Chapter Ten #2
The yacht was the size of a hotel, and undoubtedly a significant investment. It made sense that he would maintain it properly, to make sure it didn’t lose value through neglect.
‘Is it always ready for you, like this?’
‘Not with champagne,’ he said, handing her a glass. Their fingers brushed and a thousand sparks ignited in her bloodstream, reminding her of the way she’d tried so hard, that first night in his cabin, to avoid touching him. Even then, she’d known there was something cataclysmic about his touch.
‘To our engagement,’ he said, holding his drink towards hers.
Genevieve’s heart lurched fully then, almost leaping out of her body.
She blamed a combination of factors. The champagne, his suit, the luxurious yacht, the warm, moody lighting, but, for the briefest hint of a moment, when he said the word ‘engagement’ a part of her forgot that it was fake.
And forgot that she never wanted to get married again, that she never wanted to put her heart and life in the hands of another person.
‘Fake engagement,’ she heard herself correct, with a tight smile that earned an answering flicker of his lips. Her heart twisted back into place.
‘Of course. There is nothing fake about this, however,’ he said, reaching into the breast pocket of his suit and removing a black velvet box.
Memories of James’s proposal slammed into her, and she hated that he had that power.
That he would always have that moment in her life, her brain.
The way he’d taken her to a celebrity-studded restaurant to make sure the moment would be captured on camera—a wonderful political opportunity for a man who cared so much about his image.
Bitterness washed over her, but it did not last long.
Not when she saw the ring. It was clearly an enormous diamond, but it was the lightest blue in colour, shaped like a raindrop. Her eyes lifted to his. Had he chosen it because of the rain that had fallen on that night? The rain and storm that had brought her to him?
Or, more likely, it had simply been what he could find at short notice. The gem itself was surrounded by a circlet of white diamonds, and when he removed it from the box and slid it onto her trembling finger, she fully appreciated the size of the thing, for it almost came up to her knuckle.
‘It’s…incredible,’ she said, staring down at it with a strange feeling that she might cry.
‘Your eyes are this exact colour,’ he said, putting paid to any idea she might have held that his choice had been random. Her spine tingled with an electrical current as he put the box down on the table and then clinked his glass to hers once more.
But Genevieve felt completely twisted, caught between the illusion of this and reality. Between what she knew had to be her path in life, and what she was glimpsing might just be her fantasy and deepest desire.
For this to be real.
She clenched her champagne glass tighter, a stern voice roaring to life in her mind, warning her off such foolish delusions.
She’d already had her heart badly broken by seeing things that weren’t there.
Nikos had always been honest with her—if not about his wife, about his unavailability.
No matter what she might feel and want, he was not interested in anything longer term.
She couldn’t get swept up in wanting more. No matter how tempting it was.
‘I’ve never thought of that,’ she said, sipping her champagne, simply to do something other than speak—lest the words she was thinking tumble out of her mouth.
‘It was almost the first thing I noticed about you.’
But he was making it so hard to remember that this was fake. It’s just sex. She had to cling to that lifeline, to keep it emblazoned in her mind. It doesn’t mean anything.
‘I thought you should have the ring on tonight, as we will undoubtedly be photographed.’
It should have made her feel better, to know that his gift of the ring was linked to their ruse, after all. He saw a weird sort of salvation in getting Genevieve out from under James’s shadow, and so he was going to play his part to perfection.
Because Nikos was driven by a torturous guilt, and in fixing this for Genevieve, he thought he could alleviate some of it. Or at least not feel more of it.
‘Do you find that strange?’
‘The publicity?’
She nodded once.
‘I live on my own, in a cabin on an island. What do you think?’
She smiled at that. What she wouldn’t give to go back to that cabin… ‘Has it always been like this?’
For a moment, his expression darkened, and his jaw grew tight, so she knew she’d hit a sore point. She reached out, putting a hand on his arm. ‘You don’t have to answer.’
His eyes lanced hers, his features grim.
‘It started with my marriage. I had been very successful, professionally, already, and Isabella…she enjoyed the attention that came from being my wife.’ He looked past Genevieve’s shoulder.
‘She courted the media, arranged interviews with high-end, glossy magazines, attended glamorous events and parties. It had the unintended consequence of turning us into tabloid fodder. As my business successes continued, and my wealth became unusual, the press interest likewise increased.’ He shifted his gaze back to her face, his eyes stormy once more.
‘And when she died, it was as though a pack of vultures had found a fresh carcass. They were everywhere I went. So I went away.’
