Claimed for His Duty

“Stavros, I—”

Long fingers crawled up her nape into her scalp, tilted her up, while the other hand clasped her jaw loosely.

He studied her every feature with such thorough appraisal that her insides turned into gooey pulp.

No one had even touched her in so long...it had to be why she could feel his touch like a brand on her skin...why such heat was pooling under her skin and rushing to the fore.

Why she wanted to sink into his rough touch more than she wanted to breathe...

Until she realized what he was doing.

He was checking if her pupils were dilated, wondering if she was high.

She stared into his glittering gaze, noted the concrete set of his jaw. Saw a shadow of something in his face that hurled the words past her throat. “I’m not high, Stavros.” It came out as a whisper, an entreaty, and Leah recoiled at that pleading tone.

When he didn’t relent, she grabbed his wrists. Every cell in her rose to attention as the whorls of hair there tickled her palm, as a shot of electricity sparked in the air.

“I remember the last time you said those words...” He sounded as if he was far away, in another place, another time.

Leah jerked his hand away, the heat from his body potent in its draw. Her skin tingled, every muscle in her rearing to get closer to him to soak up that deceptive warmth. She would freeze to death before she sought anything from him. “I’m telling the truth, Stavros.”

I have never touched drugs, she wanted to scream, like she had the night when Calista had died. But he hadn’t even acknowledged her teary words.

His teeth bared in an entirely cold smile. “Ditching your security detail, lying to Mrs. Kovlakis, appearing on Dmitri’s yacht of all places—which is infamous for its wild parties, and knocking back drinks, forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

How unfailingly polite he was... He had done that before too, even as he had ruined her life.

You can either marry me or you can go to jail, Leah. The choice is yours.

“It got your attention, didn’t it?” she said, realizing too late she had given herself away. Not that she had meant to keep it a secret.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHAT?”

Stavros loosened his grip on Leah, struggling to get himself under control, struggling to get his neurons to fire again.

Guilt roiled through him, a heavy pulsing weight in his gut, something he had managed to subdue into a dull ache. But one look at Leah was enough to unman him again.

He took a step back as a sharp scent combined with the scent of her skin teased him softly, the cold from her arms clinging to his fingertips.

Frowning, he muttered a curse.

For the first time in his adult life, he lost the razor-sharp concentration that had made him a force to be reckoned with in the business circles of Athens. For several seconds.

“What did you say?”

She glared at him. “You, Stavros. You were the prize in this tacky show. If you had returned a single phone call, if you had read even one of my numerous emails to you... So, of course, I had to lower myself to your standards, didn’t I?”

“My standards?” He was beginning to sound like an idiot and yet, it seemed his brain’s higher functions had fractured.

An ominous thud started somewhere in the regions of his heart. His gaze swept over her with a swift greed he had no chance of curbing. The gold silk dress was almost the color of her skin that had a golden tone that no amount of spray tan could manufacture.

The result was that the dress moved sinuously against those high breasts, dipped at her waist, painting an erotic picture of almost nudity that had knocked him for sixes when he had first spied her at the bar.

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 a bass drum.

“You haven’t seen me, or anyone for five years. Aren’t you even remotely curious, Leah?”

“About what?” she managed to whisper, under the thrall of his mesmerizing gaze.

With a smooth flick of his wrist, he tugged her and she fell into him with a gasp. Every muscle in her body sighed at the contact with his hard one. A little more pressure and he had her locked in his arms with their faces only inches apart. Leaving her with no choice except to look into the anger that turned his eyes into dark gold. “About how your grandfather is doing, you ungrateful little brat.” At her gasp, his hold tightened further, this short of hurting. Sinuous heat burst in her belly and Leah struggled. “Is it too much to hope you would care about the man who took care of you when your father died?”

With a grunt, Leah pushed him back, hating the fact that he had muddled with her head with so little effort. She couldn’t let on how rattled she was by his presence, how out of balance she felt when he touched her, even innocently.

She breathed in roughly, gritting her jaw so tight that she would need to see a dentist soon. There should have been smoke coming out of her ears too. “First of all...I’m not sixteen anymore so stop calling me a brat.

“Secondly, not that I have to explain myself to you, I know how Giannis is doing. I speak to his nurse every day.”

She instantly regretted her words when she saw the disbelief in his gaze.

Turning away from him, she walked to the mini fridge in the corner, needing the time away from his scrutiny to compose herself. Grabbed a bottle and gulped the water down so fast that her throat burned at the chill.

