Bound to the Greek (12 page)

‘What about you, then?’ he asked, pouring them both more coffee.

‘I just started a new job and it has crazy hours,’ Alecia replied. ‘Which you’d know, if you listened to me for
more than five minutes. Honestly, Jace, you’re hopeless. Who is she?’

‘She
is no one,’ Jace replied, an edge to his voice. ‘Don’t start assuming things and spreading rumours, Alecia.’

‘Who, me?’ She blinked innocently. ‘Anyway, since none of us can do it, that only leaves one person.’

‘Mother?’ Jace guessed, and Alecia rolled her eyes.

‘You, Jace, you! You can organise a party. I thought we could have it out on that island villa of yours. You hardly ever go there, and it’s the most amazing place I’ve ever seen.’

Jace stilled, his face blanking. Give his father a party? A celebration thrown by the son who had been nothing but a disappointment? Such a party could only be an insult, a mockery, especially considering how strained and distant their relationship had been and still was. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Alecia.’

‘I know you and Papa have your differences, Jace, but you’re his son—’

‘I’m not the right person to do this,’ Jace cut her off flatly. He knew his sisters didn’t understand the tension between him and his father; Aristo Zervas had wanted to keep his son’s infertility—his family’s shame—a secret.

‘Fine, then hire someone to do it,’ Alecia replied. A steely look that Jace knew well had entered her eye. She wasn’t going to let go of this.

‘Alecia?’ He stopped as her suggestion sank in.
Hire someone to do it.
The words echoed in Jace’s mind, reverberated in his heart. He felt, bizarrely, as if everything had just slid into place. As if everything suddenly made sense. It was as if he’d been waiting for this opportunity, and now that it had fallen into his lap he knew just what to do. What he wanted to do, what he needed to do.

‘So?’ Alecia asked, sipping her coffee, her smile turning just a little bit smug. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think,’ Jace said slowly, ‘that it’s a good idea. And I know just the person to do it.’

***

Eleanor picked up another stone, worn silky smooth by the endless tide, and, aiming carefully, threw it into the Long Island Sound. Satisfied, she watched it skip four times before sinking beneath the waves. She heard the crunch of footsteps on the sand behind her.

‘You’ve been doing that for hours.’

Eleanor reached for another stone, offering her mother a quick smile. ‘It’s therapeutic.’

‘You need therapy?’

‘I live in New York. Doesn’t everyone there need it?’

‘Probably.’ Her mother sighed and sat down on the hard, cold sand. It was almost April, and, although the trees were starting to bud and daffodils lined the drive up to Heather Langley’s beach cottage, the wind and waves were still cold. ‘You want to tell me about it?’ she asked eventually and Eleanor skipped another stone across the water. She’d arrived at her mother’s place last night, and she’d leave tomorrow. They hadn’t spoken much beyond pleasantries; her mother knew better than to press.

‘Not particularly,’ she replied lightly. She knew her mother?and her mother knew her—too well to dissemble or pretend there wasn’t anything going on. Yet she didn’t trust her mother with the truth.

Their relationship had always been a strained one, marred by ambition and yet marked with moments of intimacy and caring. Still, it wasn’t enough to make her want now to unburden her heart and reveal her vulnerabilities.

‘Lily says you’re doing well at work. Amazing, really.’

‘Thanks.’ It seemed like the only thing in her life that
was
going right. Since Jace had left, she’d poured herself into work more than ever before. It grated on her nerves that her mother and her boss talked about her, checked up on her. It was ridiculous and even inappropriate, yet Eleanor knew she couldn’t tell either of them that. They were best friends, competitors and colleagues until a minor heart attack had forced Heather into early retirement. She’d left her job and the city and taken this cottage out on Long Island. Once in a
while she planned someone’s beach party in the Hamptons, but her career was essentially finished, and Eleanor thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to her mother? and to their relationship.

She sighed, sinking onto the sand next to her mother, her elbows resting on her knees. ‘It’s nothing, really. I’m just restless.’

‘You’ve been at Premier Planning for a long time,’ Heather said after a moment. ‘Maybe you should think about something else.’

Eleanor rounded her eyes in mock horror. ‘Give up my job? That’s the last thing I’d expect you to say.’

Heather shrugged. ‘A job doesn’t have to be everything. I know it seemed like it was for me, but—’ She stopped, uncertain, and Eleanor smiled to help her out.

‘I know.’

