Greek's temporary 'i do'

        'And now we welcome Mr and Mrs Liassidis to the dance floor for their first dance as husband and wife!’

        Leo held out his hand for her to take and if he saw that her fingers were shaking, he covered them with his own before the guests could see. Suddenly she wanted to be anywhere but here. She didn’t care about the money, she didn’t care if she failed as the charity’s CEO. She just couldn’t be this close to Leonidas Liassidis. 

        But she didn’t have a choice. He used her hand like an anchor and led her in a wide circle around to face him as the beginning bars of At Last, by Etta James played out across the reception hall. But when he slipped his arm around her waist, his palm splaying delicately at her back a shiver rippled through her. He couldn’t have missed it, yet his focus was firmly, almost disdainfully, on the guests. 

        And just like that she was a thirteen year old girl again and he was the older boy she had a crush on. The one whose girlfriend had spat venom and caused her friend to become a cold stranger. One who couldn’t bear to even look at her. 

        ‘And you thought I was going to be the one having trouble keeping up this façade,’ he whispered harshly, yanking her back to the present. It was all the warning she got before he pulled her against his chest, much to the delight of the guests watching on. 

        Her breasts pushed against his firm chest, the outline of his body indelibly inked on her skin. The heat of his palm on her back pressing her gently against him, keeping her there even as she would struggle. 

        ‘Just think of all the money I’m going to give you,’ he said into the shell of her ear, and she hated that he – clearly – thought she was nothing more than a gold digger. But he was right in a way. She did need to think of the money he was going to give her. Money that she would use to save the charity that had once saved her. She used that thought to give her strength. She needed to get access to those shares. And to do that, she needed this to seem real. 

        She leaned back in his hold to look at him in the eye. She removed her hand from his and curled it around his neck, placing the palm of her other hand against his heart. Whether he did it on purpose or not, in response to the shift in their positions, his hands came to hold her above her waste, just around her rib cage, the tips of his fingers perilously close to the underside of her breasts. 

        His eyes glowed, shards of gold pulsing deep within the rich mahogany of his gaze. She felt the flush of heat on her cheeks and ignored it, shoved it aside. Anger. It was just anger. Because as handsome as Leo was, and that was simply irrefutable, he was also a mean, arrogant, stubborn, nauseatingly rude, chauvinistic pig. 

        ‘You’re right,’ she said in response of his suggestion. To think of the money. To think of just how much he had undercut the price, to think of how little he thought of her that she would take his first offer. 

        ‘You, Mr Liassidis, are my hero,’ she said, looking up adoringly at the man she wanted to wilfully murder.