No one else seemed to notice she was a phony, though. She received dozens of compliments and was warmly welcomed by everyone they met.
It helped that Leon never left her side, ensuring any awkward questions were quickly fielded and the conversation steered into neutral topics. Overall, it was a pleasant evening, and she was even invited to join the board of directors for the foundation that Georgiou’s wife ran.
“Do you want to do that sort of work?” Leon asked when she mentioned it the next day. “Because I have two corporate boards I could put you on immediately if you’re interested. Paid, not volunteer.”
“I don’t want you to give me some placeholder job out of nepotism.”
“Tanja.” He clicked off his tablet. “You have a degree in accounting. You’re not only qualified to provide knowledge and oversight, I trust you. One of the organizations I’m thinking of is run by a CEO who worked for my father. He wouldn’t be with us if I had reason to distrust him, but extra reassurances are always appreciated. The other has a young woman at the helm who has star power, but she could use support while she finds her feet. Having another woman with solid business sense as a sounding board would set her up for success.”
“You really trust me that much?” She was ridiculously flattered.
“Are there stages of trust? I thought it was one or the other and, yes, I trust you.” He seemed to brace himself. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course. I—” The words I love you caught in her throat, causing a full-body sting at holding back the enormous surge of emotion. Maybe she didn’t entirely trust him. There were levels of trust. She knew she was physically safe with him. She would entrust her daughter’s life, as well as her own, to him, but she wasn’t sure how he would react if she made her declaration aloud.
Actually, maybe she knew him well enough—trusted him enough—to be confident he would withdraw from such a declaration and look pained at not being able to reciprocate.
“You what?” he prompted, touching her cheek to coax her face up so she couldn’t avoid his searching gaze.
Her heart was right there, pounding in her throat.
“I do trust you. And the job sounds interesting, but what happens when...” She swallowed, voice fading to a husk. “When we’re over?”
A flicker of something bleak flashed in his eyes before he dropped his hand and hooded his thoughts behind an impassive expression.
“That could be a year or two from now. You shouldn’t put your career on hold if you want to pursue it. This would be valuable experience. If the postings interest you, take them.”
He sent her the details a little while later. One was a solar power corporation, the other a fair trade importer. Both were different enough from anything she’d taken on before to be intriguing and challenging. Commitment-wise, the demands would be light enough to fit around Illi’s needs and dovetail with her social obligations with Leon.
Things fell into place very quickly. Soon Tanja was dressing in a business suit once or twice a week to attend meetings. She spent another in jeans and a T-shirt, answering emails and reviewing reports, then put on couture for evenings with Leon. When he had commitments in Rome, they took Poseidon’s Crown since Illi’s passport situation hadn’t been sorted yet and anchored offshore.
When Leon had meetings in Singapore, he went alone. Tanja had feared she would feel like a guest if he wasn’t here with them, but the penthouse was beginning to feel like her home. Like their home. Illi’s room was a proper nursery with duckling wallpaper and an infant swing, a play saucer and every other toy Leon could find online. Tanja had a desk of her own in Leon’s office, and they often worked there very companionably.
She missed him intensely while he was gone, though, and had to fight saying so when he called her over the tablet. She missed him because she loved him. She couldn’t deny it when it overwhelmed her in waves of euphoric angst. When her daughter tried to drop her face through the tablet screen to get to him and Tanja wanted to do the very same thing.
Perhaps he missed them, too. He walked in late on a Wednesday evening when she hadn’t been expecting him until Thursday afternoon. He surprised her in her pj’s watching an old rom-com, fighting her lonesomeness with a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn.
He exhaled a huge sigh as he saw her. Before she could do more than set aside the bowl and rise to say, “You’re home,” he had planted a kiss on her that nearly made her faint.
Heart hammering, exchanging no other words, they peeked in on the sleeping Illi, then hurried to the master bedroom where they ravaged the hell out of each other. When he reached for the nightstand, she said, “It’s okay. I saw the doctor. I have an IUD.”
He fell on her and their naked joining took them to a new level of intimate pleasure, one that left her in a state of elation for days after.
Tanja began to believe he was coming to love her, too. Maybe, despite all the trials and tribulations and the five years of separation, she was married to her soul mate?
Leon sorted through the courier envelopes on his desk, separating out the ones addressed to him from the ones addressed to his wife.
He had half expected to feel bothered by sharing his home. He’d never lived with anyone so closely and had always liked his space just so.
Tanja was fairly tidy by nature, but her cosmetics turned up on his side of the bathroom sink and her purse landed on his desk and sometimes the shirt he wanted was already on her back. As for Illi, she had a very attentive nanny, but still needed a lot of care and attention, often at the most inconvenient times, and for someone who had only mastered rolling, she was very good at scattering toys far and wide.
He had missed that small sense of disarray while he’d been away on his business trip. He should have embraced the time alone. He’d always preferred to answer to no one, but he’d been irritated that Tanja and Illi hadn’t been able to come with him. He had felt as though he was holding his breath the whole time, annoyed at the way people rushed to do his bidding while each minute of the clock dragged.
The last thing he wanted was to become dependent, but he had rushed back early. Which disconcerted him. Tanja was the furthest thing from cruel, but she didn’t have to be. She had the power to hurt him anyway, and that knowledge, that anticipation that she would, hung over him like a blade that could drop at any second.
It whistled down upon him when he opened the envelope from Georgiou.
“How would you feel if I invited my father to visit?” Tanja asked, coming in while he was still absorbing what his lawyer had sent.
Leon’s blood was pounding so hard in his ears he barely heard her.
“What’s wrong?” Her tone plummeted into something cold and filled with dread.