Bound to the Greek (6 page)

‘Don’t.’ She didn’t want him to open up the painful possibilities of what if, if only… No, they were too dangerous. Too hard even to think about now. ‘And it doesn’t even matter anyway,’ she continued, her voice sharp. ‘You didn’t trust me enough to tell me any of this, or give either of us a chance to explain. That’s what this was really about.’

Jace’s brows snapped together, his body tensing, and Eleanor knew he was poised to argue. Again. She couldn’t take any more, didn’t have the energy for another round. ‘Go get tested or whatever it is you need to do,’ she told him. ‘Satisfy your own curiosity. You don’t need to tell me about it.’ She paused, her voice sharpening again in spite of her best efforts to sound reasonable. ‘I know who the father was.’

Jace stared at Ellie’s hard face, derision in every line, her eyes dark with scorn. He felt a scalding sense of shame rush through him. This hard, polished woman, this glossy professional who lifted her chin and dared him to feel sympathy or compassion or dreaded pity, was a product of his own judgment. His own failure.

If he’d stayed with Ellie… if he’d seen her through the miscarriage… would she be a different woman? Would she have stayed the same?

It was a pointless question. As Eleanor herself had said, this was all ten years too late. They’d both moved on. They’d both changed. He certainly wasn’t the same foolish boy who’d let himself be besotted, who had eagerly fallen in love because the experience had been so intoxicating, so vital, so different from what he’d known.

Who had a heart to be broken.

No, he wasn’t that same man. He’d changed, hardened, and so had Ellie.
Eleanor.
They were different people now, and the only thing they had in common was loss.

The loss of their baby. A sudden, new grief threatened to swamp him, and to his shock he felt the sting of tears in his eyes, the ache in the back of his throat. He forced the feeling down, refusing to give into such an emotion. He never cried. In the fifteen or so years since his life had changed for ever—or at least until now—he’d developed a foolproof way of dealing with his father’s disappointment. He never acted as if he cared. Whether it was a flat, emotionless response, or a carefree, laughing one, either way he kept his heart off-limits. He remained detached. He
had,
until Eleanor.
Somehow Eleanor had slipped through the defences he’d erected?that charming, laughing exterior?and found the man underneath. He wondered if she even knew how much she’d affected him.

And how had he affected her? In a sudden, painful burst of insight he pictured her in his apartment building, twenty years old and pregnant, realising he’d gone. He’d abandoned her utterly, and she’d been innocent.

Innocent.

He’d never, for a moment or even a second, considered that the child?their child?might have been his. This infertility was so much a part of him, a weight that had been shackled to him for so long, he’d never considered existing without it. He’d never even hoped for such a possibility.

And yet now for it to be given to him, and taken away, virtually in the same breath was too much to consider. To accept. He was left speechless, his mind spinning in dizzying circles, his heart thudding as if he’d just finished a sprint.

He didn’t know what to think. To feel. And he was afraid? yes, afraid—to open up the floodgates of his own heart and mind to all the possibilities, all the realisations, all the regret and guilt and hope and fear. They would consume him; he would have nothing left. Nothing he could count on or control. He couldn’t do that. Not yet, maybe not ever.

He needed to get this situation back under control, Jace knew, and there was only one way to do that.

‘So,’ Jace said, and was glad to hear how even his voice sounded. ‘Let’s talk about this party.’

‘W
HAT?’
Eleanor heard the screech of her own voice and briefly closed her eyes. She opened them and shook her head. ‘No.’

Jace arched an eyebrow in challenge. ‘Why not? You didn’t seem to have a problem with planning the party before.’

‘You can’t be serious. After everything—’

‘We’re professionals, Eleanor.’ Jace’s voice was hard, and Eleanor saw a bleak darkness in his eyes. She felt its answer in herself, and she wondered if Jace was trying to prove something to himself, just as she was.
The past is finished. It doesn’t matter. I’m not hurt.

But she was. And she was so tired of pretending she wasn’t. Yet even so she couldn’t admit that to Jace. She felt exposed enough, considering all she’d already revealed. She wasn’t about to say anything more. ‘Of course we’re professionals, Jace. But I simply think it would be sensible?not to mention more productive—to have a colleague plan your event.’

