Page 115 of Love Among the Ruins
“But she won’t know that.”
“That’s not the reason I’m going. I’m not taking you to make her jealous. I’m taking you so that Galatis doesn’t pair me off with one of his nieces.”
He told her about Galatis’ ‘behind every successful man is a good woman’ speech. “But more than that, he threatened to set me up with his nieces.”
Eleni giggled helplessly.
“What’s so funny?” He’d never seen her laugh so much.
“You should have started with that. What you need is a deterrent. You’re so uptight and wooden, Dominic. You hate crowds, and people and all the socializing. Galatis trying to set you up with someone ...” She started giggling again. “That’s your worst nightmare. No wonder you were desperate enough to come to me.”
He gazed at her in silence. She really had no idea at all.
When she left he contemplated what the hell he’d done agreeing to go to a wedding he hadn’t wanted to attend, with someone he’d been trying to keep his distance from.
This was not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.
Having Eleni by his side solved some problems, but it would create many new ones, too. He’d always tried to be a thousand times more careful, never wanting to be like the others, the ones who dropped their cheesy pick up lines, the ones who pawed her. He’d always done his best to keep his distance, until it became impossible to do so.
Situations and circumstances.
And now here they were.
He prayed he didn’t live to regret it.
* * *
ELENI
Demi Laskaris.Thiswas Dominic’s ex?
Eleni had waited to get home that evening to have a good snoop at Dominic’s ex online. Her eyes raced over an article about this socialite beauty who was marrying the nephew of Hector Galatis in a lavish ceremony in Santorini. Pictures abounded of the happy couple, but Eleni gaped at the beautiful woman who had once been Dominic’s girlfriend. She looked like a model. Even Helen looked like a model, though Dominic had taken pains to point out to her that there had never been anything of a romantic nature between them.
Still, Demi Laskaris and talk about the Galatis family and the lavish weekend of wedding celebrations gave her cause for concern. She was already an outsider and couldn’t imagine fitting into that type of lifestyle. She had no idea how she would smile and make polite conversation with the very group of people she despised; the reckless, having-fun-no-matter-the-consequences type of people who ruined lives and did not blink an eye.
The wedding was next weekend and she had nothing to wear. She rifled through the closet, but the only remotely passable outfits she had were the cocktail dresses she’d brought for her birthday. They were all short dresses, nothing elegant or smart—though she had her Audrey Hepburn ensemble which Dominic hadn’t seen. She needed to find something else because she was determined not to let Dominic down.
She flopped onto her bed, her heart thundering in her ribcage, just thinking about this new world she would be stepping into.
A world in which Dominic belonged, and she clearly didn’t. Always the waitress or the maid, never a participant in the world of the wealthy, and now she’d have to pass as Dominic’s girlfriend.
She couldn’t tell Stefanos, or Phoebe or Angeliki, because they wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t even tell Miranda because she and Dominic had agreed to keep this a secret between them. As if freaking out about the clothes and etiquette wasn’t bad enough, she also had to consider what it might be like to spend the weekend with Dominic.
After another sleepless night, she went to see him in his office again the next day.
His door was half open, so she marched right in, closing the door behind her. “I wanted to check on something.”
“More questions?” He looked at her in amusement. She was sure the corners of his mouth twitched before he cupped his chin and covered his lips with is index finger. “Or are you having second thoughts?”
“Not quite.”
“You have other plans?” he suggested.
“No, no, I’m free. I can come.” She wasn’t sure how to broach it.
He looked perplexed. “I will pay you.”
“For what?”
