Page 77 of Trapped By Desire

Surprisingly, she had left him alone. It was for the best. At least that was what Griffith told himself as he tried to focus on anything but the woman whose mere presence tormented him.

Fortunately, he had plenty to do, even without the modern wonders of technology. He had brought printouts of finances, shipping routes and summaries from each of the members of the executive boards, which he’d requested a month ago. Summaries that included what they had achieved during his sabbatical, what they wanted to change and, most importantly, what they wanted to see in the future. His father had done the company proud, had celebrated success even as he’d kept a constant eye on opportunities to grow. A continuation of the legacy Griffith’s grandfather had started when he’d turned a few shipping boats into an empire. A legacy Griffith was determined to follow.

You don’t deserve to lead. You’re not even half the man they were.

He smothered the intrusive thoughts. He hadn’t been deserving before. But he would be. He would never make the same selfish mistakes ever again.

Having work to focus on would also help him maintain control.

With that resolution in mind, he’d sat down at the oversize walnut desk, three levels of bookcases soaring up to the ceiling in front of him and the large windows overlooking the rose garden at his back. An ideal environment to jot down notes and make the most of his sudden desire to be productive.

Except every time he sat down to work, thoughts interfered. Thoughts of dark bouncy curls framing an angelic face that hid a surprisingly strong character. Thoughts of a slender body clad only in a blanket, the material following curves his fingers itched to touch, and long legs that he had envisioned, more than once, wrapped around his waist as he drove himself inside her.

Cursing, he stood and threw the pen down on the desk. It was only understandable, he reassured himself, that he was entertaining thoughts of himself and Rosalind tangled up in his bed. It had been well over a year since he’d had sex.

Was that why the attraction he was now feeling for the feisty and determined lawyer was so strong? So all-consuming.

He stalked to the window. Not only did he want nothing to do with her damned envelope full of papers, with resolving his father’s estate, but he also wanted—no, needed—to keep his distance from her and the temptation she presented. Jumping into bed with a woman he’d just met would be repeating his past sins. Placing pleasure above more important things like taking up the reins of Lykaois Shipping.

Or serving out his punishment for the way he’d lived for the past thirteen years. Focusing on hedonistic pursuits and material goods instead of maintaining a relationship with a father who had experienced his own loss.

A punishment that seemed all the more just when he allowed himself to remember how things had been before Elizabeth Lykaois’s death. Yes, he’d been raised in luxury, traveling frequently between his mother’s native England and his father’s home in Greece. But he’d never once doubted his parents’ love, had been secure in a way he knew few children were. He’d been drawn to the finer things in life. Belen had even cautioned him about his preference for new cars and dating around in his first couple of years at university. The tone then, however, had been one of paternal warmth, of sharing words of wisdom with a boy turning into a man.

Not the cold disappointment that had followed as Griffith had spiraled out of control after Elizabeth’s swift illness and shocking passing. Once he started, once pleasure eclipsed anguish, it had been impossible to turn back.

And every time his father had reached out, every time Griffith had been tempted to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with his father, he’d backed out of it, unable to bear it. His father had represented love, family. Things that demanded he open his heart and deal with his pain.

So he’d run. Run in the opposite direction and welcomed anything and everything that would distract him. And ignored, to his detriment, the small part of him that wanted to reconnect with his father. To grieve with his father.

A part he now realized he should have paid more attention to.

His lips twisted into a grimace. It was awful to have a life-changing realization after it was too late to do something about it.

Griffith glanced out the window at the gardens. They had been his mother’s pride and joy. When one of his father’s solicitors had shared the real estate listing for the chateau, his mother had fallen in love with it. The black gates had been rusted and falling off the hinges. The roses had grown wild, tangling over the sidewalks and up the walls. The mosaic in the grand hall had been chipped, some of the tiles missing. Even then he had been drawn to the modern, the contemporary, seeing more value in the designs of the future rather than getting stuck in the past. His father had been a mix, appreciating aspects of both history and the future. But his mother, while she had appreciated innovation, had been in love with history.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the chateau and all the loving work that she had put in to restoring it to its former glory. The year before she’d gotten sick, she had spent almost every waking hour at the manor, working alongside bricklayers and restoration specialists, learning the craft and pouring in as much of her own blood, sweat and tears as she expected from the workers.

At the time, he had been proud of her, with her dust-covered face and big happy grin as she stood in a pair of overalls. She’d held a paint roller in one hand and a glass of wine in the other as she’d celebrated the completion of the painting of the great hall with her husband and son.

Yet as his grief had taken over after her death, he’d come to resent the chateau. It had started small at first, wondering if she hadn’t been so caught up in the restoration if she might have noticed the little signs of her illness sooner. Then his father had invited him down to tour the finished home just a few months after the funeral. It had been too soon. He had declined, seen the hurt in Belen’s eyes. By not going, he had started a snowball effect that would affect his relationship with his father the rest of his life.

But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to step a foot back into the house that he associated with her. The house that should have brought joy and instead only served as a reminder of what would never be.

It had been around that time that he had thrown himself into what his father had described more than once as a self-indulgent lifestyle. The never-ending carousel of trips, luxury cars, yacht parties and one-night stands. By the time he’d hit thirty and realized that his way of life could only be sustained by buying more, doing more, to fill the always present chasm his mother’s death had carved out inside him, he hadn’t known any other way to exist.

And, he admitted to himself as he stared out the window at the roses, now tamed and flush with summer beauty, the thought of trying something new, of putting effort into overcoming his grief, had seemed insurmountable.

Coward.

A movement caught his eye and tore him out of the past. Rosalind walked down the steps of the patio and into the garden. She wore a creamy blouse tucked into a dark blue skirt that circled her waist and fell in soft folds past her knees. He did a double take as he realized that her feet were bare.

When he had realized that she had no clothes except the dress she’d worn, he’d gone up to the attic. His mother had never been able to resist supporting aspiring artists and designers, ranging from painters and sculptors to aspiring fashion moguls. Many of them had found their success under her patronage and had sent her gifts, including their own work, as thanks. He had recognized the label on one of the trunks, now an international fashion powerhouse. Knowing his mother had never even seen the garments had helped him steel himself against the sudden onslaught of emotion.

Also knowing that Rosalind would be wearing clothes instead of that damned blanket had helped as well.

She wore them well, he thought as he watched her move about the gardens, wandering along the stone path, stopping here and there to smell a flower. Casual, but elegant, they brought out her natural beauty. Her curls lent her a youthful air. But the confident set of her shoulders, the delighted smile on her face as she smelled a rose the same pale orange as the sky at dawn, made him all too aware of the fact that she was a woman.

She ran one finger over the petal of a rose. The sight made him hard in an instant.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com