‘I don’t.’

Why was he doing this? She shook her head again. ‘I told you at your office—’

‘That you were quitting? Lucky for you I didn’t communicate that to your boss. I don’t think she would have been pleased. And somehow I had a feeling you might change your mind.’ His mouth twisted sardonically, his eyes glinting.

Eleanor didn’t answer. She knew just how displeased Lily would have been. She might have thrown her entire career
away in a single, emotional moment, and Jace at least had had the presence of mind not to let her do it.

She supposed she should be grateful.

Eleanor walked slowly back to the window. It had become her place of retreat; either that or she was simply backed into a corner. ‘I don’t understand why you want to do this,’ she said quietly. ‘Or what can be gained—for either of us.’

Jace shrugged one powerful shoulder. ‘You’re the best planner. Or so I was told.’

‘You didn’t even like my ideas,’ Eleanor protested numbly. What she really wanted to say was,
Why doesn’t being with me hurt you?
She felt his presence like an agony, exquisitely painful. And he wanted her to plan his
party?

‘I just know you can do better.’

She shook her head, even as she acknowledged that he was right. She
could
do better. She’d fought long and hard to get to where she was in her business and stay there. And she wasn’t about to throw it all away simply because Jace had come back into her life—however briefly—and stirred up some old memories. She could shove them down again. She could handle this party. She could handle Jace. Doing it would help her feel more in control, and God knew she needed to feel that again.

She felt as if she were spinning out of it, and she couldn’t stand the sense of powerlessness. She’d felt that before, when Jace had walked out of her life. When the ultrasound technician had sorrowfully shaken her head, and the doctor had come in to give her lots of important-sounding words and clinical, medical terms.

She wasn’t going to feel it now.

She turned around. Jace gazed at her, waiting, assessing. She had no idea why he still wanted her to plan his wretched party, what he hoped to gain or prove. Or was the past nothing more than a finished chapter of a sad story? Could he actually move on so quickly,
minutes
after she’d told him the truth? She made herself not care. She’d done that before, plenty of times, starting when she was a little
girl and her mother had worked late again and again, missing plays and soccer matches and anything important. When Jace had walked away, when she’d lost her little girl, when life had seemed empty and endless and without hope—she’d survived by making herself not care. By blanking her mind to any thought—any possibility—that was too painful. Too hard. And she could keep doing it. Keep surviving. Keep not caring.

Eleanor smiled coolly. ‘Fine, Jace. I’ll plan your party. Satisfied?’

‘Getting there.’

‘And it’s late. I’d like to go to bed.’ Too late she realised how laced those words were with innuendo—and remembrance. And so did Jace. She saw it in the subtle flaring of his eyes, the way they turned to sleepy silver. And before she could stop herself, her mind flashed images from a lifetime ago—a lifetime with Jace. Lying in his arms, tracing circles on the bare, bronze skin of his chest. Laughing, stretching like a cat, sleepy and secure. Sated. Loving every moment of being with him, because she’d been young and naive enough to think it was real and that it would never end.

Eleanor swallowed. ‘I’m tired,’ she said as an explanation, but it came out in a whisper. Jace smiled.

‘So am I.’

Was she imagining the current that suddenly seemed to run between them, alive and electric? She must be, because surely,
surely
there was nothing between them. After everything that had happened—after everything she had endured—there could be nothing between them now.

Yet that didn’t stop her from remembering just how good it had once been.

‘Goodnight, Jace,’ Eleanor said, and her voice, to her relief, sounded flat and final and almost cold. Jace ignored her.

He took a step towards her. Eleanor held her breath. She didn’t speak, didn’t move. Didn’t protest. Another step, and he was only inches away. He lifted his hand and she braced
herself for his touch, welcomed it even, wondering what it would feel like after all these years. What he would feel like.

And even as she stood there, still and silent,
waiting
for him to touch her, he dropped his hand, smiling almost sadly. ‘Goodnight, Ellie,’ he said, and this time Eleanor didn’t try to correct him.

