Chapter Fourteen #2
All this time, she’d been pining for him, craving him, missing him with all her soul, and he’d been getting on with his life. Having paid off her debts, he’d clearly absolved himself of any thoughts of her.
She took a step backwards.
‘Hey,’ a woman snapped with annoyance.
‘Sorry,’ Genevieve murmured, holding up a hand.
But she needed to get out of there. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she fibbed, figuring there was no better way to clear a cordoned-off space than that.
Sure enough, despite the density of journalists, a path formed for her, so she kept her head down and moved quickly towards the edge, and then along the back wall of the room, head down, towards the doors of the venue.
Her heart was racing as she broke out into the warm evening air, her skin flushed, her insides twisting.
But her feet refused to take her further.
Her legs were shaking; her breath was hurting.
She looked around, in frantic need of a seat, and instead settled on one of the elegant pillars, to lean against. She pressed her back to the cool stone, and closed her eyes, as she tried to process what the heck had just happened.
And how she could ever, ever forgive him for this.
Nikos had seen her the moment he’d walked on stage, and it had taken every single piece of his willpower not to cut through the crowd then and there and pull her into his arms. But though he’d come to the States to see Genevieve, this was a presidential event, and he had no intention of being disrespectful to his friend and the holder of that office.
So he’d begun to speak about the cause, his donations to the charity, keeping his remarks as brief as he possibly could, all the while wondering what she was thinking, how she was, if she was looking at him and missing him as he was her.
He had no way of knowing.
Theo had been able to source minimal information on Genevieve, since her leaving Greece. He knew only where she worked.
Coming here like this had been a gamble, but one he’d had to take. Knowing how he felt about her, he couldn’t possibly let another day go by without telling her. Without being brave, as she was brave.
But the sight of her hastily leaving the venue had his whole body on alert. He finished his speech quickly, and slipped off the stage while the crowd was still filling the room with near-deafening applause.
‘Genevieve.’
She blinked her eyes open in anguished shock at the voice that had been tormenting her dreams, and her every waking thought, for months on end. She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, covering the gasp, the sound of shock, of pained betrayal.
It was too much.
She had wanted to see him so badly, but having it take place like this, as a matter of happenstance, because of some charity he was involved with, cut her to the bone.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, eyes filling with tears as she turned and tried to make her shaking legs cooperate.
But he was right behind her. ‘Wait,’ he said, and when she didn’t stop, his hand reached out and caught hers. ‘Please, agape. Give me a moment.’
Her heart ached. Agape. Love.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered, closing her eyes again as a tear rolled down her cheek. His touch was perfection, but it was also a cruel taunt. She pulled her hand free, and rubbed it against her thigh.
‘A moment,’ he said, moving to stand in front of her, his eyes raking her face with a look of deep concern. ‘I am begging you, Genevieve.’
She tried to swallow, but her throat felt completely constricted, her mouth dry, her brain hardly able to keep up.
‘What do you want, Nikos?’
A muscle jerked in his cheek. ‘That’s difficult to explain.’
Her heart tightened. It shouldn’t have been. If it was good news, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to say. You.
‘Can we speak in private?’
She looked around, for the first time becoming aware that the entrance to the hotel was far from discreet. High-profile guests milled, journalists too.
‘I really can’t,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘I mean, I can’t talk to you. I can’t do this again.
It’s been four months of torture, of agony, of hoping that each day I would wake up and not feel as though I’d lost a part of myself, and it’s not getting better.
It’s never getting better,’ she sobbed, taking a step back from him and twisting her engagement ring out of habit.
His eyes dropped to her hand, eyes flaring, and she felt the betraying nature of that gesture, and wanted to curse.
‘But seeing you again, it’s just going to make it harder.
I can’t… I can’t start all over again. I have to believe I’m making progress, even though it doesn’t feel like it.
I have to believe that day by day I’m one step closer to getting over you,’ she pleaded, as though he could click his fingers and make this all better for her.
Though she’d refused to go somewhere more intimate, Nikos moved his bulky frame to stand between her and the entrance of the hotel, effectively creating privacy for Genevieve by shielding her from view.
‘I have to go,’ she whispered, shaking her head, staring up at him imploringly.
The fact he was here in Washington, and she had no idea for how long, or where he was staying, or any of those vital details, just drove home to her how estranged they now were.
Her heart was bursting into a billion pieces.
‘Do you think I have not also missed you?’ he said, voice dark, as his eyes roamed her face. He was close enough that she could feel his warmth, and her whole body was aching with a need to lean forward and feel his strength, too.
Anger shifted through her chest. ‘What?’
‘I have been on the island, and you are everywhere there. You are in the trees, the sunlight, the sound of rain on the roof, the fireplace, the bed, you are in my soul, my heart, my very being. I have missed you, Genevieve, in ways I cannot even fathom. I have felt as though I am barely alive, walking this earth, having lost my true north, my reason for being.’
His words were everything she’d wanted to hear, but it was too late. She was so bruised and battered, she couldn’t forgive him for putting her through this. She’d given him her heart, and, vitally, her trust, and he’d wanted neither.
