Chapter Eight #2
The more he’d thought about it, the more he’d realised how much of himself he’d kept locked away from Genevieve.
Strangely, though, he’d told her many of the most important details of who he was.
Away from the glitz and wealth of his success, he’d told her about his father and his upbringing, his values and his life on the island.
To say she didn’t know him wouldn’t be accurate.
Not entirely.
They were seated at a table in the back of the restaurant, and Nikos chose to face the wall, ostensibly to give Genevieve a better view. It had the added advantage of giving him a greater chance of not being recognised.
As they sat down, he ordered pitta bread and dips, and a bottle of local wine, before turning his attention on Genevieve. She was regarding him with an air of mistrust. He couldn’t blame her. Not after what she’d been through with her ex-husband, particularly.
‘So?’ she prompted, toying with the napkin in the same way she had his sheets, reminding him suddenly of bed, with her, and the way their limbs had tangled as they’d made love, each as frantic as the other to be together, as though their lives depended on it.
He looked away quickly, swallowing, trying to control his body’s immediate reaction to that thought.
‘You were going to tell me about your wife?’ Genevieve said, voice slightly rushed.
He jerked his gaze to hers, nodding. ‘Yes. Isabella,’ he said, clearing his throat afterwards. He hadn’t mentioned her name to anyone besides his father-in-law in a long time.
‘You’re divorced?’ Genevieve prompted.
The waiter appeared then, placing the bottle of wine down, removing the cork, which he shoved into his apron pocket at the same time he removed his phone.
Nikos poured two glasses then sat back in his chair.
‘Well?’ Genevieve asked impatiently as she reached for her wine and took a sip.
‘I’m not divorced, no.’
All the colour drained from her face. ‘Nikos.’ His name was a plea.
At first, he presumed she’d intuited what he was struggling to say, but then he connected the dots and remembered what her loser ex had put her through, with his affairs.
‘I can’t—’ she whispered, taking another huge sip of wine before standing up and looking around desperately, then stepping away from her seat, as if to leave the restaurant.
He reached out quickly, put a hand on her wrist, holding her where she was. Her eyes flooded with tears and, God help him, the sight of her about to cry brought back so many memories of Isabella, he felt the bottom fall out of his world.
‘She’s dead,’ he said, the words catching in his throat. He hated to acknowledge that reality, let alone admit it to someone else. ‘My wife died, Genevieve.’
A single tear slid down her cheek as she stared at him, so close her leg brushed his thigh. ‘I—she died?’
He dropped her wrist and stared straight ahead. ‘A little over three years ago.’
He heard her move seconds before she took the seat opposite him again. But she reached out and covered his hand with hers, all soft compassion in the lines of her eyes. ‘And you moved to the island.’
‘I didn’t move to the island,’ he muttered, figuring he might as well give her the whole, ugly truth now. ‘I bought it fully intending that it would kill me.’
She gasped.
‘I deserved to die, Genevieve. I deserved to know the same pain and loneliness she had known. You and my late wife have something in common, you see.’
Genevieve was silent, staring across at him.
‘You were both married to bastards.’
She shook her head, instantly rejecting his statement. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I ruined her life,’ he said, the words pouring out of him now, so he barely noticed when the waiter appeared, depositing bread and dips.
‘I took someone beautiful, something beautiful, and destroyed it. And she told me. She told me again and again how miserable she was, how unhappy. I could have changed; I just chose not to.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Genevieve said, shaking her head. ‘You’re not cruel, Nikos. How can you blame yourself for this? What did you do to make her miserable?’
‘I married her, knowing she loved me with her dying breath. Knowing I was the sun and moon of her existence. I married her knowing that I would probably never feel that about her. And then I ignored her, focusing instead on my work. All I cared about was financial success. Proving myself to the world, her father, my father, may he rest in peace, to the men who took advantage of my mother, to anyone who’d ever doubted me.
Isabella was left married to a man who loved her as an abstract concept, an object, rather than through his actions. She deserved so much better.’
Genevieve closed her eyes and he was glad. He couldn’t bear the sympathy he’d seen in their depths. It was everything he’d hidden away from, that he knew he didn’t deserve.
‘Nikos,’ she whispered, when she blinked and looked across at him again. ‘You cannot carry this burden.’
He stiffened, pulling his hand away from her. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted sympathy. Nor because I wanted you to make me feel better. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I want. I intend to spend the rest of my life deep in this regret.’
