Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
T HE KINDNESS OF strangers was something Lucie would never take for granted again. After docking in Kos, the captain of the supply boat, who must have thought she was some kind of castaway who’d ended up on Sephone by accident, had given her his phone and been happy for her to search the business number for Kelly Holden Design and then make a call to England. Four hours later, she had the last available ticket for a flight to London.
Her father, stepmother and half-sisters, all laden with luggage, all failed to spot her when she passed them outside the airport.
* * *
The package that had been couriered was nondescript. Just the ordinary white plastic packaging of a particular courier service. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the sender had known to send it to Kelly’s house. No one other than Kelly and her husband knew Lucie had taken refuge with them. If the press found out, they would descend on the Holden home like bees around a honeypot but with a much nastier sting.
They’d been stalking Thanasis for five days. She wished she didn’t know this but Kelly had loaned her a spare laptop and, like the masochist she was, Lucie couldn’t stop herself stalking his name.
He deserved everything he had coming to him, she told herself with regularly needed fortitude as she read article after article detailing the mysterious circumstances of the bride’s disappearance from Sephone, and article after article about the future of Antoniadis Shipping and the severe peril it had been plunged into.
Thanasis’s refusal to discuss the cancelled wedding only added fuel to a fire keeping the Internet alive with gossip and rumour. The few paparazzi shots of him showed a dishevelled man who’d stopped sleeping. Well, he wasn’t going to get any sympathy from her, not when she held him responsible for the purple hollows that had appeared beneath her own eyes.
Tsaliki Shipping wasn’t faring much better in the publicity stakes, and now there were rumours circulating that the missing bride had been forced by her evil stepfamily into marrying their enemy, and that she’d run away to escape her fate and was refusing to return to the Tsaliki family bosom. Her mum, Lucie thought, played the part of distressed mother quite well but she really needed to get some stronger onions to provoke better tears. As for Athena…
Athena’s actions had broken her heart, more so even than her mother’s had. Her mother had always been selfish and single-minded, but Athena’s cruelty cut deep.
Had she always resented her? Had her sporadic mood swings and bitchiness been symptoms of something that ran deeper than Lucie had known?
It was unlikely she’d ever know. She never wanted to see any of the Tsalikis again. None of them loved her. That was the truth. You didn’t treat someone the way they’d collectively conspired to treat her if you loved them. Lucie was expendable to them. She was expendable to everyone.
The package was still in her hands.
Some kind of sixth sense told Lucie what it contained and who’d sent it: the person whose very name it destroyed her to think of. And it was because of this sixth sense that she held off opening it until night fell and she was alone in the guest room with her ninth cup of tea of the day. It was the only form of sustenance her belly could cope with. Coffee turned her stomach. All foods tightened it into a ball.
At least she wasn’t pregnant. She supposed that should be considered a mercy. Certainly not something to feel wretched about. Hadn’t even been something she’d given two thoughts about until her period had started that morning.
Why hadn’t Thanasis used protection? It was the first time she’d dared ask herself that question. She knew why she hadn’t—because she’d believed herself in love with him. Love, marriage and babies.
None of these were things she would ever have now. To love, you had to trust and she would never trust again. When she was back on her feet—Kelly had given Lucie her old job back without having to be ambushed into it—she would rent herself a small place and get herself a cat. At least cats never pretended to be anything other than what they were. Yes. A cat. Maybe a new cat each year, create a collection of them, and then when she was an old lady and her hair all wild and grey, she would morph into the local cat lady and let that be her legacy.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. Lucie ripped into the packaging. Inside was a box as nondescript as the packaging. Wrapped around the box was an envelope with her name on it written in a penmanship she didn’t recognise but which still made her tremble.
She closed her eyes.
Box or envelope first?
Box.
And there it was. Her phone.
She turned it on and waited for it to power up.
Moments later and it was beeping and chirping like an aviary at feeding time.
