Chapter Fifteen
Three Days Later…
Poppy fingered the flowers that made up the bodice of her dress. She hadn’t thought they’d pull it off in time, this design of hers. A wedding dress made of flowers. But they had. A dress she’d designed for herself. Designed for him to see her in it.
And here she stood, wearing it.
Her stomach cramped.
She placed her palm there, to the hurt. Closed her eyes. Shut out the eyes looking back at her from the three large ornate mirrors reflecting them from each angled surface.
Her reflection knew what she tried to hide from.
Her reflection remembered what it felt like to carry a secret.
It was heavy.
It was pain.
Oh, it had hurt the little girl she’d been to look at her mother every day and withhold the truth.
Did she really think she could do it again? Look at Konstantinos every day and hide this secret?
Today, standing in front of all of them, it would be a lie. A lie she would be promising to keep.
It would make her a liar for the rest of her life. If she did this today there would be no going back on her lie—her promise—to maintain the marriage they’d had.
They didn’t have the marriage they’d had. They were closer. She was…
She loved him.
She should have trusted her mother to do the right thing for both of them if she’d told her the truth about her dad.
She did trust Konstantinos.
She trusted him to do the right thing.
For them both.
She had to tell him the truth before they married and were held together by the secret she would have to keep hidden for the rest of her life.
Her love.
She opened her eyes; met the older eyes of the woman she’d become in the mirror.
She didn’t want to be the little girl she’d been.
She didn’t want to live on a knife’s edge that one day what she hid would be discovered.
She should have told her mum.
She should have been brave.
The cramps eased in her stomach.
She stood tall. Straightened her spine.
She had to tell him the truth.
It was an invasion.
Konstantinos pushed his hands inside the pockets of his trousers and surveyed the army of ants beneath his window.
They were fire ants, in too big tiaras and gowns of silk.
They herded together dressed in costume.
Reds and oranges, blacks and blues. They left their boats at the jetty, landed in rows on the helipad, and in they swarmed.
He was surrounded from every angle. The island was being taken over by select journalists, celebrities, dignitaries, and business associates.
He’d invited them to gather. To attack as one. To bite. To nip at the bubble he’d trapped them in. Him and her. And now they were tearing it apart. Intruding on the life he’d hidden himself in for weeks with Poppy. Just them. And this…
He knew why today was important. He understood the stakes, but he didn’t want them here. He didn’t want to parade in front of them. He didn’t want to make her stand in front of them.
Poppy’s shuttered looks had happened more often these last few days. Her eyes had stared too long at him. And the kiss in the chapel…
She’s hiding something from you.
She wasn’t.
She was worried about today.
He snarled at them. Bared his teeth.
He wanted them to see. To be here and bear witness to the strength of the marriage they had probed in the press.
He hadn’t wanted them to receive a carefully organised selection of photographs; even the best photographs could be distorted by a journalist who wasn’t in attendance.
And the distortion would be classed as free speech—an opinion.
He wanted them all to know the facts. See them. They were strong. His marriage was strong.
But it was a violation. He felt violated. And he couldn’t explain it. He’d invited them!
His hands balled into fists in his pockets.
What was wrong with him?
All his life, he’d fought to project the right image. Of the right kind of man. But none of it felt…important.
He turned on his heel and made his way to the door.
He’d get this over with. Now.
Afterwards, everything would go back to how it was before.
He reached for the handle.
The handle was torn from his grasp.
The door opened outwards.
Flowers. Tiny white blooms, some closed buds, with the smallest green leaves, some open, made up the bodice of her dress to her waist. And then, like ivy, the flowers snaked down her hips.
Sheer organza silk flared there. Made up her layered skirts to fall to her feet.
Her silk pumps. More flowers. As if she took the world with her wherever she went.
Her footsteps cushioned by uncrushable petals.
‘Is it not bad luck,’ he asked thickly, ‘for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?’
‘We’re already married,’ she said, half turning, and closing the door.
He noted the twitch of her fingers. He tensed. ‘What is it?’
‘Konstantinos, I…’
His black gaze narrowed, burrowed inside the blue of hers.
‘Tell me what it is?’
Poppy looked at him. He was immaculate. His every hair combed to perfection. His grey morning suit, it all fit him like a second skin. She didn’t want to corner him. She didn’t want to fight. But it made her sick.
All these lies.
‘Konstantinos—’ she dragged in a breath until it fortified the walls of her lungs ‘—I can’t do it.’
