Page 29 of A Diamond Deal
She’d let him put her in a room at the furthest point of the monastery when the doctor had told him she needed complete bedrest. She’d let him hire nurses to stand guard atherbed. Not their bed any more. Nottheirroom.
He’d played God from a different room—ordered her life into something manageable where he didn’t have to take an active part. He’d managedher. He’d pushed her away—forgotten about her—until she simply wasn’t there.
Until she’d run.
Her eyes travelled to the gold doors of the private lift.
She could run again.
She snatched a too shallow breath through her nostrils.
He’d find her.
He needed her back.
He needed her to lie for him.
But what didsheneed?
Not this.She didn’t want to be in the public eye again. She didn’t want to be his wife again, but maybe she was being selfish, too. Didn’t she owe him a little damage control? Didn’t she owe it to herself? To close the door on the last five years of her life and know she never had to open it again? Never had to look over her shoulder to see if her past was catching up with her?
She’d run away and buried her head. Pretended it would all go away. As she always had.
Konstantinos wasn’t going away.
Unless she…
She could let herself pretend, couldn’t she?Just this once.He was the Konstantinos she’d met so many years ago. She could appeal tohim.Offerhima fair contract as he had offered to her. She’d offer him a deal where everyone got what they wanted. Where everyone got to walk away with their pride intact.
And Léon?
Her heart clenched.
He was heronlyfriend now.
She owed him.
She would get him out of it, too.
She’d get thembothout.
Heart hammering, Poppy went to find her husband.
The corridor was a maze of doors, but only one stood ajar.
She moved towards it.
She stopped before it, raised her hand, formed it into a fist and…
The door moved.
Inch by inch, it opened.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, before he came into view, and she changed her mind.
He stood in the doorway. His jacket had been removed, another button on his shirt undone, revealing a dusting of fine dark hairs.
She swallowed tightly—ignored the embers of heat low in her stomach.
