Chapter Seven
‘I COULD WATCH you lose yourself to me all day,’ he said, darkly, lifting his head from between her legs to stare up into her eyes. Genevieve felt heat flush her cheeks—now not from the pleasure of what he was doing to her body, but because of the words he gave her.
‘I—’ The sense of embarrassment had her quickly shutting her mouth, flattening the admission she’d been about to make.
‘You?’ he asked gruffly, drawing his mouth to her thigh and kissing her there. Her fingers reached down and tangled in his dark hair.
She arched her back as a thousand and one fantasies whispered through her. What the hell? Wasn’t honesty her new policy? ‘I never knew sex could feel like this.’
He lifted up to stare at her then, bracing himself on his elbows.
In for a penny, in for a pound…
‘Until I met you, I’d never actually, um, you know…finished.’
‘You mean, come?’
He was teasing her, but there was something dark in the backs of his eyes, a look that spoke of repressed anger.
She nodded her head quickly, dropping her gaze.
His body moved then, shifting up hers, until his hard cock was at her sex and the weight of him was on top of her, all rough and muscly.
‘Your husband—’ he spoke darkly, thickly ‘—is a useless bastard.’
She closed her eyes, a strange sense of loyalty—ingrained rather than deserved—making her want to argue that. But how could she? Objectively, he was right.
‘You deserve to feel this often and always. Your husband should have known better.’ And he kissed her then as he took her, in the way she desperately wanted: hard, fast, as though they were the last humans on earth and this act alone could save humanity.
All thoughts of James fell from her mind as she revelled only in this.
Genevieve woke early the next morning. Her dreams had been a strange mixture of the past. Meeting James, their wedding, her mother’s strokes, and death, the hospital, the island, the storm that had brought her here.
She tried to turn over and go back to sleep, but her brain was too active, replaying things she would sooner forget.
James’s affairs. The headlines. The media’s calls to her—even from former students of her alma mater, who’d thought that might give them an ‘in’ with her.
The feeling of shame and embarrassment that the whole world must know her own husband didn’t even love her.
Eventually, she gave up on sleep, and paced quietly across the cabin, setting a pot of water on to boil, then making her way to the bookshelf.
She’d never been much of a crime fan, but she picked up the John Grisham book and read a few pages, before placing it softly back on the shelf and, out of desperation, reaching for the only other English language book available. Even if it was a recipe book.
She lifted it out, fingers flicking through the recipes, until something fell loose from the pages and dropped to the floor.
She bent to pick it up at the same time she became conscious of Nikos moving.
Standing and quickly stalking towards her.
But it was too late; she’d already seen it. Though it made little sense.
For within the pages of the recipe book, a single photo had been stored.
Of what looked like Nikos on his wedding day.
Her fingers trembled as she picked it up and stared at it, at the beautiful woman in the photo, with bright blonde hair and huge green eyes, and the kind of smile that could light up a whole room.
The woman was looking up at Nikos as though he was the centre of her entire universe.
‘Give that to me.’ His voice was hard, roughened by something—secrecy, pain, anger?
Genevieve’s stomach rolled.
‘Are you married?’
He took the photo from her fingers, and she offered no resistance, but she quickly stepped back, putting space between them.
His lips formed a grim line; he looked almost unrecognisable. No, he looked as he had that first night. Unapproachable and barely human.
Her whole body felt knotty and strange. If this man was married, if she’d unwittingly become the other woman, a source of pain to another long-suffering wife, as she’d been, she could never forgive herself.
‘No.’
Her heart twisted as her eyes lifted to his.
‘But you were?’
He reached for the cookbook next, and now when he opened it, she saw an inscription on the front page, where he neatly placed the photo before closing the book and sliding it back on the shelf.
He moved towards the kitchen, to make coffee, but his back was ramrod straight, his shoulders squared.
Tension emanated from him, no matter how he tried to hide it.
‘Damn it, Nikos, don’t you think I deserve to know?’