And yet she could feel the heat pooling under her skin as he watched her from the other side of the room, could feel an unnamed charge building up in the room...

This slicing awareness of him, this reaction to his nearness...it was intolerable and utterly frightening. Stavros had only wreaked destruction on her life—why didn’t her body understand that?

“You haven’t visited him once in five years.”

Her chest ached at the thought of seeing Giannis. God, how she wanted to see that kind smile... Even through his heart attack and triple bypass surgery five years ago, Giannis had survived. She wouldn’t risk it by seeing him now.

“My relationship with Giannis is none of your business.”

His mouth stretched into a smile, the straight upper lip losing its severity in the process. “I’m making it mine.”

“And I’m saying ‘No more.’ I have spent five years living a life you dictated, Stavros, down to the food I ate, the clothes I wore, the people I spoke to. Whatever you think needed fixing in me, it is fixed now. I want to lead my life, I want to build a career...” Frustration filled her throat with tears. “What more do you need to be convinced that I can lead my own life?”

“Not getting a phone call from Dmitri that you are drunk and plastered over some boy would have been a start.”

“I told you why I did that. If I hadn’t, you would have gone another decade without answering my phone calls.” She hated that her every action was being driven by him. That even in her own mind, she had no freedom. And it could not continue.

“I have spoken to a friend of mine. Philip is a lawyer.” She stepped back from him, willing herself to stay strong. “I’m aware of my rights, Stavros. There are a hundred different reasons that could be cited and accepted by the court for a divorce.”

“A divorce?”

“Yes. I want a divorce. I want to never see you again. And I’m sure the thought of being rid of me forever fills you with happiness. So give us both what we want.”

A small smile touched his mouth but didn’t reach that compelling gaze. Again, Leah had a feeling that it hid so much she didn’t know. “You have rights and lawyers. But it could take years if I didn’t agree, Leah. We could be celebrating a ten-year anniversary before we even get through the preliminaries.”

“Is this what I have become for you?” Leah grabbed the edge of the desk to hide the trembling of her hands, a scream building away in her chest.

Hot tears prickled behind her eyelids. “Someone to punch, something to punish eternally so that you can feel better about what happened to Calista? Believe me, I wish it had been me that ended up dead that night and not her. But you know what? Wishing doesn’t make anything come true.”

Because even though she had never touched drugs in her life, she had enabled Calista that night. And that guilt choked her.

For the first time that evening, or maybe in forever, he looked so shocked that Leah would have celebrated it as a victory if not for the gnawing in her gut.

Slowly, he recovered, those long lashes hiding his expression. “I have never wished that you had died instead that night, Leah.”

She didn’t want to believe him. But Stavros was never less than honest.

Of course he wouldn’t have wished Giannis Katrakis’s granddaughter’s death. His control, not only over his actions, but even his very thoughts had always disconcerted and fascinated her in equal measure.

He lived by such a stringent code of his own rules, and applied it to everyone around him that no one could really hold up to it.

Not Dmitri, not Calista and definitely not her.

Recovering from the memory, she shook her head. “Right. You didn’t wish my death because who else will you take out your sadistic side on if I were gone?”

“You call the last decade of your presence in my life sadism. I call it masochism.”

She knew, had always known, what he thought of her. But hearing it in his own words... Her fingers pressed into the glass in her hand, the urge to throw the glass, water and all, at his head bubbling up inside her.

His amused gaze followed her shaky movements. “Try it.”

The utter satisfaction in his voice got through to her like nothing else could.

He expected this of her. He expected a juvenile tantrum and she had already catered to him today and for years. Every time he had warned her to not do something, she had done that and more. Had lashed out against him from the moment she had landed in Greece.

Hating Stavros, especially when he had continuously given her ample reasons, had been easier than dealing with the grief and fear inside her.

No more, Leah.

There was power in that choice, power in saying she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right about her anymore.

Instead, she took a deep breath, reminded herself why she was here. It would be great if Stavros released those funds to her. But she had known it wouldn’t be that simple.

Any other man would have sent the woman he thought responsible for his sister’s death to the other end of the world.

Instead, hours after he had buried Calista, he had bound her to him in the most sacred of bonds.

She didn’t even care about the divorce. The mockery of her marriage had never meant anything to her. All she wanted was to succeed, to give her life meaning, to take the joy she had always found in designing and creating to the next step.

“What do I have to do that you will release those funds?”

“Will you do anything I ask of you?”