‘Hiding away on your island?’ she asked, sipping her wine, her voice neutral and yet still, somehow, scathing.
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘Well, what good does it do anyone?’
‘I’m not seeking to do anyone anything.’
‘You’re seeking to punish yourself.’
He stared back at her, unable and unwilling to dispute that.
‘To what end?’
‘I’m sorry?’
She compressed her lips. ‘What does it achieve?’
‘It is less about what it achieves, and more about what I deserve.’
‘Fine. You say Isabella loved you with her whole heart. Do you think she would want this for you?’
He felt a muscle tic in his jaw at the sensible question. It wasn’t the first time it had been said to him. His father-in-law had implored him not to throw his life away in Isabella’s name. But it was what Nikos deserved.
‘Honestly, I think you’re doing her a huge injustice.’
He made a sound of surprise. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I was in a deeply unhappy marriage. I was young and na?ve when I met James, and I let him sweep me up utterly and completely into all that he promised. But it was a terrible mistake. You know what I did?’
Nikos reached for his own wine then, taking a sip, before he replaced it on the table and took a triangle of bread, spreading it generously with taramasalata then putting it on Genevieve’s plate.
‘Eat,’ he said, not even trying to keep the tone of command from his voice.
She glared at him. ‘Do you know what I did?’
He looked pointedly at the bread so with a dramatic huff she lifted it to her mouth and took a bite.
And despite the tenor of their conversation, his eyes clung to her mouth, her sweet pink lips, as she chewed and swallowed.
He looked away abruptly, barely able to focus on what they’d been discussing.
‘I left him,’ she said, eventually. ‘It was hard, and I had to basically sign my life away to get out, but I did it. Because I realised I couldn’t live the rest of my days like that.
So unless there was something you were holding over Isabella’s head, making it impossible for her to leave, unless you were making promises you had no intention of keeping, then I think you can safely assume she stayed because no matter what, she wanted to. Because she loved you.’
‘Yes, she loved me,’ he spat. ‘But I made her miserable. Loving me ruined her life. I should have left her.’
‘You don’t think that would have ruined her life, too?’
‘Then I should never have married her.’
‘Perhaps, but you did. I can only presume you loved her, as well.’
He stopped then, dropping his gaze to his plate as he thought of Isabella as she’d been then.
When they’d both been young and carefree.
‘Yes,’ he said, simply. ‘I loved her, but not how she loved me. Not enough. I did want to make her happy. It just turned out that there were other things I wanted more.’
Genevieve’s sympathetic expression had his gut turning.
‘Please, don’t pity me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want it, least of all from you.’
‘I feel like there’s an insult in there.’
‘I don’t deserve it from you.’
‘Please don’t let me become something else you beat yourself up about,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Nikos. Even not telling me about Isabella was your prerogative.
We were clear about the nature of our relationship from the outset.
Just because I opened up to you didn’t obligate you to do the same to me. ’
‘You were upset.’
‘Yes, I was, but both things can be true at once.’
He quirked a brow.
‘I was upset you hadn’t told me about Isabella, but at the same time, it wasn’t your fault. It’s just…one of those things.’
‘When you told me about your husband, and how selfish he was, all I could think was that I could give you something special. Something joyous. When you told me he’d never given you pleasure, I ached to offer that to you.’
‘And you did,’ she said, before her eyes widened and then blinked away. ‘Because of her,’ Genevieve said. ‘It was never really about me, was it?’
He frowned, trying to work back what he’d said.
‘You are so torn apart by what you perceive you failed to give your wife that you thought you could make some sort of amends with me. Right?’
He found it hard to draw breath. He thought about denying it, but why? She was right. He had sought penance, in Genevieve. ‘Two birds, one stone.’
She let out a low whistle and then glanced over his shoulder.
‘Do you know those people?’
He braced himself even as he turned around, to see a group of women by the counter all looking at him. When he turned their way, one of them snapped a photo. He grimaced as he spun back to Genevieve.
‘No.’
‘They seem to know you.’
He dipped his head in silent acknowledgement.
Genevieve’s voice was a little uneven when she spoke next, her eyes widening. He could practically see the penny dropping. Slowly, but dropping nonetheless. ‘But you grew up around here, so they must know you, or your parents…’
‘They know of me, not me personally.’
Genevieve sat a little straighter, voice strained. ‘Why would they know of you?’
‘Because I’m Nikos Konstantinou and in Greece, at least, that makes me famous.’