What The Greek's Wife Needs - Dani Collins Page 0,25
scowl and moved toward her.
She looked away, blindly staring at the horizon of blue on blue through the huge picture windows. “Silly me, coming all this way to ask for a divorce when we only needed to clap three times and wish it away like a bad dream.”
“The marriage was legal. Obviously,” he said tersely. “And we are overdue to discuss divorce, I agree with you on that. But it’s not as if we were in love, Tanja. We got married because your brother found out I’d slept with you. He said your father would expect it if I was buying into the marina.”
“That’s why you proposed?” Boy, he really knew how to kick someone when they were down.
“You knew that,” he said with impatience. Then, after a beat, he added, “Didn’t you?”
“Well, I thought you felt something for me.” She swallowed, trying to clear the croak from her voice. “We were sleeping togeth—Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes, hugging the baby and wishing she had the strength to rise and storm off. “You didn’t even want to marry me. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? I’m such an idiot. I mean, I kind of got that message after you didn’t come back, but I thought I had done something to change your mind. Or that you realized you could have had anyone and decided I was too plebian and boring. When you proposed, we had already slept together. I thought that meant you cared about me, not just getting me into bed.”
“You got me into bed. You showed up with wine. I wasn’t your first lover. I didn’t seduce you.” He shot each word at her, blunt and fast, then paused, giving her space to correct him.
She couldn’t. He was right, much to her chagrin.
“That doesn’t explain why you bothered to propose,” she choked.
“When big brother twisted my arm... Hell, I don’t know why I gave in. I liked Zach.” He shrugged. “We were going into business together. Marrying his sister seemed like a good way to secure my side of things. Honestly? Call me delusional, but I didn’t think you would accept. I thought we were having a summer fling. You said you were going back to school.”
“You bluffed and I called it? That’s what you’re saying?” she asked with disbelief.
“Pretty much. And there were things with my parents... My father wanted me to come and work for him. I thought a wife and my own business in Canada would get him off my back.”
“So I was a bulletproof vest? Did your father know he was sick? And that things were falling apart? Is that why he wanted you there?” She frowned. “Did you know he was sick?”
“It was the sort of massive heart attack that was inevitable, given his lifestyle, but no, none of us knew he was on the verge of one. He hadn’t seen a doctor in years. I thought he was being his overbearing self, demanding I come work for him so he could tell me I wasn’t doing it right.” His expression shuttered. “He’d done that twice before. I wasn’t interested in going through it again.”
“You must have had mixed feelings, though, after it happened. Must have wished you’d returned when he asked.” Any child would. “Is that why you stayed once you got there?”
“I wouldn’t have made a different choice if I had realized he was going to die,” Leon said dispassionately. “I had made up my mind I wouldn’t work for him. That I would start doing my own thing. He was the most entitled bastard you’d never want to meet.”
It was such a harsh indictment she could only blink in shock.
She recalled Leon being oddly stoic when he’d taken his mother’s call that his father had died. She insists I come home. I’ll be back soon. It had been eerie, the way he’d taken the news without emotion and acted as though his mother wanting him home was an imposition. Everyone grieved differently, she had told herself, trying not to judge.
That had come later, when he’d ignored her calls and texts.
“I was a different man then.” Leon scrubbed a hand across his face. “Spoiled. As long as my credit cards worked, I didn’t ask where the money came from. When I was forced to take over, I realized why he had micromanaged me in the past. He was hiding the fact his fortune had been built on things like child labor, collusion, and skirting environmental rules.”
“Are you serious?” She