Page 185 of Love Among the Ruins
CHAPTERFORTY-NINE
DOMINIC
He was a billionaire’s son and heir to a billionaire fortune, along with his brother.
Moneyshouldhave mattered.
And yet, in the scheme of things, nothing mattered except doing the right thing. He knew in his heart what that was. It was to walk away from Galatis, and to throw away the deal he had been working so hard on.
He didn’t want to do business with the man. The cheating, lying, so-called family man with a wife and children who had then had an affair—maybe one of many—and who’d told his mistress to abort their baby.
The baby which had grown up to be Eleni.
There would be consequences for him. His father would be disappointed, but perhaps not surprised. Alexander would be rubbing his hands in glee. Dominic wouldn’t get the twenty-five percent stake in the business, but he didn’t care about that.
He could draw a line under this chapter and put it behind him. Forget about Eleni, the girl who had stolen his heart, without her even knowing about it. He could try to move on.
He picked up the phone, bracing himself for the confrontation that would surely come when he told his father that the deal was off.
* * *
ELENI
Eleni didn’t want to deal with Miranda, on top of everything that had happened. Having to explain herself, confess that she had lied and gone away with Dominic, and worse, had slept with the man Miranda adored, no. She did not want to face such questions. She already felt guilty, and wretched and a bad friend.
But Miranda had persisted, and off they went to lunch. Her insides churned at the way Miranda stared at her, as if she could X-ray into her brain and see everything that had taken place on that fateful weekend. Eleni blushed just thinking about it. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked Miranda.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Everything.”
She couldn’t lie or deny it, not to Miranda, and yet, she didn’t want anyone to know, not at the workplace. And Miranda was a workplace colleague.
No. Miranda was her friend.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Hector Galatis is my father, and I went with Dominic to the wedding, not Helen. I slept with him. I think I’m in love with him.”
She didn’t dare open her eyes, expecting to hear cutlery dropping, or a glass falling over, or some other manifestation of Miranda’s surprise.
But there was only silence, and the sound of cicadas in the midday heat. She opened one eye, then the other. Miranda was still eating. This was a good sign. Her appetite hadn’t been affected by this breaking news.
Then, after she had chewed her mouthful thoughtfully and swallowed, “I had a feeling something was going on. It was nothing you both said, but I sensed it. Looking back, it all makes sense, how you both left work early that weekend and came back tanned at the same time. You don’t have to be Hercule Poirot to work it out.” Miranda waved her hand between them. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m sorry,” Eleni said. Her appetite vanished in a flash and she couldn’t eat her lunch.
Miranda looked at the untouched fried zucchini balls and salad on Eleni’s plate, and Eleni wondered if her friend had even heard her. Maybe Miranda was suffering from acute heartache which had somehow rendered her temporarily deaf. “You have it.” She pushed her plate towards her friend.
Miranda gladly accepted it. “That’s how you stay so thin and me so—”
“Voluptuous.”
They smiled at one another.
“It just happened, I’m not sure how it happened...” Eleni struggled to find a gentle way to make her confession and wondered if she should stop talking altogether.
Miranda’s frown deepened. “You don’t know how you ended up in bed with Dominic and had sex with him? It justhappened?”
