Page 138 of Love Among the Ruins
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ELENI
While she was thankful to be back at the villa, and it was good of Dominic to return with her, she didn’t want to stand in his way.
“You should go back, Dominic. It would be a shame for you to leave early.”
His mouth opened and emerald green eyes stared back at her. He cocked his head slowly, as if she were speaking in another tongue and he didn’t understand what she was saying. “Go back?”
It was still early and the party was going to go on all evening until the early hours of the next morning. “You can still meet your friends, and find Galatis and have fun, even if you don’t actually have fun at these events. I’ll be okay here. This is paradise for me. I want to make the most of my last night here.”
A vertical line formed between his forehead, the look he fixed her with made her insides melt. “I’m not leaving you.”
She feared he might feel obliged. “I might go back later ... I need some time alone.”
“Alone?” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
That filthy man’s words still resonated in her ears. Hard to shake, even harder to forget and impossible to erase.
Stepping into Dominic’s world had been enlightening, and for a few hours, she’d even felt a part of it, but Ioannis had been right. She was a fake. She did not belong. When she was with Dominic the world was hers to take and own and conquer. But Ioannis had reminded her that she was living a lie.
Dominic wouldn’t be her champion for much longer, and what had just happened was a way for her to come down and hit reality, hard.
But he was now refusing to leave her and return to a wedding he hadn’t wanted to go to but had changed his mind about, because Galatis had hinted he might be amenable to making a deal. She could not get in the way of that.
For all she knew, Dominic didn’t want to leave the party and be stuck here with her, but he had done so out of a sense of duty.
“You might be able to catch Hector. You said it would be good for you to talk to him if he’s in a good mood.”
“He’s with his family, and he’s busy. I’m going to let him enjoy his nephew’s wedding. I got talking to his wife earlier, and she told me she liked you. She said you were a lovely person. Told me I was a lucky man.”
Eleni raised a hand to her neck and grinned. “She’s a wise woman.”
“She’s a woman who fell for it.” Dominic’s hands still in his pockets, his stance widened, as if he were waiting for her to make the next move.
“It worked,” Eleni murmured. People had fallen for their fake dating, but not Ioannis.
Dominic examined her face as if he was weighing up his options. “I’m not going back. I don’t want to. Therefore, we are stuck here.”
Her heart blossomed. “I wouldn’t call it being stuck, Dominic.”
“I guess not.”
“I should get out of these clothes,” she said, feeling suddenly very tired.
“Me too.”
She managed a smile, and turned away, because if she’d spent a second longer gazing into Dominic’s eyes she wouldn’t have wanted to move either.
In the safety of her room, away from Dominic—and the danger of letting her feelings flood out—she leaned against the door and winced. She’d done something to her back when she’d hit that wall. Lifting her arm she reached for the pain point on the back of her shoulder.
Apart from that incident, by all other accounts, today had been wonderful.
A dream.
She had a feeling that Dominic was glad to be back, too, or maybe she hoped he was. The idea that they could spend this evening together, that he didn’t seem to want to go back, filled her with hope.
But first she was desperate to get out of the dress. Kicking off her high heels, she let out a loud sigh and sat on the bed massaging the soles of her feet. Then she undid her French twist, taking out the bobby pins and the hair slide. She hadn’t worn any other jewelry except for this diamond studded accessory, preferring a minimalistic style, in stark comparison to many of the other women who dripped with diamonds and pearls. Shaking out her hair, she ran a hand through it, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief.
