Chapter Three #2
‘There will be no divorce.’ His lips lifted to bare his teeth.
‘I am Konstantinos Ariti, your husband, and you will return to me. You will repair the damage you have done to my reputation. You will show them you are safe. You will show them I did not abandon my duty. You will show them I am the man who protects his own when they are weak—when they are sick. You will show them all you are alive.’
Confusion contorted her face. It was his ethos—to protect his people. It was what he wanted the world to see, even if it was a lie, but—
‘Show who?’
‘The press,’ he enlightened her.
She blinked rapidly. ‘The press?’
She hadn’t read a newspaper—looked online—in so long. Not since the photo of her standing on the cliff’s edge looking into the sea after the funeral.
She wasn’t going to jump.
She’d just wanted…
She didn’t know.
Standing up there, she’d understood why the monks had chosen the so very difficult to reach island of Sotiría to search for their sacred solitude. She’d understood why Konstantinos had renovated the abandoned white brick monastery to become their home.
It stood centrally within the green land mass, but hermitages—simple three-walled structures—were scattered throughout the island for when the monks had sat with nothing but themselves and the island for contemplation.
And she’d stood there outside of the three-columned walls of the one at the top, overlooking all of Sotiría.
The stillness…never had she known anything so absent of chatter.
But the island sang with a different noise.
The pine-covered cliffs, the white sands contrasting with the crystal-blue sea, they’d all hummed.
But she’d felt nothing. Not the wind throwing her hair into her face or plastering the thin cotton of her dress to her body.
She hadn’t recognised the danger of the incoming storm or how close her bare feet had come to the edge.
She had just felt…empty.
But their headlines had been cutting alongside the stolen image of her standing there…
‘You will show them you are, and always have been, safe, and are my devoted wife,’ he said, jolting her back from the cliff’s edge.
‘You want me to lie to them?’
‘Yes,’ he husked, his chest rising and deflating in short, powerful pumps of his lungs.
‘You want me to make them think we’re still together? Pretend nothing’s happened?’ She swallowed. ‘For your reputation?’
‘Yes.’ He stepped closer. ‘I had planned to spend some time in Paris,’ he continued, ‘to rejoin society after the takeover of Léon’s organisation, to change the narrative expressed daily online, in the papers, but now you will change it for me.
We will implement a PR campaign of you attending chosen events.
This will correct the headlines that you are hidden somewhere on the island because I have let you fall into despair.
You will show them that all you needed was time, but you are back, stronger, by my side,’ he snarled.
‘And you will start tomorrow, when we attend the première of Incapable de Voler.’
‘You want me to attend…’ she frowned in disbelief ‘…a play?’
‘Ballet opera at the Palais Garnier,’ he corrected. ‘A small select group will be in attendance. Important dignitaries. Celebrities. And…us.’
‘I can’t.’ Panic flared in her chest. ‘The press will be there in droves.’
‘That is why we will be there.’
She could imagine the cold and callous headlines about them. The articles ripping their marriage apart with horrible assumptions about her disappearance from public life. But she didn’t want to be part of their daily harassment schedule again. Ever.
‘I can’t do it.’
‘And why not, poulaki mou?’
‘Because too much has happened to paint on a smile and—’ she heaved in a heavy breath ‘—pretend everything is okay. It isn’t!’
‘You married me to help my image,’ he reminded her. ‘You will remain married to me to fix it.’
Something died inside her.
He’d searched the world to find her, but he didn’t want her to come back to him.
Had some part of her hoped he wanted her back?
No. But still, it stung. After everything they’d been through, he wanted her to play a part.
Put on a show. For his reputation. He wanted her to lie to the world to restore his image.
The thought of doing it—putting on a show of smiles and tiaras—and pretending her son, however briefly he’d been with her, hadn’t changed her. Changed everything.
He had.
She wouldn’t betray her son.
She would not forget him.
Not like…him.
‘I won’t lie.’ She shook her head. ‘Not even for you.’
You’ve lied before.
Shame heated her cheeks. She’d done it for her father. For herself, she corrected. But she didn’t want to be that person any more. She wouldn’t be her.
A liar.
Konstantinos knew the vague truth about her family—her father’s adulterous ways—but he didn’t know her part in destroying two families. And she wouldn’t tell him.
She couldn’t.
‘Is it a lie to show them how we once were?’ he asked softly. A voice intended to soothe. To seduce. ‘To show them how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other? How strong our connection—’
‘Stop it,’ she husked, because she didn’t want to think of the before.
It was done.
It was over.
They were over.
‘Is it so terrible to re-enact something that was once true?’ he asked. ‘We can jump back—rewind time to before—’
‘Isaak?’ His name flew from her mouth. She waited for him to say it back. His name. He never had after he’d gone.
Isaak’s name meant laughter.
Konstantinos had chosen it. A name he now refused to speak.
But she’d known when he’d walked into her room and announced it.
She’d known why he’d chosen it. Their childhoods had been void of laughter.
Of light. They both knew those truths about each other.
Both knew their childhoods were why they’d needed a marriage set within boundaries.
They had been so similar in so many ways, and yet…
She was different now. Before Isaak, never would she have cried.
Let herself…feel. But she felt. Felt too much.
And she couldn’t stop them. Feelings. She didn’t want to stop.
Her grief was her connection to Isaak. Her son.
To the love she never knew she could feel this intensely—this achingly—for anyone. But she had loved her son. Loved him.
‘We will spend the week here,’ he responded, as if she’d never said his name out loud. As if he meant nothing.
He’d never wanted a baby, she reminded herself.
But you did.
She hadn’t. Not until she’d felt him growing inside her.
And she’d sworn he would know everything she hadn’t.
Stability. No one would threaten to yank her love away from her child.
Her child would not have to keep secrets to earn her love.
She’d love him. Unconditionally. And then her stomach had been as empty as her heart.
And Konstantinos had just carried on. As if the death of their child meant nothing.
She closed her eyes briefly. Shut him out.
She wouldn’t think of it.
She wouldn’t let it hurt her while he watched and pretended their son had never existed.
They could never go back to their original agreement.
There was too much ugliness between them now. Too much unsaid. Too much pain. She didn’t have the words, she knew. Didn’t know how to explain how his indifference to what they’d lost…
It was a hurt he could never fix.
‘You will lie, Poppy, and you’ll make them believe it,’ he said. ‘Then we will go home.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Home?’
‘We’ll return to Greece.’
‘I’m not going back to Greece.’
‘But you are,’ he contradicted her. ‘And there, back in our marital home, you will prepare for an event. An event so spectacular—so very beautiful—for the renewal of our vows.’
‘The renewal of our vows?’ she repeated. Dumbfounded.
He turned his back on her. ‘We’ll leave no one in doubt about the strength of our marriage.’
‘Our marriage is over,’ she said to his back.
‘Choose any of the bedrooms,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Tomorrow you will repair the damage you have caused by running away from me without cause, and blaming me for something I did not do.’
‘We’re not finished talking about this.’
‘I am.’
He walked out of the door.
‘Konstantinos!’