Something in the silky tone of his voice—a flicker of interest maybe, nudged her into panic zone again. “My personal life is my own. Even with the shackles you bound me with, I have friends who mean something to me. If you order me to cut ties with them, I won’t.

“Last time you cut off my friends from me and gained control over my life, I was...I was too...”

“Too high to even notice what was going on around you?”

She hadn’t even gone on the anti-anxiety medication that had been prescribed after her dad’s death, hadn’t wanted to numb the grief of his death.

But it was pointless to defend herself when he had already passed judgment.

“I know how much you resented my responsibility from the moment I stepped off that plane. It doesn’t have to be like that anymore.”

Walking around the desk, he reached her side, and Leah fought the automatic impulse to step back, to keep some distance between them.

With his Greek-god good looks and smoldering arrogance, Stavros had always made her feel like the proverbial ugly duckling, made her feel even more awkward than she already had, surrounded by her grandfather’s high-class society friends.

It seemed like a thoroughly unwelcome awareness took the place of her anxiety now. The faint stubble on his tight cheeks, the perfectly etched curve of his mouth...

The collar of his dress shirt was open, showing his olive skin. Holding her breath in, she pulled her gaze to his.

Every nerve in her body thrummed as he neared her. At thirty-three, he was a decade older than her. So why couldn’t he have grown a paunch and become bald? Couldn’t fate or whatever it was up above give her a break at least in this?

Couldn’t he have been a little less gorgeous?

“If you have waited five years, what’s three more months for a divorce? Or is this Philip more than just a lawyer?”

“Philip is only a friend. And if you want to continue satisfying your twisted sense of duty...fine.”

Stavros watched in rising fascination as she closed her eyes and pulled in a long breath.

Shame filled him as he took in her slender frame. He hadn’t seen her once in five years. He hadn’t even made a call. Had just left her to Mrs. Kovlakis’s care.

It had been unbearable to even look at her after Calista’s death.

Theos, he had been so angry with her...

He had granted her request to apprentice at the fashion house, and yet, he hadn’t really done his duty, had he? Marrying her to protect her from fortune hunters that had always surrounded her like vultures, to protect her from her own reckless lifestyle, as he had promised Giannis, had only been the first step.

He had let grief and anger distract him. It had been easy to forget about her, easier even to tolerate her presence in his life from a distance.

A possession to safeguard?

She was right—it had gone on too long. He had resented his future with her for long enough.

“I’ve learned all I could at the fashion house. I have made some good contacts, and I would like to leave it now.”

Tension swathed him as she interrupted his thoughts. He should never have left her alone for so long, shouldn’t have given her this chance to go on the offensive.

“Leave and go where?”

“Ideally, I would love to go to New York City. But it—”

“New York and your inheritance—I can see where this is going.”

“—will be like starting all over,” she continued, glaring at him. “I have made some good contacts here—buyers at retail stores, models who like what I have come up with so far. So I decided against it. But I do need to take the next step now. The fashion industry moves so fast that waiting until the few people that like my designs forget me will harm any future I have in it.”

“What is the next step?”

Sudden energy filled her eyes. “I’m going to take a chance and start freelancing, do custom orders for now. Right now, I have interest from a woman who buys for a small retail store in London.”

“Going out on your own, especially in your field, is a risky venture. Shouldn’t you continue at the fashion house?”

“I have been making clothes all my life, Stavros. I have worked there for seven years and except for being allowed to give input on a senior designer’s creations, I don’t have any growth there.”

“But you don’t know anything about running a business.”

“You grew up on some itty-bitty farm and Dmitri...what was he...a drug runner or a pimp? I forget... The point is both of you knew less than squat when Giannis brought you here.”

He continued staring at her, his silence wreaking havoc on her breathing.

“I need to take this shot. And I need money up front for all the costs. I can’t access my trust fund unless you stop controlling it, unless you step down from your role as...”

“Ahhh...” He smirked and Leah wished she could get away with slapping the hateful man. But one wrong breath now and he would never listen to her again.

“That’s what this is all about. Money.”

“Yes, money,” she added, mimicking his sarcastic tone. Easy for him to look down upon her when he had gazillions of it. “Money that my father left me and has nothing to do with you or Giannis or my mother or the bloody Katrakis dynasty’s inheritance.”

“Fine.”

Was that it? So easy? Leah let out a long breath. Excitement fizzed through her. She would call her contact at the textile factory as soon as she got out. She would have to finalize and place orders for the raw materials, would have to hire someone to help with the sewing, would have to order equipment...