Bound to the Greek

Yet Eleanor knew she wouldn’t do that. Her boss wouldn’t be pleased; Lily Stevens didn’t like changes. Messes. And Eleanor could certainly do without the gossip. Besides, there was another, greater reason why she’d face Jace down in her own office. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making her run away. As he had.

‘Well,’ Jace replied after a moment, ‘obviously I’m here because I need you to plan an event.’

‘Obviously,’ Eleanor agreed, and heard the answering sharpness in her tone. This was not going well. Every little exchange was going to be pointed under the politeness, and she didn’t think she could take the tension. The trouble was, she didn’t know what else to do. Talking about the past was akin to ripping the bandages off old wounds, inflaming the scars that still remained on her heart. Her body. Even remembering it hurt.

She clamped her mind down on that thought. Jace Zervas was just another client, she told herself again. Just a regular client. She let her breath out slowly and tried to smile.

‘What I meant,’ she said evenly, ‘was what kind of event are you hosting?’ She gritted her teeth as she added, ‘Some details would help.’

‘Isn’t there some form that’s been filled out? I’m quite sure my assistant did this all on the telephone.’

Eleanor glanced through the slim file she had on Atrikides Holdings. ‘A Christmas party,’ she read from the memo one of the secretaries had taken. ‘That’s all I have, I’m afraid.’

A knock sounded on the door, and Jill came in with a tray of coffee. Eleanor rose to take it from her. She didn’t want her assistant picking up on the tension that thrummed angrily through the room. God knew how she’d try to use it; Jill had been jockeying for her position since she arrived, fresh from college, two years ago.

‘Thanks, Jill. I’ll take it from here.’

Surprised, Jill backed off, the door closing once more, and Eleanor set the tray on her desk, her back to Jace. She still heard his lazy murmur.

‘You didn’t used to drink coffee. I always thought it was so funny, a girl who wanted to open a coffee shop and yet didn’t drink coffee herself.’

Eleanor tensed. So he was going to go there. She’d been hoping they could get through this awkward meeting without referencing the past at all, but now Jace was going to talk about these silly, student memories, as if they shared some happy past.

As if they shared anything at all.

A single streak of anger, white-hot, blazed through her. Her hands shook as she poured the coffee. How dared he? How dared he act as if he hadn’t walked—run—away from her, the minute things got too much? How dared he pretend they’d parted amicably, or even parted at all?

Instead of her going to his apartment building, only to find he’d left. Left the building, left the city, left the country. All without telling her.

Coward.

‘Actually, I think it was enterprising,’ she told him coolly, her back still to him. Her hands no longer trembled. ‘I saw the market, and I wanted to meet it.’ She handed him his coffee: black, two sugars, the way he’d always taken it. She still remembered. Still remembered brewing him a singleserve cafétière in her student apartment while she plied him with the pastries and cakes she was going to sell in her little bakery. While she told him her dreams.

He’d said everything was delicious. But of course he would. He’d lied about so many things, like when he’d said he loved her. If he’d loved her, he wouldn’t have left.

Eleanor poured her own coffee. She took it black now, and drank at least three cups a day. Her best friend Allie said so much caffeine wasn’t good for her, but Eleanor needed the kick. Especially now.

She turned back to Jace. He still held his mug, his long, brown fingers wrapped around the handle, his expression brooding and a little dark. ‘That’s not how I remember it.’

Disconcerted, Eleanor took too large a sip of coffee and burned her tongue. ‘What?’

Jace leaned forward. ‘You weren’t interested in meeting a market. You weren’t even interested in business. Don’t you remember, Ellie?’ His voice came out in a soft hiss. ‘You just wanted to have a place where people could relax and be happy.’ He spoke it like a sneer, and Eleanor could only think of when—and where—she had said that. In Jace’s bed, after they’d made love for the first time. She’d shared so many pitiful, pathetic secrets with him. Poured out her life and heart and every schoolgirl dream she’d ever cherished, and he’d given her—what? Nothing. Less than nothing.

‘I’m sure we remember quite a few things differently, Jace,’ she said coolly. ‘And I go by Eleanor now.’

‘You told me you hated your name.’

She let out an impatient breath. ‘It’s been ten years, Jace. Ten years. I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Get over it.’

His eyes narrowed, the colour flaring to silver. ‘Oh, I’m over it, Eleanor,’ he said softly. ‘I’m definitely over it.’

