He had been powerless about her influence on Calista, he had despised her willful rejection of Giannis’s love, he had resented that she had sealed his fate the moment she had walked into his life but he had never meant to hurt her.
Not even the day when he had spoken his vows to her utterly petrified form.
Yet, it seemed it was all he had ever done.
That Leah could be vulnerable when it came to him, instead of making him powerful, felt like a curse.
Giannis had saved him from a life of misery and poverty and yawning emptiness and all he had done in return was make his granddaughter’s life miserable.
He wouldn’t forsake his duty, but neither did he want to hurt Leah anymore.
* * *
Leah leaned against the wall in her workroom, shame ringing in her ears. She couldn’t believe she had betrayed herself like that. She didn’t even care that he had investigated Philip or about what he had found.
But when he had called her a nagging, jealous wife, it was as if she could see their future like that...as if he would never see her true self. As if he would never know the real her.
Standing up, she reached for a jug of water. Poured herself a tall drink and guzzled it down.
It couldn’t matter this much, not when she would be gone soon.
She couldn’t be so vulnerable to him, couldn’t get so emotional. The only way to accomplish that was to accept him this way. He would watch her, hover over her, dictate her life forever, if she wasn’t careful now.
She would give up a little now for the long run.
It wasn’t as if the news of Philip’s past engagements affected her.
For as long as she had understood herself, only one man had always stubbornly occupied the space in her head. And still, only one man could set her heart racing, only one man could make her hate herself that she wasn’t smarter or calmer or even stronger, that she wasn’t a match for him in any way.
* * *
For the next week, Leah barely slept. The retail buyer, Mrs. DuPont, set up an appointment to see what Leah had for her so far. The conversation that followed, where Leah explained to her that she was now living at Stavros’s estate and her reaction to the fact that she was that Textile Magnate’s wife, had been extremely awkward. As if suddenly Leah’s worth as a designer had changed. Whether for good or bad, Leah had no idea.
Once she had heard from her, Leah had finished the sewing on the first three dresses.
Unaccountably nervous, she had snarled at Stavros yesterday for making it all so complicated.
The evening after Mrs. Dupont had called, a seamstress had arrived at her workroom. Her mouth falling open in awe, she fingered the turquoise sheer silk of the cocktail dress, had said in broken English that she loved sewing, and would Mrs. Sporades please give her work.
Having neatly been maneuvered into it, Leah had nodded. Now, she was glad she had given in to Stavros’s tactics. Anna was not only talented but also enthusiastic. Having arranged the three dresses on a rack, Leah endlessly tidied the workroom, her stomach a tangle of nerves.
She had risked a lot to be able to make this ready for Mrs. DuPont, to arrive at this stage of making her dream come true.
And yet, it was Stavros’s challenging gaze that stayed at the forefront of her mind. The strength of her desire to show him that she was talented, hardworking, that she had what it took to succeed, only grew.
She was determined to make him see her as his equal, in this at least.
* * *
Leah would have had her meeting with the retail buyer this afternoon.
The small nugget jolted through Stavros’s subconscious like he had set up a reminder chip in his brain to go off every hour. All through his day, through numerous meetings, he found himself thinking of her, of how nervous she had been last night, of how he had seen her work long hours, only remembering to eat because Rosa threatened her.
In the last two weeks, he had found that he couldn’t fault her dedication or hard work. And the night before last, learning that she had once again skipped her dinner, he had gone into her workroom.
He had found himself on her doorstep, stunned into silence as Leah commanded Anna to turn around slowly. Being almost as tall as him, Anna was the perfect model to showcase a knee-length sheath dress in red silk.
Simple yet chic, it touched Anna with sophistication she hadn’t possessed before.