His voice lowered.
“My father didn’t come from money. In fact, he was dirt poor.” His eyes locked to Mila’s. “It’s not something he discussed with us, really, but one night, he got drunk. He told me of his childhood. I came to understand how hard he’d worked and why. Day and night, for many, many years. He met my mother when he was fifty years old—it was only then that he felt he could relax enough to have a family. And even once we were born, the company was his all. His everything. He had more impetus to be successful, more to lose if he failed.” Leonidas’s mouth formed a flat line in his beautiful face. “There was never a question of us doing something else. We were raised to value the business, but also, without it ever being said, we understood that working in the company was how we’d keep him close. How we’d earn his love.”
Mila’s eyes were gentle, creased at the corners as she contemplated that. “You felt his love was conditional?”
“Not in a bad way.” He turned towards the view; the sky was now completely dark, but the lights of the small fishing boats could be seen, creating an ethereal beauty to the landscape. “We wanted to make him happy.”
“And now that he’s gone, you’re questioning your choices?”
He looked surprised by the observation. He reached for his drink and took a long sip, the frothy, golden ale glinting in his hand. “I still want to make him proud. I suspect you know something about that.”
Mila’s hand reached out, pressing over his, and a thousand volts of electricity flew through her, so she lost her train of thought. “The thing is,” she said, haltingly, after a moment, eyes trapped by his, so she was powerless to look away, to move her hand. “Doing something for someone else never works out well. You have to walk your own path.”
“You think I’m unhappy?”
“I—I don’t know you well enough to say,” she said after a beat. “It’s just, from the way you speak—,”
“I’ve given you the wrong impression.” Case closed. Back off. “My work is important. To me, my family, and yes, to my father. But with or without his approval, I would pursue this.”
Chastened, she went to pull her hand away, but he flipped his over, swiftly catching hers and lacing their fingers together, frowning at the almost unwilling gesture.
“I suppose I was just asking,” she said softly, marveling at the way their hands meshed so well. “If there was anything else you might have done?”
His frown wasn’t an answer.
“That is, being born into that kind of wealth, some people might think it’s liberating.”
“But you don’t?”
“I imagine it wouldn’t always have been,” she said carefully. “Your family has a high profile, for one thing. That’s got to be burdensome at times.”
“Burdensome? Yes. But make no mistake about it, Mila, I’m aware of the privilege in my life. I have never been hungry. I have never worried about the roof over my head. In the material ways, our family was very blessed.”
It was an admission given without his realization. “But in ways other than the material?”
His eyes darkened reflexively, and she knew there was something he wasn’t discussing with her. “Everyone endures hardship.” He sipped his beer. “That’s life.”
Uh huh. So there was something in his past he was being careful not to reveal. She went to pull her hand away, and he let her, then deftly moved conversation away from his family, and hers, and onto far safer topics. They spoke of the history of the island, and the city, and then he made her laugh with stories of his exploits with Benji, so she felt closer to Leonidas than she would have anyone else she’d only known for a day. Because if Benji trusted him, then Mila did too.
When they left the restaurant, it was to discover the bike washed in silver, courtesy of the high, full moon. The distant crashing of waves on the shoreline echoed the beating of Mila’s heart.
She looked up at Leonidas, and her breath caught in her throat.
He was so stunning, but also, so haunted, that she shivered a little. His grief was a palpable force, yet there was a darkness beneath it, something that drew on him, dogged him, and made his body tight with tension. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the feeling of their kiss, his body weight on hers, his hands so strong and confident and demanding, and made a soft, purring noise in her throat.
“Let’s get you home.” The words were gruff, their effect anything but.Home.For the briefest, strangest moment, that notion settled in her chest like a Pandora’s box of ‘what ifs’. What would it be like to have a real home, to sit still for longer than a few weeks? A home that not only she lived in, but someone else, someone she wanted to share her life with, whom she craved seeing, day and night… A home that one day might also be occupied by children, all chubby and sweet.
Family.
Her eyes stung with the power of her yearning.
She’d loved her mother to bits, but after she’d died, any semblance of family had gone with her. Something in the region of her heart twisted painfully as she contemplated all that she’d missed out on, all that she was still missing.
At seven, she’d become an orphan, totally adrift. The only biological family who could have claimed her shunned her instead. She was unwanted, unloved, disconnected. She’d hardened her heart, and told herself that success in skating was all she wanted, that she owed it to her mother to succeed where Lorraine had failed, forced to quit because of her pregnancy. Mila wanted to gift that to Lorraine, to achieve this record in Lorraine’s memory, to honour her, and that left very little room for anything else.
She’d chosen to walk this path, to put everything into her career, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t, at times, deeply cognizant of what she’d given up, and looking up at Leonidas, she felt that particularly keenly. She felt utterly alone, and longing made her lean forward, body brushing his, eyes filling with her wants…
Kiss her.The words throbbed in his gut, his blood, all the way to his dick, so he stood right where he was, hard and firm, body locked, eyes wary as they ran over her face. She stood like some kind of siren, risen from the sea, shimmering in the moonlight, long lashes fanning her cheeks, skin so clear it was like the dew on a cream-coloured rose. He breathed in and tasted her sweet vanilla fragrance on his lips.