‘You came to Washington and happened to run into me, and now you’re telling me this? What if I hadn’t been here tonight? What if I hadn’t—?’
‘I came here for you,’ he contradicted. ‘This—’ he gestured to the hotel ‘—was a guaranteed way of seeing you. I didn’t know, otherwise, if you would agree to meet.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘But I’m not even meant to be here.’
‘I put in a call.’
‘You put in a call,’ she repeated, dumbfounded.
‘I know the owner of your paper.’
She shook her head, her brain not following. ‘How do you know where I work?’
A muscle spasmed in his jaw. ‘Your stories go online,’ he said, and she nodded, because of course they did, and they ran with her byline. A simple Internet search would have shown her pieces.
‘You’re very talented.’ She ignored the pride in his voice, the warmth she might have felt under different circumstances, and focused on what he was saying.
‘So you got me to come to a thing that my ex-husband would be at, just so you wouldn’t have to face the possibility of rejection?’
His jaw tightened. ‘You saw him?’
‘Yes, I saw him.’
‘And?’
‘And what? I told him what a jackass he is, how lucky I am to be free of him.’
The admiration in his expression was unmistakable. And damn it, her heart thwomped in response, warmth spreading through her that she definitely didn’t want to feel. ‘But you didn’t know that,’ she snapped.
‘Know that you are capable and brave, and more than a match for that weak-minded fool? Do you think I doubted that, agape? Do you think any part of me believes you are not able to handle anything life throws at you?’
Her lips parted. The sweetness of that spread through her and then burst into her belly, like fireworks.
She glanced sideways, needing a second to gather her thoughts, because being face to face with Nikos was making it impossible to think straight. She was unbearably torn between what she wanted and what she needed to do, between heart and head, hope and hurt.
‘It’s been four months,’ she whispered, lifting a hand to tuck an errant wisp of hair behind her ear at the same time he went to do the same, so their fingers brushed and her eyes flew back to his face, her heart leaping into her throat.
‘Four months,’ she said, imploringly, staring at him, as his fingers curled around hers and then laced through them, lifting them to his lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
‘Yes, it’s been the worst four months of my life,’ he said, eyes hooked to hers. ‘Like you, I kept thinking I would get past it, that I would wake up one day and feel like myself again, but I cannot. I will never get used to missing you, my darling, my love.’
She shook her head, willing herself not to believe it.
‘I was so afraid of hurting you. After Isabella, how could I trust that I would do what was right by you? Even knowing my heart belonged to you, I could never ask you to trust me with it, to trust me with your life.’
‘That’s my decision to make.’
‘Yes, it always was,’ he agreed. ‘And you made it. You gave yourself to me, and instead of taking that gift with both hands open, I fled, because even the remotest possibility of hurting you, of making you miserable, of being someone else you had to get over, as you have James… I ran from that, Genevieve.’
She closed her eyes. ‘You hurt me, anyway.’
‘I hurt us both.’
She bit back a sob at the truth of that.
‘I came to Washington because I needed to tell you that I was wrong.’
She kept her eyes closed. His hand squeezed hers.
‘I will never forgive myself for how I was with Isabella, but I’m not that man any more, and you are not her.
We are different; everything about us is.
With my dying breath, I will honour and cherish you, if you will let me.
Without me realising it, you have become the most important thing in my life, the only thing I seem to care about, these days.
All I ask is that you consider letting me back in, to prove to you that I deserve what you so freely offered, in Katanos. ’
She couldn’t bite back this sob. It burst from her as she opened her eyes and stared at him imploringly.
‘What does that mean?’ she finally whispered.
‘That I want to date you,’ he said. ‘That I want to cherish and adore you, to stand by your side as you make your journalistic mark on the world, supporting your work, your goals, being whatever you need me to be, until you realise that your first instinct about us was right. We are meant to be together, and I will be here, if you’ll let me, every single day, until you see that what we share is unique and wonderful—and truly meant to be. ’
A tear slid down her cheek. ‘And if I won’t let you?’ she whispered, hauntingly.
Grief passed over his features, but he rallied quickly.
‘Then I’ll still be here, just in case you change your mind.
If you need me, or want me, or just need a friend to talk to about your day.
’ He squeezed her hand again. ‘In whatever capacity you’ll have me, I’m here.
I love you, Genevieve, but I’m not stupid enough to expect this to be easy.
I recognise what it took for you to admit your feelings for me, to even feel them at all.
And I know what my reaction must have done to you. I am for ever sorry for that.’
Another tear slid down her cheek and this time, he lifted his spare hand to dab it away.
‘Can we start with you giving me your number?’ he asked, and her heart lurched, because it was such a tender, gentle, uncertain request, so utterly nothing compared to what Genevieve wanted, but a part of her felt the need to cling to her protective barriers, just a while longer.
Even knowing that he could obtain her number easily, through one of his contacts, she appreciated that he was asking her. Respecting her autonomy.
‘Yes,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘I’ll give you my number.’
He expelled a slow breath of relief. ‘And I’ll be sure to use it.’