Any traces of the curvy, awkwardly brazen girl he had married were gone. Instead, the woman who stood there—the delicate contours of her face rendering her infinitely fragile, her body bordering on scrawny, which made her breasts stand out even more—was a complete stranger.
“This is what you expect of me, isn’t it? So I delivered. And here you are, in front of me, for the first time in five years as if I had conjured you with a spell.”
A spell, as preposterous as it sounded, could be the only thing that could explain how dumbfounded he was.
Her long brown hair was plastered to her scalp and sprayed her face with drops of water when she rubbed it roughly. And every move was touched with an elegant sensuality that, he knew, was more innate than manufactured.
He had handled her so roughly just now, blinded by fury and fear. And any time he felt that unbalanced, his temper took a nasty dive, as his sister used to call it. “You look like... What the hell have you done to yourself?” he said, his control snapping.
She didn’t even flinch, although he saw her lashes flicker down for a second. Her oval face was so thin and fine-boned that her light brown eyes were like dark, murky pools in it. Her arms were thin, too, but at least there was muscle tone to it.
Her hand curving over her hip, her tarty dress clinging to her wet skin, her teeth chattering in her mouth, she thrust one bony hip out in a seductive little moment. “What? You don’t like my utterly fabulous and thin body? Your prison sentence has had at least one perk, Stavros. I lost so much weight that even the models parading through the fashion house keep asking me for tips. I can’t count the number of times Marco has asked me to do a shoot, told me I would be a natural...”
It was the utterly uncaring, blind privilege in her words that broke the haze from Stavros’s eyes. She was manipulating him, working herself under his skin like she always did, and yet he could do nothing to stop her.
From the moment he had laid eyes on her, Leah had been nothing but a spoilt, selfish, pleasure-seeking brat who didn’t know the value of what she had or the people she hurt around her.
So she looked different. It didn’t mean anything except that she had another bow in her arsenal for causing trouble. The first thing he needed to do was to get that...body covered up.
He grabbed her wrist, realized how fragile she was, and loosened his grip. Dragged her with him to Dmitri’s bedroom.
“Wow.” Her unconcerned exclamation boiled his blood anew.
He stilled on the way to the wardrobe, her stretched out body on Dmitri’s vast bed sending the most insane urge to pull her off it.
Cristos, something was wrong with him.
For several seconds, he stared blindly at the rows of neatly arranged Savile Row shirts. Wondered what he was doing in there.
“Dmitri does know how to party and live in style, doesn’t he?”
With a curse, he grabbed a shirt and threw it at her just as she pulled herself up. Her legs, long and toned, with black leather strips from her three-inch sandals winding round and round to her calves, glimmered against the dark red of Dmitri’s sheets.
“Let me get this straight. You dressed like a ten-pound hooker, got drunk and plastered yourself over that boy to get my attention? And it has nothing to do with the fact that a normal, alcohol-and drug-free life was getting to you?”
The shirt he threw came flying back at him, missing him narrowly. He turned and stilled.
The goose bumps on her skin stood out, her eyes huge in her oval face.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a year. If you had the decency to speak to me, I wouldn’t have had to do anything so drastic. It’s the first time I’ve touched alcohol in five years. Not surprisingly, I’m not driven to drink anymore.”
For all his self-discipline over the last few years, he couldn’t stop looking. He couldn’t stop devouring every small bit about her like he couldn’t stop breathing.
Her nipples pebbled against the flimsy dress, her breasts, unsupported by a bra, heaving with her harsh breathing.
She looked like a red-blooded man’s wet dream, and he was in no way impervious to the effect.
No!
This was Leah, a chain of duty and reminder of his failure around his neck. He had absolutely no interest in her except to keep her safe.
With ruthless will that had directed that he marry the woman responsible for his sister’s death, he cut that line of thought.
“Meaning I drove you to drink?” When she remained resolutely mute, he took another clearing breath. He couldn’t get this riled up over her. “Good for you. But I’m sure some habits are harder to kick than others. Like finding a scapegoat to hide your weaknesses behind.”
She flinched. He saw her swallow and turn away.
Hated the vicious satisfaction her pale face gave him. This was why he had avoided seeing her for so long.
With her mere presence, Leah reduced him to a hurtful, raging bastard with no control, ripped off any semblance of closure he deluded himself into achieving.
“I didn’t make a spectacle to discuss my shortcomings with you.” Said in that flippant voice that he had heard so many times.
But her whole body shook with the breath she dragged in. Curved like a bow, her pink mouth looked inviting. Like it was made for mindless kissing.
He studied it with rising fascination, the relentless drag of guilt and anger he felt in her presence dulled by something new, something far more dangerous.
He pushed a hand through his hair, wondering what was getting into him. “You have my attention now, Leah. Tell me, what is that you want?”
“You’ve proved to the whole world what an honorable man you are by marrying the disreputable Katrakis heiress. You’ve kept your word to Giannis. You’ve punished me for five years for my sins and more. Now...please, cut the leash on my life, Stavros.”
Her gaze held steady when he looked up, the fluttering pulse at her neck the only sign of her desperation. She linked her hands in front of her, and for a moment, Stavros couldn’t help but be impressed by her determination to keep a lid on her temper.
It was like watching a volcano trying to contain the lava within.
“Did you think for a second what you did would completely defeat your goal, Leah? How could finding you drunk and plastered over someone persuade me to let you go? Within the month, you will be back to it all, the drugs, the parties. And I can’t let that happen.”
Every drop of blood fled from her face. “You cut me off from the entire world. You cut me off from my friends. You have your goons watch over me night and day. You... And that’s fine too.
“But...you’ve been ignoring my emails, your hateful secretary is forever deflecting me. You...you can’t just take me on as a responsibility and then...just lock me up. I’m not a possession to safeguard. You left me no choice.”
“There are always choices. It’s a pity that with everything you have in the world, you never learned to make the right ones.”
“I’m not interested in discussing the past or the present.” If she did, she would crumple to the floor in a helpless heap. Like she had been for the first couple of months after Calista had died. “All I care about is myself and my future.”
“Of course.” His jaw tightened. “So you have nothing to say to me, nothing to ask?”
She shook her head. “I have a hundred things to organize for my collection. I’m already behind. All I want is a phone call authorizing the release of the...”
He prowled toward her in a slow gait that sent her heart thumping like