Ninety-seven missed calls. Two hundred and nineteen text messages…
She turned it upside down so she didn’t have to see them and could ignore a little longer her friends’ entreaties for her to get in touch.
She would ignore any entreaties from her family for ever. Except for her dad. None of this was his fault. His only crime was to like order more than he liked his daughter, and she didn’t even think it was that he didn’t like her, it was more that he didn’t understand her. In his own way, he did love her, and she should message and let him know she was safe.
Duty to her father done, she held the envelope in her hand.
Now she really was shaking. The palms of her hands had gone clammy.
She ripped it open and pulled out the letter contained in it.
Dear Lucie,
Forgive me for going against your wishes in communicating with you, but this was recently found in my apartment’s car park. I admit, returning it to you is the excuse I have been seeking to reach out to you.
I know that much of what I’m going to write now is not what you want to hear so I can only hope you can bring yourself to read it, but will understand if it is too much for you.
I have been thinking a lot about our time together on Sephone, and, Lucie, they were the best days of my life. There is something inherently joyful in your nature that sings to something in me that is usually so serious, and I pray my actions haven’t destroyed this essential part of you.
You were right in saying I had a choice over whether to lie to you. I did have a choice and I made the wrong one. It is a choice I will regret until my dying day, and I will regret it not for what it’s done to me but for what it’s done to you. You didn’t deserve any of this.
I don’t know if you realised it when we were dining with them, but Leander was the host of the party I first saw you at all those years ago. Seeing you at that party changed something in me. I don’t believe there is such a thing as love at first sight but I have carried your image with me ever since, and now I carry you fully in my heart. You are beautiful, Lucie, inside and out, and you deserve the world. I just wish I could be the one to give it to you.
I’m sorry for the pain I caused you. I hope one day you find the courage to love again and I hope the man you find that courage with treats you with the respect and devotion you deserve.
I meant every word I said to you on the mountain.
I will love you for ever,
Thanasis
By the time Lucie had read the letter a fifth time, the paper was soaked with her tears, her face burrowed in a pillow as all the pain and anguish she’d tried so hard to contain purged from her.
* * *
Lucie lay like a starfish, unseeing wet eyes fixed on the ceiling, the ruined letter still clutched in her hand. All those precious words dissolved. All his precious words. All dissolved as if they’d never existed…
No, that couldn’t be true because they’d etched into her heart, just as the man who’d written them had, and the world turned itself back to the moment she’d first opened her eyes to find him there, and then it speeded up, reeling her through their time together until that final beautiful night, before he’d confessed the truth…
But what was the truth? That she should listen to her head and forget him? Or that she should listen to her heart, which knew she could live a thousand years and would still carry him inside its broken walls?
The only truth she knew for certain was the truth about how Thanasis made her feel, and the pain of his absence hurt a thousand times more than the pain of the loss of her mother and the entirety of her stepfamily combined.
As memories of their lovemaking danced through her mind Lucie lifted herself off the bed and opened the guest room curtains. The sun would soon be rising in Greece. Thanasis would watch it rise under a different sky from hers. And he would watch it, she knew it. He’d watch the sun rise and he would think of her. Every sunrise and sunset he saw for the rest of his life would come with memories of her because he loved her. That was another truth.
And there was one more truth. Unless she could bring herself to forgive him, she would have to endure a lifetime of sunrises and sunsets without him. She would be destined to live in perpetual winter like Demeter without Persephone, desolate and barren of heart and soul.
* * *
Thanasis showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, dressed, and styled his hair without any recollection of doing any of it. He fed muesli into his mouth. There was no point eating anything worth tasting. He couldn’t taste anything. Food had become fuel, nothing more. Most aromas turned his stomach.
