Célia placed a comforting hand on Sia’s. They had become fast friends since first meeting at a charity gala event a few years ago and bonded over the difficulties with their parents.
‘Dare I ask?’ Sia questioned.
‘I haven’t seen either of them in five years,’ Célia replied, knowing that Sia was asking after her parents.
An alarm beeped on Sia’s phone and she looked apologetic as she reached into her handbag to retrieve it. Shaking her head again, ‘I’m so sorry. The flight is due to leave in just a few hours.’
Wishing Célia the best of luck for the evening, Sia departed with promises to meet up soon in Paris.
Once again Célia was alone in the grand space. Only this time echoes of an old hurt were her companion. She flicked out her fingers from her hands as if she could expel the painful sensation gathering within her body as she walked amongst the pieces of art that would hopefully net the charity a large sum of money and, of course, garner a great deal of positive press for Loukis.
Three rooms over, towards the back of the gallery, there were forty-five staff hired for the evening preparing canapés and drinks for the attendees. The master of ceremonies for the evening had arrived and was getting himself ready. But just for a moment, Célia had the space to herself and she drew in a deep breath to calm the nerves roiling in her stomach.
Rarely had she been at the front and centre of events like this. Ella usually gloried in this role. Ella, who had been worried when Célia had called to update her on the event. She hadn’t missed the brief pause that spoke of her concerns. She hadn’t missed the carefully constructed sentences gently probing if she might be taking on too much, or whether she might actually not be able to pull it off.
All of which had only driven Célia further. She now had as much invested in the event as Loukis. A brief flare of irritation welled in her chest as her thoughts turned to him, especially as since she had last seen him, far too much of her time had suddenly seemed preocc
upied with her own clothing.
She pulled a slight grimace as she looked down at her black trousers and white silky top. It was definitely better than the beige T-shirt but she was sure that Loukis would manage to find fault with it. A part of her had wanted to find something that would wipe the disdain from his face the next time they met, but she had neither the time nor the money to do so.
Every bit she earned went into either the company or her home. Living in Paris, alone now—without Ella to share the rent—she’d had to move into a new apartment and, although she loved it dearly, it was still a drain on her earnings. Ella and Roman had offered to buy somewhere in Paris but Célia couldn’t, wouldn’t, take that. It wasn’t so much a case of cutting her nose off out of spite, more an awareness of how much she valued her own independence after all those years. Her father would be horrified to see the small loft apartment she had squeezed herself into. It was a far cry from the palatial estate she had grown up in as a child, before being sent to boarding school. And while it had been the height of luxury and status, she shivered at the memory of the way silence had echoed amongst the rooms. Seen and not heard, had been her father’s idiom. And for the millionth time, she wondered if it would have been different had she been born the son that her father had so desperately wanted. The heir to the business that was her father’s sole focus. Would that have prevented the endless well of disapproval she had felt from her father—even as she tried to emulate his path by going into computer sciences and engineering?
When she heard the determined clipped tones of shoes on the sleek flooring, she turned, wondering if Sia had forgotten something, and stopped short.
Loukis stalked towards her, his gait somehow both lazy and predatory, careless yet alluringly so. Dressed in a black tux, his white shirt undone at the collar, the tie balled in his fist, he looked as if he were just finishing his evening rather than starting it. As if he had just departed some mysterious woman’s bed. The thought sent images crashing through her brain and short-circuited the carefully prepared welcome she had wanted to greet him with.
‘Is everything ready?’ he demanded across the space as if he already had somewhere else to be, someone else on his mind.
She took in a breath she hoped would calm the frustration that seemed to be a constant companion to his sudden appearances.
‘Yes.’
‘Kalós,’ he said, scanning the space quickly with an assessing gaze before he reached her.
‘Are you ready?’ she queried, cursing her words the moment his eyes returned to hers and pinned her with an angry stare.
‘Nai.’
‘Really?’ she asked again, despite his assurance. Somehow in all their conversations she’d become strangely touched by his use of half-Greek, half-English words, their meaning evident by the context. It was not the suave language of the playboy, but a signal of understanding, of trust in her and her abilities.
She held her hand out for the tie still clenched in a vicelike grip, wondering which Loukis she would get this evening. She had seen his determined side, she had seen the charming side as he had flirted over the phone with her usually sternly efficient assistant, the result of which was for her to descend into a useless heap of blushes and giggles. Only once had she seen what she thought might be the true Loukis. When he had said that they needed to talk in a tone that had stopped her hasty departure, before they had gone to Comte Croix.
Frowning, he held out the crumpled tie, which she smoothed before stepping closer to him and looping it up over his head. The move had begun as an automatic thing. The mirror image of a memory she had from her childhood. Of watching her mother doing this for her father before every dinner event they attended. Even as her hands crossed over the silky black material, looping it into a bow tie, Célia wondered what on earth she was doing, aching from the past and yearning for something she should not want from the present.
The scent from his aftershave, spicy and earthy, drifted towards her as if propelled by the heat from his body, crashing against her in waves. Refusing to look up at him, unable to face what must have been confusion at her actions, she concentrated on knotting the silks in the right way and just about resisted placing her hands on his chest once she had done. They fell uselessly beside her once she had pulled the silk tight and stepped back, looking out to what must have been a Hockney to disguise her own embarrassment.
‘I don’t think that anyone has ever done that for me before.’
* * *
Loukis watched her shrug a shoulder as if to say it was nothing, but the small gesture had exposed the sleek line of her neck and collarbone and obliterated any sense of casualness the moment might have conveyed. The moment she had looped the tie over his neck, she had brought them so close he could smell her shampoo, orange blossom and citrus. He’d had to look away, jaw clenched and body steeled against the sudden shocking wave of arousal she had ignited. If he’d been tense when he had arrived, he was now rigid.
But any thoughts of sensual delight provoked by Célia were doused with the reminder of why he had been so stressed upon his arrival. Sobbing ten-year-olds had that effect. Sobbing ten-year-old sisters tended to drive him beyond despair.
‘Why do I have to go...? Why are you making me do this...? Please, Loukis, I don’t want to go with her...’
The ache in his chest mixed with fury and an impotence, a helplessness, that Loukis simply refused to accept.