Page 111 of Love Among the Ruins
What he hadn’t expected was to see Eleni here. It was like a punch in the stomach, and once their gazes had locked, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.
What in God’s name was he doing, spending his waking moments thinking about her, a much younger woman who was still grieving for her boyfriend? He recoiled in disgust each time he thought of what she might think if she ever found out how he felt.
Yet sometimes, he wondered if she felt the same, after all, she was the one who’d sent those suggestive messages.
He forced himself to look away and deliver a heartfelt speech, because working here for forty years was a huge accomplishment. By the time he was done talking, Anna had tears in her eyes. He beckoned for her to come up, and then took out a small envelope from his jacket pocket. “On behalf of the company, our sincere thanks and gratitude for your service, Anna.”
The head of her department had already given her flowers and a gift bought from the proceeds of a collection contributed to by employees. Anna looked at him, her eyes filled with gratitude as she accepted the envelope.
And then it was over. He released a breath hoping to ease the tightness across his chest, and returned to Helen, because he couldn’t go to Eleni, no matter how much he wanted to.
But even as he listened to Helen talking about her day at work, it came to him: the problem that kept him awake at night and weighed heavily on him during the day, had a solution, and he’d been staring at her throughout his speech.
He had considered other options and drawn a blank. Helen was going away with her boyfriend and would not be free on the weekend of the wedding. He could have hired a discreet escort, but he didn’t want to make polite conversation with a woman he didn’t know. Attending the wedding and making small talk with the guests would be draining enough.
He glanced at Eleni, sucked in a breath, and mentally prepared his proposal.
* * *
ELENI
“You’re staying?” Miranda asked as she swiped two glasses of champagne off the table and handed one to Eleni.
“I’ll stay on a bit longer.” Eleni had been planning to leave, but now she had a reason not to. She sipped her champagne and tried not to look in Dominic’s direction, but from her peripheral vision she could make out that Helen was still glued to his side.
She tried to keep her attention to Miranda who was laughing and joking with her friends.
“Enjoying the party?” Dominic broached the circle. Everyone in the group turned and stared at him. As did she. When he lifted his bottle of beer to his lips, her attention turned to his mouth and stayed there. A murmur of ‘Yes’s’ floated in the air, and Miranda turned quiet, staring at him, slowly blushing.
Someone asked Dominic how he was doing, and Eleni could see Dominic visibly blanch. He didn’t like things like this. She looked around for signs of Helen, and didn’t find her.
And then she wondered why he’d come to this group of people, why not Linus, or some of the managers?
Why here? Where she was?
Did it mean something?
Her heart thundered inside her chest as Dominic smiled and made pleasant small talk—something she knew he detested.
And it vanished, all of her hard work of trying to forget him had been undone in less than two seconds now that this gorgeous, tanned, wide-shouldered man in a crisp white button-down shirt stood in front of her smelling of ocean breeze. He always smelled so clean and refreshing.
She remained silent, letting the people in the group talk to him, while she listened. Every once in a while he would glance at her and her insides would turn molten.
Then, slowly, one by one, people started to leave. Fraternising with the boss in a social setting wasn’t a great way to have fun. Miranda left, too, but probably for other reasons. Eleni needed to make her escape but she sensed, or wished—it didn’t matter which because her logic meter stopped working whenever Dominic was around—that he wanted to talk to her. Because never in a million years would this man have willingly come and joined his employees, let alone spent time conversing with them.
“And you,” he said, to the one person who remained standing with her. “How are you enjoying the party?” His tone was slightly sneering, slippery as ice, hard to gauge. Not surprisingly, the man he’d addressed his question to—the guy who had asked Dominic how he was—mumbled something she couldn’t clearly make out before quickly disappearing.
It was just the two of them left. She had trouble looking at him, and tried to think of something to say, a question to ask, a prayer to recite.
“How is your foot?” Dominic asked.
“All healed now.” Ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom galloped her heart. “How’s your brother?”
“Overseas, mercifully.”
She looked up at him, saw the tightness around his eyes and wondered what had happened. “Did you two fight?”
“Not physically.” Dominic looked away, giving her a rare opportunity to gawk at his face. She greedily drank in every inch of him. His short answer told her that he didn’t want to talk about it. “It’s not like you to mingle with your workers,” she remarked, changing the topic.