But he didn’t sound over it. He sounded angry, and that made Eleanor even angrier despite all her intentions to stay cool, not to care. He had no right, no right at all, even to be the tiniest bit furious. Yet here he was, acting as if she’d been the one to do something wrong. Of course she had done something wrong, in Jace’s eyes. She’d made the classic, naive mistake of accidentally getting pregnant.

Jace stared at her, felt the fury rise up in him before he choked it all down again. There was no use in being angry. It was ten years too late. He didn’t want to feel angry; the emotion shamed him now.

Yet even so he realised he wanted to know. He needed to know what had happened to Eleanor in the last ten years. Had she kept the baby? Had she married the father? Had she suffered even a moment’s regret for trying to dupe him so damnably? Because she didn’t look as if she had. She looked as if she was angry with him, which was ridiculous. She was the guilty one, the lying one. He’d simply found out.

‘So.’ She sat down again, behind the desk, so it served as a barrier between them. Not that they needed one. Time was enough. Putting her coffee carefully to one side, she pulled out a pen and pad of paper. Jace watched the way her hair swung down in a smooth, dark curtain as she bent her head. Everything about her was so different from the Ellie he had known, the Ellie he remembered. The woman in front of him was no more than a polished, empty shell. She gave nothing away. She looked up, her hazel eyes narrowing, her mouth curving into a false smile. ‘Can you give me a few details about this party?’

Damn the party. Jace leaned forward. ‘Did you have a boy or a girl?’ God only knew why he wanted to ask that question. Why he even wanted to know. Surely there were a dozen—a hundred—more relevant questions he could have asked. When did you cheat on me? Why? Who was he? Did he love you like I did?

No, he wasn’t about to ask any of those questions. They all revealed too much. He had no intention of letting Eleanor Langley ever know how much she’d hurt him.

His voice was no more than a predatory hiss, an accusation, yet Ellie’s expression didn’t change. If anything it became even more closed, more polished and professional. The woman was like ice. He could hardly credit it; the Ellie he’d known had reflected every emotion in her eyes. She’d cried at commercials. Now Ellie—Eleanor—simply pressed her lips together and gave her head a little shake.

‘Let’s not talk about the past, Jace. If we want to be professional—‘Her voice caught, finally, and he was glad. He’d almost thought she didn’t feel anything and God knew he felt too much. So this icy woman could thaw. A little. Underneath there was something, something true and maybe even broken, something real, and for now that was enough.

He leaned back, satisfied. ‘Fine. Let’s be professional. I want to hold a Christmas party for the remaining employees of Atrikides Holdings.’

‘Remaining?’ Ellie repeated a bit warily.

‘Yes, remaining. I bought the company last week, and there has been some unrest because of it.’

‘A corporate takeover.’ She spoke the words distastefully.

‘Yes, exactly,’ Jace replied blandly. ‘I had to let some of the employees go when I brought in my own people. Now that there is a new workforce, I’d like to create a feeling of goodwill. A Christmas party is a means to that end.’

‘I see.’

Yet Jace could see from the flicker of contempt in her eyes, the tightening of her mouth, that she didn’t see at all. She was summing him up and judging him up based on very little evidence—the evidence he’d given.

Yet why should he care what she thought of him? And why should she judge at all? She’d been just as ruthless as he was, as enterprising and economical with the truth.

And he’d judged her with far more damning information.

Eleanor wrote a few cursory notes on the pad of paper on her desk. She wasn’t even aware of what she was writing. Her vision hazed, her mind blanked.

Was it a boy or a girl?

How could he ask such a question now, with such contempt? His child. He’d been asking about his child.

She closed her mind on the thought like a trap, refusing to free the memory and sorrow. She couldn’t go there. Not now, not ever. She’d kept those emotions locked deep inside herself and even seeing Jace Zervas again wouldn’t free them. She wouldn’t let it. She drew in a deep breath and looked up.

‘So what kind of Christmas party are we talking about here? Cocktails, sit-down dinner? How many people do you anticipate coming?’

‘There are only about fifty employees, and I’d like to invite families.’ Jace spoke tonelessly. ‘Quite a few have small children, so something family-friendly but elegant.’

‘Family-friendly,’ Eleanor repeated woodenly. She felt her fingers clench around the pen she was holding. She could not do this. She could not pretend a moment longer, even though she’d been pretending for ten years—