Page 82 of Love Among the Ruins
But having her in his house, and most likely overnight, was wrong. He had to be careful. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fight temptation, he could. Besides, Eleni wasn’t remotely interested in him. She was still in love with her boyfriend, or the memory of him.
He hoped she would lose the stubbornness and listen to him, and if she did, he couldn’t stay here tonight. “There is plenty of room. You’re not in the way or anything.”
“I should go back, Dominic. Think how this looks “
She was worried about that, too? “We’re not doing anything wrong. You’ve hurt your foot.”
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“I’ll give you one of my T-shirts. I can show you to your room. It’s the one two doors down from the kitchen and you won’t have to climb any stairs.”
She seemed to be considering it. “If I stay, I’ll have to go back tomorrow.”
“You can work from home tomorrow. I’ll have Kostas pick up your laptop from work and bring it to you.”
She stared at him in horror. “And tell everyone that I’m staying at your place?”
He made a noise in his throat. She had a point. He didn’t want to think what Linus might have to say about this. “Nobody needs to know. You can’t walk, Eleni. Even if you went back to your hotel, you’d make your foot worse by going up those steps. You’d be trapped inside.”
“I’ll be okay, Dominic. You worry too much.”
He paused, unsure what to say in response.
“Why are you so nice to me?” she asked.
He hesitated to answer. He could tell her part of the truth. “You fell down while rushing for my meeting. I’m responsible.”
“But I’m not your responsibility.”
“Your family and friends are in Spetses, so they can hardly help. I dragged you all the way out here. Stay tonight. I’m ... I’m seeing Helen, so I’ll be out late.” In case she was worried about being stuck with him at home.
To his surprise, her expression went blank, but he couldn’t work out if she was disappointed or relieved. Or something else. “Helen?”
“I need to eat first,” he replied, not answering her question deliberately, “and so do you. I presume all that sleeping and doing nothing has given you an appetite?”
“I am hungry. I could get used to this life.”
He smiled at her. Not wanting to make her uncomfortable, and aware of what had happened to her before, he’d already decided to leave her in the evening, hoping she would see that he didn’t have any underhanded motives for keeping her here.
* * *
ELENI
She was hungry. There was no denying that.
And she’d slept for hours. She had no idea how it was the evening already. She’d only just sat down to read after lunch, finding a book on one of the bookshelves, and then she’d fallen asleep.
By the time Dominic had returned, the day was still bright, but it was much later in the evening. It made sense for her to stay.
She didn’t care so much about being trapped in her room as she did about the thought of Dominic carrying her all the way up three flights of stairs at the hotel to install her in the bedroom.
There was no point going home now. If she’d had any fears or reservations about being here, Dominic had allayed them. He was going to see Helen. There was more to it than he had first let on. Miranda had been right. The tingling feeling which had started in the base of her stomach earlier when they’d spoken on the phone, soon petered out. There had been a change in how they were with one another. It was as if they’d gone to a different frequency, and the wavelength on which they were now talking made her more relaxed than ever around Dominic.
He gave her a choice of cuisines to pick from, menus, but had no menus to show her. “Surprise me,” she’d said, and he had. When the food arrived, there was enough for a feast.
“You eat this much food, Dominic?”
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered a bit of everything.”
