Now, when Theo thought back on that time when Helena had broken his ego, he often thought he should thank her. He could have spent the past three years living a boring, settled life instead of re-embracing the hedonistic party lifestyle he’d been prepared to abandon for her. Truth be told, Helena’s jilting had set him free and he had made every moment of his freedom count...but only up to a point.
Three years on from his public humiliation, he was still to bed another woman. God alone knew he’d tried but his usually voracious libido had gone into obstinate hibernation. He, the man who could have any woman he wanted, had lost all interest in the opposite sex. He still dated—any excuse to rub Helena’s nose in what she was missing out on—but bedding his dates was impossible.
What had begun as a minor annoyance had become a serious problem. He didn’t want another relationship. Relationships were for naïve fools. They involved trust and emotions, neither of which he would allow himself to experience again, but he was only thirty-three, far too young to contemplate a life spent with the sex-life of a monk.
Then, six months ago, he’d seen a notice in the architectural magazine he subscribed to announcing the firm Staffords had given the newly qualified architect Helena Armstrong a permanent contract. Accompanying it had been a grainy photograph of her. The next morning he’d woken with his first erection since she’d left him. Relief that his manhood had awoken had been short-lived. A party that night on a friend’s yacht with a bevy of scantily clad nubile women and his manhood couldn’t even be bothered to wave hello. Not until he’d been alone in his bed and closed his eyes to remember Helena naked. It had sprung up like a jack-in-a-box.
And just like that, the reason for his impotence had become clear and so had the solution to cure it. Try as he might to forget about her, Helena had become like Japanese knotweed in his head, her roots dug so deep they smothered the normal functions of his masculinity. He needed to sever the roots and burn them. To accomplish that he needed Helena back in his life. This time he would bed her as he should have done three years ago. He would make her fall in love with him again. And then he would be the one to jilt and humiliate her.
And then he could, finally, forget about her and move on with his life.
Helena would never know how she made it through the next hour. Later that evening, on her journey home on the Tube, travelling so late she found a seat easily, she put her head back and closed her eyes.
Had she dreamt it all?
Had Theodoros Nikolaidis really been the mystery client who’d kept them on their toes these past two months?
Somehow she’d managed to pull herself together and deliver the pitch. She’d known every word she spoke was wasted air, but pride would not allow her to do anything less than her best. When Theo passed her over for a different architect in a different firm, at least her colleagues wouldn’t be able to say her professionalism had let her or them down.
And Theo would never know that under her calm, professional exterior had beat a crying heart.
His face had been poker straight when she’d finished her presentation. He hadn’t asked a single question. He’d merely looked at his watch, risen to his feet, thanked them all for their efforts, winked at Helena then swept out of the boardroom without a backward glance, leaving five mouths open with astonishment in his wake.
Neither Helena, the senior partners nor the other staff needed to vocalise it but the subdued atmosphere in the aftermath had told its own story. All the work Helena had put in for the pitch, all the help and support her colleagues had given her...it had all been for nothing.
She breathed in deeply, needing oxygen so badly she didn’t care that it was the lingering stale body odour of other commuters filling her lungs.
Seeing Theo again after all that time...
Don’t think about him.
She could no more stop her memory box opening than a child could resist a bag of sweets. Despite her best endeavours, Helena found herself thrown back over three years to a time when her heart had been intact and her body a flower primed and ready to bloom for the sun.
The sun had appeared in the form of the sexiest man she had ever set eyes on.
It was only on a whim that she’d gone to the palace that day. Needing a break after the first year of slogging for her master’s degree, she’d decided to visit her mother’s family in Agon. The sun always shone in Agon and life always felt freer. Simpler. Even her father relaxed enough to stop fault-finding every five minutes when he was there.
On her third morning, she’d woken early and decided to visit the palace she’d loved as a child.
Armed with nothing but her sketchbook, drawing pencils, a bottle of water and a picnic lunch, she’d parked her bottom on a bench and drawn her favourite building in the world.
After five hours of stillness cocooned in her own head, tuning out the hordes of tourists drifting around her, she’d suddenly become aware of being watched. She’d looked up at the same moment a voice had spoken behind her ear. ‘That is some talent you have there, lady. Name your price.’
She’d turned her head sharply and found herself face to face with a man who’d immediately made her heart swell. Tall—he had to be at least a foot taller than her own five-foot-one frame—and muscular, he’d had messy, short brown hair, the tips highlighted by the sun, and a deep tan