Her mother smiled in apology. There was still so much that hadn’t been said between them. From her fatherless childhood and her mother’s workaholic schedule, to the whole mess of Jace and her pregnancy?an entire language of loss and hurt that neither of them knew how to speak.

‘Well,’ Heather said finally, ‘a sabbatical maybe.’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘I’m okay.’ She couldn’t give up work; it was all she had. Yet she didn’t know
what
she wanted to do. Ever since Jace had left New York—ever since he’d kissed her—she’d been feeling restless and edgy and uncertain. Wanting something different. Something more. Maybe even wanting Jace. Yet she wasn’t about to abandon her senses or her job for some impossible dream, some distant fantasy that was never meant to be real.

Smiling, she stood up and stretched her hand out to her mother. Heather took it. ‘Come on. It’s pretty cold out here. I’ve got one more afternoon before I have to head back to the city, and I fully intend to beat you at Scrabble for once.’

Laughing, Heather let her change the subject. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

***

Monday morning came soon enough, and Eleanor arrived at work a bit weary from her three-hour journey on the Hampton Jitney the night before.

Shelley, the receptionist, rose from her desk as Eleanor entered the office. ‘I have your nine o’clock waiting in your office.’

‘My nine o’clock?’ Eleanor repeated. She’d gone through her schedule that morning while sipping coffee at the sink, and her first appointment was at ten.

‘Yes, he said he’d like to wait there.’ Shelley, all of twenty-two years old, made a swoony type of face that caused Eleanor a ripple of unease.

‘All right,’ she murmured, walking down the hallway. Her office door, she saw, was closed. Lily poked her head out of her own office.

‘I pencilled him in,’ she told Eleanor briskly. ‘Apparently he was
very
impressed. Would only have you for this project, and this time there’s no rush.’

Eleanor’s unease increased to foreboding as she reached for the knob of her door and turned.

‘Hello, Eleanor.’

Jace Zervas stood in the centre of her office.

‘W
HAT
are you doing here?’

Eleanor closed the door quickly behind her before her boss could hear any more of the conversation. Her heart was thudding heavily and her palms felt slick. Even more alarming were the sudden nerves that fluttered through her, making her tingle in—what? Annoyance? Anticipation?
Excitement?

She sidestepped Jace to move behind her desk, where she felt safer. Slipping off her coat, she felt a flicker of gratitude that she was wearing one of her smarter outfits: a cream silk blouse and a cherry-red pencil skirt, with nails freshly manicured to match. Her hair was pulled up in a sleek twist, and her appearance felt like both her armour and her ammunition. She used it; she hid behind it.

‘A party, of course.’ He smiled, but Eleanor thought she saw a shadow of something in his eyes—uncertainty? Fear? This was foreign territory for both of them. He’d shed his cashmere trench coat and wore a charcoal-grey suit that matched his eyes perfectly. His silver-grey silk tie emphasised their metallic glints, and Eleanor had trouble tearing her gaze away from him.

‘A party?’ she repeated, looking down to reshuffle a few random papers on her desk. ‘I hardly think I’m an appropriate candidate for—’

‘You’re the best.’

She looked up. ‘I’m not that good.’

Jace took a step closer, one finger to his lips. ‘Shh. Don’t
let Lily hear you.’ He smiled, teasingly, and Eleanor felt those wretched nerves flutter through her again, as flighty and feather-brained as the pigeons crowding Central Park, fighting over a few paltry crumbs. ‘She’s quite a dragon,’ Jace continued. ‘She was business partners with your mother?’ At Eleanor’s sharp intake of breath he looked up and smiled. ‘We had a little chat while I was waiting for you.’

‘I really think it’s better, Jace, if someone else organises this party. Anyway, I didn’t think you were even coming back to New York.’

‘This party’s not in New York.’

Eleanor’s breath came out in a rush. ‘Then I’m certainly not the right person to plan it. Everything I’ve done is New-York-based?’

‘You organised a birthday party in the Hamptons.’

‘Still city-based,’ Eleanor countered firmly. ‘The client lived year round in Manhattan. Anyway, it’s not worth arguing about. I don’t care if your party is in Times Square, I don’t want to organise it.’ Brave words. Brave sentiments. She wished she sounded stronger. Felt surer. In truth she felt horribly uncertain. Half of her wanted to leap at the chance of spending more time with Jace; half of her wanted to run away.

The contradictory nature of her own emotions was ridiculous. And annoying.

