Despite all these tough words to herself, she descended the stairs with her heart in her throat and legs shaking so hard that she clung to the gold bannister to keep herself upright.
Theo heard light footsteps nearing the veranda. Every one of his senses immediately set itself on high alert.
Holding his glass of Scotch firmly in his hand, he rose to his feet and braced himself for Helena’s appearance.
His own appearance had taken him thirty minutes to master. It had entailed a shower, a shave of his neck—he’d decided to grow his beard—the donning of a dapper suit and the artful mussing of his hair. The rest of his time had been spent reading his PA’s business report, a daily briefing she sent at the end of every working day. Usually he would fire back observations or instructions to be carried out, but he’d had a hard enough time concentrating on the report, having to read it numerous times for the words to sink in, without finding the intelligence needed to reply.
The only place his mind wanted to go was reliving every moment of making love to Helena. The harder he tried not to think about it, the more the images pushed into the forefront of his mind. It was a form of mental torture.
He’d expected it to be explosive between them but there had been a part of him expecting it to be anti-climactic. After all, the build-up through the years had taken such weight in his mind that nothing could live up to it. But it had. More than lived up to it.
He could revel in the buzz still alight on his skin were it not for the emotions that had erupted beneath it. Emotions had never been part of the plan.
Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to have remained a virgin.
The footsteps grew louder.
He sucked in a breath and braced himself.
With the early evening sun blazing down on her like gold dust, Helena stepped onto the veranda.
Theo sucked in another breath.
She’d foregone her glasses—she had always carried contact lenses ‘just in case’—leaving her beautiful face free from obstruction.
She glowed. Her golden skin had a luminescence he’d never seen before. Her dark hair shone, artfully knotted at the nape of her neck, not a strand displaced. The professionally applied sultry make-up glimmered. The silk of her dress gleamed.
‘Well?’ she asked shyly, spreading her hands out. ‘Will I do?’
He cleared his throat and nodded. ‘You look beautiful.’
So beautiful it felt as if his heart had been punched.
Agon’s royal palace was an architect’s dream, as colourful as the lives of the people who inhabited it. Its influences ranged from Turkish to French, blended to create a vast wonderland that rivalled Buckingham Palace for size. Helena distinctly remembered driving to her grandparents’ home from the airport in Agon as a small child, her heart soaring with wonder to see the colourful turrets in the distance. As soon as they’d arrived she’d begged for paper and colouring pencils and immediately set about drawing it. That was her first ever attempt to draw a building and it had ignited a lifelong love of both the palace and the architecture behind it.
The palace interior matched the exterior for opulence, and she kept having to ensure her mouth was closed to stop it hanging open in awe.
Theo at her side, she was taken into a stateroom with around fifty other select guests. There, they were fed all the champagne they could quaff and all the canapés they could fit in their bellies. Naturally, everyone knew Theo, and she was introduced to many people, quite a few of whom she recognised from three years ago.
For a moment she longed to grab hold of Theo’s hand as she’d done back then and feel the solid weight of his support. He’d laughed at her insecurities but had stayed by her side. The times he hadn’t was when she’d plucked up the courage to let go of his hand and release him as her life support. That was when everyone would pounce and Helena would find herself pushed to the sidelines, nibbling miserably on any morsel she could get her hands on until Theo extracted himself from whoever was monopolising him and rescued her.
She’d been too inured to a woman being under a male’s thumb to realise she should have rescued herself. Her insecurities had not been Theo’s fault.
She stared at him now, chatting to a woman she recognised, tall, thin, beautiful, an identikit clothes horse to those he’d hung out with after Helena had left, and swiped a bite-sized chunk of cucumber and avocado artfully rolled into one, and popped it into her mouth. The little devil called Jealousy who lived in her heart rose but she swallowed it down. Theo wasn’t flirting. He was exchanging pleasantries. It was her erratic, insecure emotions when they’d been together that had always feared he would look from the beauty at his side to her and realise how wildly unsuitable Helena was for him.
She popped another more substantial canapé into her mouth and chewed absently while making an effort to stop a frown lining her forehead. She remembered complaining to Theo that none of his friends spoke to her unless she was glued to his side. A soft smile had spread over his face and then he’d put his thumbs to her forehead and massaged it gently. ‘This is why,’ he’d told her sympathetically. ‘When you are frightened, you frown. It makes people wary of speaking to you. You look cross.’
‘But I’m not cross,’ she’d said, dumbfounded that he would say such a thing.
He’d replaced his thumbs with his mouth and wrapped his arms around her. ‘I know, agapi mou,’ he’d whispered. ‘I know.’
And he had known. And he’d tried to protect her. But even with the best will in the world it was impossible to stay glued to one person for an entire evening.
She