‘My marriage is my private business.’
It stung. It stung more than she could ever possibly admit in that moment, and more than she could or would show him.
James had hurt her so many times, with his cruelty and his coldness, and she’d become an expert at hiding that.
As soon as she’d realised he was trying to hurt her, she’d refused to give him the satisfaction.
It had been a sick, gruelling game, and she’d hated playing it, but at least it meant she was match fit for this encounter.
‘Suit yourself,’ she muttered, moving towards the window only because it was the furthest point from Nikos she could get. Her eyes swept across the view without her realising at first how far she could see. But then, it dawned on her. The sky was clear. The sun was shining.
‘The storm’s broken.’ And she wasn’t even regretful about it.
Anger and wariness were taking over everything else.
The sense that she’d put herself on the line, sharing everything with this man, even when she’d signed an agreement to prevent her from doing so, and he’d never once told her about his own marriage. His wife.
‘Yes. It stopped raining a little after twelve.’
She turned to face him, and just stared.
Because they both knew what this meant. They’d promised she would leave as soon as it was safe to do so.
Had anything changed? Maybe she’d thought so, at some point over the last two days.
But somehow, finding out about his marriage, that he hadn’t told her, made Genevieve doubt the sincerity of everything they’d shared.
And she’d been burned by falseness once before.
Burned badly enough to never trust again.
At least, that was what she’d thought. But she had let Nikos in.
She had started to trust and like him. To feel…
things that were too complicated. It was a salient reminder of why she needed to avoid relationships altogether.
Hurt was the inevitable conclusion of caring.
And yet still, there must have been a part of her that hoped he might want her to stay longer, that might suggest another day and night, because it took a huge effort not to react when he said, ‘I’ll radio Theo to send a boat for you.
It shouldn’t take more than an hour.’ And with that, coffee made, he stalked past Genevieve and out of the front door, presumably to the helicopter’s radio.
Her heart sank to her toes, even as she told herself she was glad. This was definitely for the best.
He placed the call to Theo then deliberately stayed away from the cabin, until he saw the boat on the horizon.
He knew that if he went back, he’d tell her about Isabella.
About his marriage, his regrets, his guilt, and that she might look at him with those soft blue eyes and try to convince him not to be so hard on himself.
He’d heard it often enough from his father-in-law, who’d insisted Isabella had loved Nikos, had understood his drive and commitment. He’d heard it from Theo, who’d known both Isabella and Nikos for years. He didn’t want to hear it from anyone else. Couldn’t they understand?
He’d neglected his wife to the point of her death.
He had been the cause of her misery and finally her loss.
But perhaps there was another reason he didn’t want Genevieve to know.
Because he didn’t want her to look at him and see that he too had been an absolute failure of a husband, in so many of the ways that mattered.
True, he’d provided financially, more than Isabella could ever want.
And their sex life had been decent, when he was home to be with her.
But the time she’d craved, the emotional intimacy, he’d withheld—without intending to—because his focus had been so completely on his fast-growing empire.
By the time he returned to the cabin, Genevieve was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing that first day, and her hair had been styled into a neat ponytail.
She looked so untouchable and sophisticated, so he craved to drop to his knees and remind her of the wildness that ran through her.
To make her scream his name, one last time.
But something had shifted between them, with the discovery of the photograph. Her eyes wouldn’t quite hold his and her smile, once glorious and glowing, was now brittle like an aged animal bone.
‘Is the boat on the way?’
He nodded towards the window. ‘It’s almost here.’
He didn’t look at her to see the reaction.
‘Great. I should set off, then.’
‘There is another path to the beach,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘No need.’ That same brittle tone permeated her voice. ‘If you just point me in the direction, I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t want your death on my conscience, remember?’
She flinched at that and he made an effort to soften his tone. But he didn’t feel soft. He felt the very opposite of it. Anger with his life, his choices, with everything, twisted inside him.
‘I will not argue about this,’ he said flatly. ‘Are you ready?’