Page 69 of Love Among the Ruins
CHAPTERNINETEEN
ELENI
Eleni was talking to Miranda over by the PA’s desk when Dominic barged out of the elevator and stormed into his office. It was the blackest mood she had ever seen him in.
She and Miranda stared at one another and it was a moment before either of them spoke.
“What was that about?” Eleni whispered. “Not another meeting with the great Hector Galatis?”
Miranda moved closer, like a co-conspirator about to drop a huge bombshell. “Alexander is in London.”
“And?” This was hardly the stuff of blockbuster news.
“He’s been talking to Hector behind Dominic’s back.”
Nowthismade sense.
“What a snake.”
Miranda nodded, the weight of the world on her shoulders, as if she were bearing Dominic’s pain.
“I told you he was mean.”
Mean wasn’t the word Eleni would have used. “No wonder he’s angry,” she said, softly. After their conversation in the car a few days ago, she felt oddly closer to Dominic, as if she understood him better. The sins of the fathers perhaps did have some bearing on what the children grew up to become.
Everything in her life, everything she was, the way she reacted to and dealt with events, was part of her upbringing. She had been shaped by her mother and by her life on the island, but the absence of a father figure must have had a bearing.
And so it might have been the case with Dominic. Having a successful father with great expectations, must have been difficult.
She felt sorry for Dominic and had opened up to him in a way she hadn’t with anyone, not even Stefanos. She hadn’t even told Stefanos about what her father had said.
Dominic had listened carefully, and he’d empathized with her. In those moments she forgot the blurred lines between them; that he was a billionaire boss and she was the girl from the island he’d felt sorry for.
He’d helped her, with this job, and his generosity, and now the man was hurting. She held up a finger to Miranda and waltzed towards Dominic’s office.
“What are you doing?” Miranda hissed.
Eleni knocked on the door and heard a grunt, then sailed in only to find Dominic shirtless.
Shirtless.
Her mouth fell open, and her brain cells froze; each and every one of them now imprinted with an unforgettable image of a topless Dominic.
With his back to her, he strode forward and reached into a cupboard close by, his thick amply muscled arm pulling out a shirt.
And then he turned and saw her, his face red, from anger or the heat, she couldn’t tell, nor did she care because her gaze slowly, inch-by-delicious-inch, raked in every dip and valley of his torso.
“I didn’t hear you knock.” A scowl dressed his face as he slipped on a pristine white shirt.
“I did,” she said, or she thought she did. Her ability to think evaporated as did the reason for her coming to see him.
His hair seemed damp because it was a darker shade of brown than usual. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to close her jaw, pressing her lips into a line in a determined effort to keep her mouth firmly closed.
“This damn heat,” he seethed, doing up the buttons of his shirt before tucking it into his pants.
“I knocked,” she said, attempting conversation.
“I didn’t say ‘Come in,’ he growled, reverting back to the other Dominic. Boss man.