She watched him leave, not realising until the door had shut that she was still holding her breath. She let it out in a long, shuddery rush.

She could do this. She had to.

Jace strode from Eleanor’s apartment, his body filled with a restless energy, his mind teeming with both possibility and fury. He was angry at himself, at fate, at life itself.

So much waste. So much wrong.

Guilt rushed into the corners of his mind, the empty spaces in his heart. He could hardly bear to think what Eleanor must have felt, what she’d endured alone.

If only—

Two desperate and dangerous words.

If only he’d known. If only he’d waited and said something, asked her—

If only. If only.

There was no such thing as
if only.
There was only regret.

And hope.

Jace shook his head in silent disbelief. Hope had long since become an unfamiliar concept. What on earth could he hope for? Love, family, children—he’d turned his back on them all. Was he now actually thinking that he could change that? Change himself? It would not be so easy.

For years work had been his only respite, his only comfort. He’d come to New York as a favour to Leandro Atrikides, and as a favour to his father. He’d clean up the family mess and then he’d go home to Greece.

And forget about Eleanor Langley… just as he had once before.

Except he’d never forgotten her, not really. She’d always lurked on the fringes of his consciousness, memories drifting and dancing through his mind even when he tried to push them away. She lingered there now.

He recalled her scent, something young and girlish and flowery. He didn’t think she used the same perfume now. And her hair had been wild and curly and artless, not her current glossy bob. He remembered the feel of those curls bouncing against his chest as she laughed in his arms.

Now Eleanor Langley looked totally different from the young woman he’d fallen in love with. He wondered if the changes were intentional. Had she transformed herself into this hardened career woman on purpose? Or had it happened gradually, without her even realising, the product of ten years’ ceaseless striving in this heartless city?

And what about underneath?

Had her heart changed?

Ten years ago he’d judged her heart. He’d thought her cold and scheming and had walked away without ever finding out the truth. He’d thought he’d known it. He’d been so sure…

Now every certainty had been scattered, leaving him both hopeful and afraid. He didn’t know what the future could hold, for him or Eleanor. He didn’t even dare think, or question or wonder.

If only …

Jace left Eleanor’s building, clamping his mind down on that thought as he walked down the dark, empty street.

Eleanor woke slowly, swimming upwards through consciousness from a deep and dreamless sleep. She blinked slowly; her room seemed to be obscured by a soft white haze.

As she sat up in bed, pushing her tangled mass of hair out of her eyes, she realised why. It was snowing. She scrambled out of bed and hurried to the window, pressing her hand against the cold glass. Outside the city’s skyscrapers were
lost in a snowstorm. Huge white flakes drifted down and the streets were already covered, the parked cars no more than white humps.

Snow.
She smiled, suddenly feeling as excited and hopeful as a child when she’d had a rare snow day. There had been a blizzard once, when she was nine, and her mother had been forced to stay home from work. Eleanor still remembered that magical moment when her mother had decided to stay home for the day. The telephones hadn’t been working, and, according to the television, no one was going anywhere. For a moment that pinched look had left her mother’s face and she’d smiled and shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll have a snow day,’ she’d said.

They’d trudged to Central Park through several feet of fluffy whiteness armed with a metal baking sheet—all the sledges had been sold out at the shop—and gone sledging on Cedar Hill near Seventy-Ninth Street. The feeling of flying down the hill, the world no more than a blur of muted colour, her mother’s arms wrapped around her, was one Eleanor had never forgotten. She carried it with her like a treasure.

Snow.
This sudden snowstorm felt like a treasure, a promise, a gift. Snow covered up all the grime and grit and hard concrete of the city, all the memories and regrets. It was a new beginning. A new hope. She didn’t have to think about what had happened before, didn’t have to carry the heavy, unbearable weight of ten years of memories or last night’s conversation with Jace. She’d let the snow fall over it, cloaking it in whiteness, hiding it from herself.

Suddenly, certainly, Eleanor knew how to make this party just what Jace wanted. What she wanted. Smiling with a new determination, she turned away from the window.