Genevieve shook her head softly. ‘You don’t have to answer this, either,’ she said, moving closer because it didn’t feel right to have this conversation and not be touching him. ‘But how did she…?’
‘A car accident.’
Genevieve reached up and cupped his stubbled cheek. ‘Why do you blame yourself for that, Nikos? An accident is an accident.’
He closed his eyes briefly and she felt his pain as though it were her own. She moved her hand from his cheek to his back, curving it behind his spine and stroking him slowly.
‘She had been upset, on the phone, only an hour before she died. She wanted me to come home, but I was working. I was in the midst of negotiating to buy a string of golf resorts across Europe—I had been negotiating the deal for months, and it had come to the final stages. She was furious.’
Genevieve made a clucking sound of sympathy.
‘I grew up so poor, Genevieve. After my father’s death…’ His throat shifted and he shook his head. ‘On the island, you asked about the choices my mother had to make. I didn’t realise, at first, what she resorted to, in order for us to survive.’
Genevieve blinked up at him, waiting, feeling the way he was opening up to her, sharing himself.
‘Selling herself,’ he muttered. ‘It was her only option.’
Genevieve closed her eyes on a wave of pity.
‘I was too young to help, and she died before I turned my life around.’
Genevieve reached out, putting a hand on his forearm. His jaw only tightened.
‘Then all of a sudden, I was making money, hand over fist. More money than you can possibly imagine. I didn’t care about things like this.
’ He gestured to the yacht. ‘It was about each deal, each metric of success, that made me feel I’d come so far from the boy I’d been.
That made me feel safe, like I would never again know that kind of poverty.
I can’t explain it properly, but growing up like that, it shaped the man I am today.
No matter what amount of wealth I have, I have spent years feeling as though that poverty is right there, a shadow waiting to swallow me back into it. ’
‘I understand,’ Genevieve murmured. ‘Once my dad died, we struggled, too. It was such a stark contrast to how it had been before. So when I met James and he love-bombed me with expensive gifts and amazing experiences, I got totally caught up in that lifestyle.’
Their eyes held for a long moment of shared understanding. ‘But you walked away.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I walked away, because I couldn’t possibly stay. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that Isabella would have divorced you, if she’d been as miserable as you believe.’
‘The arguments—’
She sighed. ‘Arguments are just a way of communicating.’
He shook his head. ‘I never listened.’
‘You listened. You just didn’t agree.’
‘She told me what she needed.’
Genevieve compressed her lips, ignoring, for now, the glaring rejoinder: but what about your needs?
‘I still don’t know why you blame yourself,’ she said, quietly. Wishing she could fix this for him, with the click of her fingers.
‘She was driving to my office,’ Nikos said, after such a long silence Genevieve wasn’t sure if he’d return to the subject. ‘She missed a stop sign. A car was coming through the intersection and to avoid hitting them, she swerved. Her car wrapped around a pole. Isabella died instantly.’
‘Oh, Nikos,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes.
‘There was no investigation. She’d run a stop sign and died.’
Genevieve nodded, knowing he wasn’t finished yet.
‘When I got home, much later that night, I saw the whisky bottle, on the kitchen counter, with a single glass beside it. Her lipstick on the rim.’ His eyes were boring into Genevieve’s and, in their depths, she saw the plea he wouldn’t voice.
Forgive me. ‘I drove her to drink, and then she was coming to the office, undoubtedly to finish the argument I’d refused to have.
She used to hate that I wouldn’t fight back.
That I wouldn’t lose my temper.’ His face contorted into a mask of sheer pain.
‘You can have no idea how much that has tormented me. How often I have reflected on my choices, the way I treated her.’
Genevieve’s tears fell unashamedly now. She shook her head a little, unsure what to say. ‘Nothing good can come from hating yourself. You can’t change the past.’
‘I’m aware of that. And I’m not looking for anything good. In fact, that is the exact opposite of what I want.’
‘You want to be miserable and alone.’
‘As she was.’
Genevieve sighed heavily. ‘It sounds to me as though she loved you a great deal, Nikos. She stayed with you, when she could have left. You need to stop torturing yourself.’
But she could see by his reaction that he had no intention of doing any such thing. ‘Let’s go to dinner, agape. It’s time to let the world see you’ve moved on from your ex-husband.’
She didn’t dare ask if he would ever move on from his late wife. Besides, she had the answer, and it sat in her gut like an oversized lead balloon.