Her hands on her hips, she mock-glared at him. “I’m not as weak as I look, Stavros. If your studly, macho ego rails at accepting help from me, that’s fine. But when was the last time you had something to eat? I can make something if you like.”
“You’re offering to cook for me?”
“Well, I can’t make a three-course meal but I can manage a grilled cheese sandwich.”
It was a tempting offer. Everything about her was tempting. And tonight, he was hanging on by the end of his rope.
“I’m not hungry,” he said morosely, unbuttoning his shirt. She followed the movement with such wide eyes that his fingers slipped on the damn buttons. Rubbing a hand over his gritty eyes, he gave up on it. “Go to bed, Leah.”
“I don’t think I could sleep tonight.” A shudder racked her. “I never do on such nights.” The resignation in her words brought his head up. For someone so young, she had seen too much death, he realized with a pang.
They both had, a perverse thing to have in common.
She looked so vulnerable, right then, her oval face small. The urge to take her in his arms was so strong that he had to fist his hands. “There’s nothing I can do for you tonight, Leah.”
“No, I don’t want anything, I...I didn’t see you again all day and whenever I called, I was told you were busy.”
Because he had instructed his secretary to not put her calls through. “I had too many things to take care of.”
Wrapping her arms around herself, she nodded. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Stavros. And to apologize.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry for going off at you like that this morning. I’m sorry for always attacking you.”
He forced a smile. “I can take it, Leah.”
“It’s just that...I forgot how much Giannis meant to you too.”
Raising his hand, he stopped her. “Leah, it’s not needed.”
“Yeah?” she said with a depth of sadness. “Okay. Anyway, once I stopped crying and managed a shower, I went looking for you. Dmitri came back and wouldn’t leave even though I promised I was okay. You sent him, didn’t you?”
Today of all days, he didn’t trust himself to be near her. That pain of hers, it had unlocked something inside him. And until he understood what, she was better left alone.
When he shrugged, she continued. “Dmitri said you hadn’t said a word all night. And that you probably won’t over the next few days or maybe even months. That your silence...it was the most nauseating thing in the world. That for months after Calista died, the only words he had heard from your mouth were the vows you made to me that day.”
Anger roared out of him. “Bloody Dmitri needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“You’d rather I continue to think you as unfeeling as you make out to be, Stavros?”
“This is not your burden to bear, Leah. I have no expectations of you—”
Hurt etched into her mouth. “You will turn my life upside down because I need to be protected, but I can’t even wonder what’s going on with you?”
“I do not need to be protected, Leah.”
“You have never wished you could unburden yourself with someone, that you could share your joy or pain or...”
“No. For as long as I can remember, I never had the indulgence to do so. If I hadn’t shoved all that pain and grief away and handled things, life would have stopped for me and Calista. The way forward was the only thing left.” All his life he had been alone in moments like this...and there had been far too many of them.
Had he reached his edge now?
“Well, I don’t accept that. Today, of all days, when we have both lost the man who did everything he could to bind me to you, I won’t accept it. This relationship he forced on you—”
“For the millionth time, he didn’t force it on me.” In the roiling confusion he felt, perversely, that he couldn’t bear to hurt her. Not anymore. He couldn’t bear for her to think he resented her in his life anymore.
Right now, she felt like the only thing that was anchoring him to his sanity. Right now, all he wanted was to take what she was offering. Right now, he wanted to lose himself. In her.