‘Actually,’ Jace said, smiling faintly as he watched her, ‘the party is in Greece. It’s my father’s seventieth birthday party.’

‘What?’ The word was more of a squawk. Jace’s smile deepened so Eleanor saw his dimple. She wished she didn’t. That dimple made him look friendly, approachable. Desirable.

‘Have you ever been to Greece?’ he asked as he started to stroll round her office, gazing at the rather pedestrian artwork on her walls.

‘No,’ she replied flatly. ‘In fact, I’ve tried to avoid the whole country.’

‘I think you would enjoy it. It’s beautiful this time of year. Not too hot.’

‘I’d hardly be relaxing,’ Eleanor countered, then wished she hadn’t. She didn’t even want to discuss this. She was not going to Greece.

‘Well, I don’t want to run you ragged like last time,’ Jace replied. ‘The party’s not for nearly a month.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I can’t organise a party like that from here, and I can hardly go to Greece for a month.’

Jace stopped strolling and turned around to face her. He was smiling, but his face still looked grave. ‘Can’t you?’ he asked softly.

Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed, a different kind of tension tautening the air between them. Suddenly Jace seemed very close, even though he hadn’t moved. Eleanor drew in a deep, shuddery breath.

‘Don’t, Jace.’

‘Don’t?’ he repeated, the word a question, and Eleanor shook her head. She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t even know what to explain. She just knew that seeing him again was both a joy and agony, the emotions tangled so closely that she could not separate one from the other, or from herself. She wished he hadn’t come, yet she’d been waiting for him to come.

He must have sensed something of her turmoil, for he took a step closer and said with a little smile, ‘A couple of weeks in Greece. Can’t you think of worse things?’

A couple of weeks in Greece
with you,
Eleanor amended silently. ‘I can’t leave my other clients for that long,’ she began, trying to stay professional.

‘Lily said someone else could take them. Laura or someone?’

Laura. Of course. She’d snagged her clients last time. Eleanor sagged into her chair as she felt the first flickers of defeat. ‘You’ve already spoken to Lily,’ she stated flatly and Jace shrugged.

‘How could I not?’

She looked up, her eyes wide and meeting his own directly, daring him to be honest. ‘Why me?’

‘Why not you?’ Jace countered quietly.

Eleanor swallowed, her gaze sliding away. ‘You know why.’

Jace was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was light. ‘I don’t know any other event planners, and I think you’re the best for the job.’

He didn’t want to talk about the past. Fine, she didn’t either, so she’d stick with the present. There was enough trouble with that.
‘Me?
How about someone Greek for starters?’ Eleanor drew in a breath, ready to launch into a tirade of how she couldn’t go with Jace, she couldn’t plan his party. She didn’t want to. She was afraid to. She
wouldn’t.

‘Actually, Eleanor, you’d be doing me a favour,’ Jace cut her off, his voice quiet and a little sad. Eleanor closed her mouth with a surprised snap. ‘My relationship with my father has never been—what it could be. What it should be.’ He glanced away, his expression turning distant, shuttered. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been a disappointment to my father, in many ways,’ he confessed in a low voice. ‘This party could help in healing our rift.’

This was more than Jace had ever shared with her before. About his life. About himself. She felt as if she’d been given a tiny glimpse into his mind, his heart, and it left her aching and curious and wanting to know more.

She cleared her throat, striving to keep her tone professional. ‘I still don’t know if I’m the right person for this, Jace… considering.’ It occurred to her that perhaps he’d never told his family about her. Perhaps he’d walked right back into life in Greece without a single backward glance or thought at all. Strange—and stupid—that it hurt to think that, even now.

‘You’d be helping me out,’ Jace told her. ‘Although I recognise that might not be a point in my favour.’

Eleanor flushed. ‘I don’t have some kind of—vendetta,’
she told him. ‘Really, Jace, the past is forgotten.’ It was a lie, but she said it anyway.

‘Do you really think so?’ Jace queried softly. ‘I know I can’t forget that easily.’

Eleanor’s flush deepened. She didn’t know what Jace was talking about, but she knew there were plenty of things she couldn’t forget. Like the first time he’d kissed her, after she’d given him a chocolate cupcake she’d baked, so that she couldn’t eat chocolate even now without thinking of that wonderful, breathless moment. Like how wonderful it had been to lie in his arms, the sun bathing them in gold. How he was the only person who had ever made her cry with joy.