Claimed for His Duty. Tara Pammi

sixteen anymore so stop calling me a brat.

      “Secondly, not that I have to explain myself to you, I know how Giannis is doing. I speak to his nurse every day.”

      She instantly regretted her words when she saw the disbelief in his gaze.

      Turning away from him, she walked to the mini fridge in the corner, needing the time away from his scrutiny to compose herself. Grabbed a bottle and gulped the water down so fast that her throat burned at the chill.

      And yet she could feel the heat pooling under her skin as he watched her from the other side of the room, could feel an unnamed charge building up in the room...

      This slicing awareness of him, this reaction to his nearness...it was intolerable and utterly frightening. Stavros had only wreaked destruction on her life—why didn’t her body understand that?

      “You haven’t visited him once in five years.”

      Her chest ached at the thought of seeing Giannis. God, how she wanted to see that kind smile... Even through his heart attack and triple bypass surgery five years ago, Giannis had survived. She wouldn’t risk it by seeing him now.

      “My relationship with Giannis is none of your business.”

      His mouth stretched into a smile, the straight upper lip losing its severity in the process. “I’m making it mine.”

      “And I’m saying ‘No more.’ I have spent five years living a life you dictated, Stavros, down to the food I ate, the clothes I wore, the people I spoke to. Whatever you think needed fixing in me, it is fixed now. I want to lead my life, I want to build a career...” Frustration filled her throat with tears. “What more do you need to be convinced that I can lead my own life?”

      “Not getting a phone call from Dmitri that you are drunk and plastered over some boy would have been a start.”

      “I told you why I did that. If I hadn’t, you would have gone another decade without answering my phone calls.” She hated that her every action was being driven by him. That even in her own mind, she had no freedom. And it could not continue.

      “I have spoken to a friend of mine. Philip is a lawyer.” She stepped back from him, willing herself to stay strong. “I’m aware of my rights, Stavros. There are a hundred different reasons that could be cited and accepted by the court for a divorce.”

      “A divorce?”

      “Yes. I want a divorce. I want to never see you again. And I’m sure the thought of being rid of me forever fills you with happiness. So give us both what we want.”

      A small smile touched his mouth but didn’t reach that compelling gaze. Again, Leah had a feeling that it hid so much she didn’t know. “You have rights and lawyers. But it could take years if I didn’t agree, Leah. We could be celebrating a ten-year anniversary before we even get through the preliminaries.”

      “Is this what I have become for you?” Leah grabbed the edge of the desk to hide the trembling of her hands, a scream building away in her chest.

      Hot tears prickled behind her eyelids. “Someone to punch, something to punish eternally so that you can feel better about what happened to Calista? Believe me, I wish it had been me that ended up dead that night and not her. But you know what? Wishing doesn’t make anything come true.”

      Because even though she had never touched drugs in her life, she had enabled Calista that night. And that guilt choked her.

      For the first time that evening, or maybe in forever, he looked so shocked that Leah would have celebrated it as a victory if not for the gnawing in her gut.

      Slowly, he recovered, those long lashes hiding his expression. “I have never wished that you had died instead that night, Leah.”

      She didn’t want to believe him. But Stavros was never less than honest.

      Of course he wouldn’t have wished Giannis Katrakis’s granddaughter’s death. His control, not only over his actions, but even his very thoughts had always disconcerted and fascinated her in equal measure.

      He lived by such a stringent code of his own rules, and applied it to everyone around him that no one could really hold up to it.

      Not Dmitri, not Calista and definitely not her.

      Recovering from the memory, she shook her head. “Right. You didn’t wish my death because who else will you take out your sadistic side on if I were gone?”

      “You call the last decade of your presence in my life sadism. I call it masochism.”

      She knew, had always known, what he thought of her. But hearing it in his own words... Her fingers pressed into the glass in her hand, the urge to throw the glass, water and all, at his head bubbling up inside her.

      His amused gaze followed her shaky movements. “Try it.”

      The utter satisfaction in his voice got through to her like nothing else could.

      He expected this of her. He expected a juvenile tantrum and she had already catered to him today and for years. Every time he had warned her to not do something, she had done that and more. Had lashed out against him from the moment she had landed in Greece.

      Hating Stavros, especially when he had continuously given her ample reasons, had been easier than dealing with the grief and fear inside her.

       No more, Leah.

      There was power in that choice, power in saying she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right about her anymore.

      Instead, she took a deep breath, reminded herself why she was here. It would be great if Stavros released those funds to her. But she had known it wouldn’t be that simple.

      Any other man would have sent the woman he thought responsible for his sister’s death to the other end of the world.

      Instead, hours after he had buried Calista, he had bound her to him in the most sacred of bonds.

      She didn’t even care about the divorce. The mockery of her marriage had never meant anything to her. All she wanted was to succeed, to give her life meaning, to take the joy she had always found in designing and creating to the next step.

      “What do I have to do that you will release those funds?”

      “Will you do anything I ask of you?”

      Something in the silky tone of his voice—a flicker of interest maybe, nudged her into panic zone again. “My personal life is my own. Even with the shackles you bound me with, I have friends who mean something to me. If you order me to cut ties with them, I won’t.

      “Last time you cut off my friends from me and gained control over my life, I was...I was too...”

      “Too high to even notice what was going on around you?”

      She hadn’t even gone on the anti-anxiety medication that had been prescribed after her dad’s death, hadn’t wanted to numb the grief of his death.

      But it was pointless to defend herself when he had already passed judgment.

      “I know how much you resented my responsibility from the moment I stepped off that plane. It doesn’t have to be like that anymore.”

      Walking around the desk, he reached her side, and Leah fought the automatic impulse to step back, to keep some distance between them.

      With his Greek-god good looks and smoldering arrogance, Stavros had always made her feel like the proverbial ugly duckling, made her feel even more awkward than she already had, surrounded by her grandfather’s high-class society friends.

      It seemed like a thoroughly unwelcome awareness took the place of her anxiety now. The faint stubble on his tight cheeks, the perfectly etched curve of his mouth...

      The collar of his dress shirt was open, showing his olive skin. Holding her breath in, she pulled her gaze to his.

      Every