‘Can’t do what?’
‘I can’t go out there.’
The pulse in his clean-shaven jaw ticked. ‘You are nervous?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Not of them.’
‘Then of whom?’
She bit her lip. She was nervous of the cameras—the eyes—but that wasn’t why she wasn’t going out there.
‘I’m nervous about telling you the truth.’
He cocked a brow. ‘The truth?’
‘It’s a risk,’ she said. ‘I know that now. I knew it when I was a girl. That’s why I never said it. I never told her. My mum. I made myself believe I was happy. Happy for my father to just be there. But I’m not happy, Konstantinos. I’m not happy to live a lie just because it’s easier any more.’
Dark brows drew together. ‘Who is telling lies here, agape?’
‘Me,’ she confessed, and she felt it. Something lifting from her shoulders. Easing the pressure from her heart. ‘I know if I tell you the truth it could ruin everything. But…’ Flashes of being all alone without him, of learning to sleep alone, of missing him tore through her. ‘I have to tell you.’
‘Poppy—’
‘Please,’ she interrupted. ‘I can’t… I can’t keep lying.
Putting on a show. All my life, I’ve put on a show for others.
I’ve lied again and again. And if I go out there, I’ll still be a liar.
I’ll be lying to you, because it wouldn’t be a show for me.
’ Air, too shallow, stuttered in between her tight lips. ‘It will be real for me.’
He stepped back. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I want a real marriage. A marriage we both deserve to have. A marriage with all the foundations we promised to each other. Loyalty, protection, and love, Konstantinos. We can have love, too.’
‘I don’t want that,’ he growled. ‘I never did.’
Poppy searched his eyes, his facial features, but there was nothing.
Not a frown, not a dip of his lips. He was pretending as if what she’d said hadn’t touched him.
But she knew him now. She knew how well he’d taught himself to hide his emotions.
Control them. But underneath the veneer he’d taught himself to hide behind, he was—
‘You’re scared.’
‘I’m not scared,’ he countered, his voice too stiff, too barren of anything.
He wouldn’t fool her now. She didn’t believe it. His indifference.
‘I’m scared, too,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve always been scared.
Scared to trust you. I was scared you’d betray me like my father.
But I don’t want to be scared any more. I trust you.
I know we’d never hurt each other on purpose…
What happened before. We couldn’t help it.
I understand why. Our parents. But I’m not them and neither are you.
We get to choose now. We get to have this.
We deserve it, Konstantinos, to have the family neither of us had with each other. Together. You and me.’
She inched closer, craning her neck to keep hold of his eyes. ‘I love you, Konstantinos,’ she said, and she waited, her heart beating so hard, so fast, for him to say he loved her back. But he didn’t speak. He looked at her. Regarding her with a wide-eyed contemplation.
He closed the minimal space between them. ‘How pretty you make it all sound.’ His hand rose. He cradled her cheek. ‘This love of yours. This life you want to give me.’
So desperately did she want to lean into the heat of it. But his touch, however softly he held her there, it felt off. Something wasn’t right.
She ignored it. Her instincts. She’d make him understand.
‘We can build it together,’ she told him thickly. ‘A new life. Without rules… A real fresh start.’
He dipped his head. ‘You say you love me?’
‘More than anything.’
‘And this love, it will protect those you profess to love. It will protect me?’
‘Yes!’
His lips turned upwards, but it wasn’t a smile. It was all teeth and the movement of lips. But it was…vicious.
Lower his head came.
Closer his lips.
‘Liar,’ he breathed into her mouth.
Poppy flinched. ‘What?’
His hand fell from her cheek. He raised his head. Brought himself to his full height before her. ‘It must be so hard, after your father, to differentiate when your truth is nothing but another lie.’
‘Konstantinos!’ she hissed, because his words—his accusation she was telling lies… It scrambled her thoughts. Stole her conviction she was telling the truth.
He turned his back on her. ‘You are a liar, Poppy,’ he said again, walking over to his desk, opening a drawer.
She squared her shoulders. Ignored her instincts to turn tail and run. Something brewed in the air between them. Conflict. She could smell it. Taste it.
She planted her feet. She wasn’t running this time because of her fear.
‘I’m not lying.’
‘But you are,’ he said, and slipped free a Manila folder. He closed the drawer, walked to his high-back chair made of dark wood. He pulled it out. Sat down. And only then did he look at her.