‘I know,’ she said, his response almost making her smile. ‘It was only you that ever remembered I loved peonies so much.’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘Because at first it was easier for me to pretend and not cause any trouble for you.’
‘And then?’ he asked, his tone hesitant, as if he almost didn’t want to hear the answer but couldn’t help himself.
‘And then it was easier for me to pretend that it was Leander and not you who had given me such a significant present, when it was so easy for you to cut me from your life.’
The truth sobbed in her chest. She no longer wanted to hide anything from him, to protect him, or herself. If this was all she was going to have with him, if this was all they would ever get, she wanted him to see and know even the most dark and vulnerable parts of her. She wanted to be known by him, completely and utterly.
Only by him. Only ever by him.
‘Why did you wear it to the wedding?’ he asked. ‘Before you knew I was going to be there.’
She looked to the ground. ‘Because I wanted something of you that day.’
He lifted her chin with his forefinger, pulling her gaze back to his, the question in his eyes not needing to be spoken.
‘Because,’ she said, drawing on her courage, ‘because it’s always been you.’