In the back of his car, he stretched out his legs and flicked through his notes. He’d been up until the early hours preparing. Antoniadis Shipping’s major investors had demanded a meeting. In just two days, the fleet of ships would be delivered and the four billion would have to be paid. There was no guarantee that money would be available, not when the major investors were talking behind backs and working to their own agendas. He had a feeling today’s meeting was nothing but a courtesy. He’d warned his parents to start looking for a smaller home. A much smaller home. His sister was refusing to take his calls. One more headache he didn’t need.
The car pulled up outside his headquarters.
He rolled his neck.
Flanked by his lawyer and PA, Thanasis swept through the door and took the elevator to the top floor. Every employee he came across he greeted with his usual courtesy. He would not have anyone think he was concerned his world was about to be destroyed.
Besides, you couldn’t destroy something that was already wrecked, and Thanasis’s life was as wrecked as wrecked could be. If not for his family and thousands of employees, he would tell the investors to do whatever the hell they wanted to his business and then walk away from it all. There was nothing left for him. There was no life for him without Lucie. Only existence. All a man needed to exist were a roof over his head and three square meals a day.
But he would play the game one last time for his family and employees’ sakes.
The walls of the boardroom were glass and he could see them already in there, plotting over good coffee and fresh pastries he’d provided.
He shook their hands and took his seat.
The moment Craig opened his mouth, Thanasis knew it was game over.
Words were bandied around. English word salads. Corporate jargon to justify the cowardice. He tuned most of the words out, only the odd ones floating into his consciousness. Reputational Management were his favourites. Especially coming from a man Thanasis knew for a fact was cheating on his wife with their children’s nanny.
He made a half-hearted attempt to fight his corner but it was like a boxer already down on points in the final round with his opponent still fresh and bouncing in the ring.
He wondered if Lucie had found her bounce again yet. He hoped so. He prayed for her to have found her bounce again. The Lucie bounce…
The investors had stopped talking, their necks craned to a commotion occurring outside the boardroom.
Thanasis might be dead inside but he could still manage to raise one eyebrow as a sop to curiosity.
He started. Sat up straighter.
He could have sworn he’d just seen a curly black pineapple…
Just as he was blinking to clear his eyes, a tiny waif in a long flowing black dress, black jacket with crystals studded into it and chunky black boots ducked out from the crowd and, before anyone could stop her, flung the boardroom door wide open.
‘Apologies, gentlemen…lady.’ She smiled widely around the room. ‘I just need a quick word with my fiancé.’ Then, to Thanasis, she said, ‘Can you believe I forgot my security pass again? I’m so sorry. Honestly, I swear I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ Attention back on the investors, she tapped the side of her head. ‘Brain injury. I do not recommend. But on the mend now, so all good.’
Everyone’s mouth had fallen open, none wider than Thanasis’s. He’d lost control of his body. He couldn’t even raise his hands to rub his eyes.
Was he hallucinating?
At a speed that threatened to give everyone in the room whiplash, she turned back to Thanasis. ‘The medical team have just declared me fit to travel again, so can I borrow a helicopter to meet Griselda and get the wedding rebooked?’
‘Excuse me, miss,’ Craig, the Canadian investor, said, ‘but you’re Thanasis’s fiancée ?’
‘Yes, for my sins. I’m so sorry we had to postpone the wedding but I’m sure Thanasis told you all about my relapse. Thank you all so much for not tipping the press off about it—he’s been under enough pressure as it is without having to answer constant questions about whether the woman he loves is going to live or die. I really hope you’ll all be able to make the rebooked date—I promise we won’t make you wait too long. If I had my way we’d sneak off now and marry but my fiancé’s a traditionalist and insists on marrying me properly. Anyway, I’ve taken enough of all your time, so is it okay for me to borrow a helicopter, my love?’
But Thanasis was incapable of speaking. He was watching Lucie bounce around his boardroom, charming and amusing his investors, and was almost completely certain he was dreaming.
He was still almost completely certain he was dreaming when the meeting came to an abrupt halt, files were shuffled together, laptops closed, hands shaken, murmured awkward apologies for all his ‘troubles’ and then, in what felt like the time it took to blink, the boardroom was empty of everyone but himself and Lucie.
