Chapter Nineteen
Rafael
The handpicked team of builders I got in to help me with Olympia’s studio have left for the day, and now I’m standing in front of the structure, going over it with an expert eye.
It’s been years since I’ve taken an active part in building anything—I leave that to my construction teams usually—but Olympia’s studio is different.
This is a special place for her and her alone, and so I wanted to help build it myself. I would have done the whole thing myself—it’s not as if I’ve forgotten how to construct a building—but I wanted to finish it fast so she can use it before the baby arrives, which meant getting in a team to help.
They’ve just put the roof on and we celebrated with beers all round, then I sent them home. My hands are dirty and rough from fitting wooden beams and nailing struts, but there’s a deep satisfaction inside me, the kind that comes from creating something, from building something concrete.
Something for her.
Months have passed since she chose me over her brother and I don’t recall ever being happier.
I don’t think about Ulysses Zakynthos. I don’t think about my revenge or my lost family, or my father’s blood on the floor of his study, not when she is all I think about.
And certainly not when the arrival of our child is imminent.
Yet no matter how happy I am, I can’t escape the feeling that all of this is somehow…
fragile. There are times when I catch Olympia’s gaze on me, something in it I can’t name, a kind of despair that makes my breath catch.
It’s fleeting though, there one minute, gone so fast the next that I can almost tell myself I didn’t see it.
I certainly don’t want to ask her about it.
I don’t want anything to burst this little soap bubble we’re living in.
After our marriage, I took her on a honeymoon back to Singapore and we managed to get some sightseeing in—when we brought ourselves to leave our hotel suite, of course.
We’ve gone on a few other trips since then, because she wanted to do some travelling before the baby is born.
We went to China, Japan, and then to the States, because I have an office in New York and thought she might like to see the Big Apple.
It was only after returning to Sicily that I thought I’d better start on the studio so she will have a place of her own to retreat to. Also, while I have a big workshop space, the jewellery-making equipment I bought for her is taking over and we really need it to have its own space.
The studio is coming along nicely and now we have the roof on, I can concentrate on the interior. I’m going to make her cabinets and shelves so she has all the storage space she needs, lots of little places to put things.
Just then, I hear a step on the brick path that winds from the house to where the shell of the studio stands, and I turn.
Olympia is coming towards me. Her hair is loose today, lying over her shoulders in a thick, glossy black waterfall, and she’s wearing a dress of blue silk that alternately billows then clings as she walks, outlining the dramatic curve of her stomach.
She’s nearly nine months now and our child will be here at any minute.
Every time I look at her, I feel a complex mix of intense excitement and fear.
I want to wrap her up, keep her safe and protected, yet I also want her with a savage need that borders on obsession.
‘The roof is on,’ I tell her, gesturing to the studio. ‘I’m going to start on the interior tomorrow.’
She glances at the studio briefly and then looks back at me. Her eyes are glittering and there’s something tense in her expression. Concerned, I come over to her. ‘What is it, dragonfly?’
She gives me a very odd, tight smile. ‘Ulysses has asked Katla to marry him. They’ll be getting married in Reykjavik at Christmas time.’
I search her face. Surely this is wonderful news?
I haven’t taken any notice of Ulysses in the past six months, though sometimes Olympia tells me what he’s doing.
He’s invited her back to Athens several times, but Olympia has always refused.
I’m not sure why. I’ve long since lost the fear that she’ll go back to him, and I wouldn’t stop her if she wanted to go. Not that she’d let me.
I frown at her expression, reaching out to pull her close. ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Her voice has a slight edge to it. ‘Except the timing isn’t great.’
‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘You’ll have had the baby by then, and there’s nothing to say we can’t travel.’
Her eyes are still glittering and her cheeks are pink. ‘“We”?’
‘Yes, of course “we”.’ My frown deepens. Are those tears? ‘Something’s upset you. What is it?’
She blinks and, yes, there are tears caught like diamonds on the ends of her lashes. She’s staring at me as if she’s never seen me before. ‘You really want to attend his wedding?’
‘Not for him,’ I clarify. ‘But I will for you.’
She continues to stare at me, then abruptly, she looks away. ‘You’re making this so difficult.’ Her voice is so soft I almost don’t hear.
‘What?’ I ask, a cold sensation settling in my gut.
‘Nothing.’ She pulls away from me and swipes a quick hand across her face. ‘It’s just…they didn’t get to come to our wedding.’
This time I’m the one staring at her. Something’s upsetting her and it’s not Ulysses’s wedding, I’m certain. It’s something else.
‘Olympia.’ I reach for her again, because I know she finds my touch reassuring. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
She doesn’t look at me and something shifts deep inside me, that sense of fragility, of precariousness.
For the past few months things have been good.
No, they’ve been perfect and I’ve been telling myself that’s what our life will be like from now on.
Yet, there’s a part of me that knows something is missing and that I’m lying to myself about it.
Olympia is happy, I’m sure she is. If I don’t want to acknowledge those moments when I see despair in her eyes. Or the times when I feel she’s pulling away from me, a distance between us I can’t bridge.
I reach out and grab her chin, bringing her gaze back to mine. ‘What is it, dragonfly? You can tell me anything, you know that, don’t you?’
She swallows and the tears in her eyes overflow. ‘Stupid pregnancy hormones,’ she mutters, trying to pull away.
But I won’t let her, the doubt inside me growing, a cold, sharp fear. ‘Is it the baby?’
She shakes her head, her lashes lowering. The tears slide slowly down her cheeks and my chest tightens, an unbearable pressure squeezing me. ‘It’s not the baby,’ she says. ‘The baby is fine.’
‘Then what is it?’ I can’t stop the rough edge of demand entering my voice. I hate to see her cry. I hate to see her in any kind of pain at all.
Her lashes lift, her golden eyes liquid. ‘It’s you.’
Shock slides through me. ‘What?’ I ask blankly, not understanding.
‘It’s you, Rafael. I told myself it would be okay, that time would help. That time might even be the cure or the antidote or…or something. But…it just hasn’t helped.’
I still don’t understand. ‘What are you talking about?’
She is silent a moment, then says, ‘I’m in love with you.’
And I blink, another wave of shock sliding like ice down my back.
‘I tried to tell myself that being here with you was enough,’ she goes on, her voice cracking.
‘I tried to tell myself that perhaps with time I’d either stop loving you or that…
that maybe you’d change your mind about me.
But that hasn’t happened and now…’ She takes a breath.
‘Now, my brother is marrying the woman he loves and. I… I lied to him. I told him I was happy and I’m not. ’
The shock is slowly dissipating and yet it still feels as if I’ve been struck by something heavy and my head is ringing.
Of course you can’t make her happy. You’re denying her what you know she needs. What you know she deserves.
Love. The one thing I didn’t want. The one thing I told her wouldn’t be a part of our marriage.
I knew what I was denying her, I knew it.
But I told myself that if I gave her whatever she wanted, a life of her own and all the pleasure she needed to fill it, she’d never need anything more.
That I could make her happy with that alone.
But I can see the tears streaming down her cheeks and I can feel the distance between us widening even further. And I can’t follow her. I can’t.
Didn’t you think this might be a problem? Didn’t it ever enter your head?
No. I didn’t want to think about it so I didn’t.
‘What can I do?’ I hear myself say. ‘What can I do to make you happy?’
‘I don’t know.’ She swipes at her tears again and I try to do it for her, but she pulls away, putting some physical distance between us. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ She takes a breath, then another, and looks at me again. ‘It’s fine. Forget I ever said anything.’