She glided past him.
He caught a waft of her perfume.
She must have pressed the button for all the wall blinds lowered. A lock clicked.
‘That’s better,’ she said happily, perching herself on the table beside him. ‘Some privacy.’
He just stared at her.
She slid her bottom over so she was facing him, and reached down to loosen his tie. ‘I think the words you’re looking for are thank you .’
But still he couldn’t speak.
‘I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’ve just saved your business.’ She smiled and pulled his tie off with a swish. ‘You’re welcome.’
Suddenly, she slid off the table and onto his lap, straddling him, arms hooked around his neck. The black eyes he’d never believed would look at him again were gazing into his. ‘If you ever lie to me again, I’ll rip your heart out before I leave you.’
‘My heart’s already been ripped out,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Good.’ She slid her hands over his throat and opened the top button of his shirt. ‘You deserve it.’ More buttons were opened in quick succession until she spread his shirt apart and pressed her palm to his chest, right above his pounding heart.
He closed his eyes to the sensation, still struggling to believe what every one of his senses was telling him, that his Aphrodite had appeared before him on her pearl shell and that the warmth starting to unfreeze the coldness of his blood was the warmth from her light.
The warmth of her hands palmed his cheeks. The warmth of her breath danced over his mouth.
He opened his eyes and suddenly she was there, solid, real, his love, shining a love he didn’t deserve into him.
She was here …
‘Did I ever tell you how my parents met?’ she said quietly, bringing the tip of her nose to his. ‘Mum was a receptionist at Dad’s accountancy firm. I think her glamour temporarily blinded him. And that’s how I came to be made.
‘Dad was Georgios’s UK accountant. He did some clever accounting that saved Georgios millions in taxes. To thank him and to celebrate, Georgios insisted on taking the whole firm and their partners out to dinner.’
‘He stole your mother from him whilst thanking him?’ he whispered, finally bringing his hand to her face.
‘If I know my mum, she played an active part in this stealing and, I’m quite sure Dad was secretly glad when she went—I honestly cannot think of two people less compatible.’ Her beautiful mouth brushed against his, hands winding round to bury into his hair before she pulled her face back enough to look at him. ‘I didn’t fit in with either of them or their new families. I tried. I think they tried. But ultimately, my existence has been spent being pulled by fundamentally different parents from fundamentally different worlds. Neither of them wanted to see me as my own person but as an extension of themselves. You, my love, see me exactly as I am and you love me for it, and I fit in with you . I belong with you, Thanasis, and if I don’t give us the chance we deserve to build something true with all our cards on the table and complete honesty between us, then I will spend the rest of my life regretting it. You are mine and I am yours. The lies you told, they weren’t selfish lies. Mum told me those lies for wicked, selfish reasons, because she’d rather destroy her own daughter than lose her lifestyle, but you didn’t—you did it for your family. Because you love them. And your guilt over it…’ She pressed another gentle kiss to his mouth and sighed. ‘I know you felt guilt. I’ve relived every minute of our time together and I know the lies were eating you up.’
There was a burning sensation in the backs of his eyes. ‘I love you, Lucie, and I am so sorry for everything.’
‘I know you do and I know you are, and I know in my heart that we both deserve another chance to find that happiness we were just beginning to create together. When I saw how close you were to losing everything… I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done something. I wanted to save you, just as you’ve been trying to save everything for your family, because I love you .’
She did. He could see it so clearly. A love worth more than all the stars in the sky and all the billions in the world.
He gathered a bunch of soft black curls in his hand and shuddered at how close he’d come to never having touched them again. ‘I will never hurt you again. I swear. You are everything to me, Lucie. My whole world.’
Her smile was the sweetest, softest smile in the world. ‘I know. And you’re my world too.’
‘Never leave me.’
‘Never.’
And then her mouth fused to his in a kiss that sealed their hearts together for ever.