Chapter Eleven
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE night had been scripted to perfection.
From the limousine that had whisked them through the streets of Athens to one of the most prestigious restaurants in the city, with striking views of the Parthenon, and the golden glowing city beyond.
Whether by request or happenstance, they had been placed on an intimate table on a private balcony, with overhead heating to keep them toasty warm.
It hadn’t been necessary. Just the way Nikos’s legs had brushed hers had lit a fire in Genevieve’s soul that only he could extinguish—later, in his own, sweet time.
Though their table had been private, their entry to the restaurant had taken them past a dozen paparazzi, and once inside, she’d been aware of several patrons surreptitiously lifting their phones to snatch photos of the reclusive Greek billionaire and the woman on his arm.
Genevieve realised later that the way she’d held his forearm would have displayed her engagement ring—without her intending to—to perfection, leaving no one in any doubt as to what their relationship was.
There was also the possessive way Nikos had kept an arm around her waist as they’d left the restaurant, and Genevieve had leaned into his warm side, not caring about the photographers so much as being near him.
The same car had returned them to the marina, to her surprise, where they’d boarded the yacht using the side-facing gangplank. Once they were onboard, it had been retracted, giving them total privacy and security.
‘Is this where you stay, when you come to Athens?’ she asked as he brewed a pot of dark coffee and came to sit on the sofa beside her.
He poured two small cups of the sticky, dark liquid, then sat back in the seat, casually draping his arm along the back so his fingers brushed her shoulder and she tingled.
She hesitated for only the briefest moment before curling her legs up beside her and leaning close to him, her eyes fanning shut as she listened to the solid beating of his heart.
‘No. In fact, I’ve never stayed here before.’
She opened her eyes and glanced up at him. ‘Oh. Why not?’
He held her gaze a long moment, then reached for his coffee, taking a sip.
He placed the cup on his knee, before returning his eyes to her face.
‘I bought the yacht a month before the accident.’ His voice had a hoarse quality to it.
‘It was intended as a gift, for Isabella.’ He closed his eyes then.
‘A guilt gift. I knew she wasn’t happy, that she liked nice things. I thought—’
Genevieve nodded. She understood. His guilt and grief, the knowledge that he had made the wrong choices then.
‘I was trying to keep the peace.’
‘And she didn’t like it?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to give it to her. I kept waiting for the right moment—a day in which we didn’t argue, a moment when things felt as they once had. Happy and normal, easy. It never came.’
Genevieve placed her hand on his taut, muscular abdomen, inwardly marvelling at the sheer strength of this man.
‘So where do you stay?’ she asked, rather than pushing him to continue talking about his wife.
She felt him tighten, his belly drawing inwards as though he’d taken a deep breath. ‘Our home.’
Her heart wrenched at the pain loaded into those two simple words.
‘You lived in Athens?’
He nodded once.
‘What’s it like?’
‘Exactly as it was, before she died,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t go there often. I can’t bear to. But there are certain dates in the year when it feels right to remember.’
‘To remember your wife, or remember what you perceive you did to her?’
His eyes showed surprise at her perceptiveness. ‘Both,’ he admitted, after a beat. ‘Mainly the latter. It is hard to allow myself to remember her without also recalling the pain I inflicted, by being so careless.’
Genevieve shook her head. ‘You know, I wonder if your memory is a little flawed.’
‘It’s not, believe me.’
‘I believe you’re remembering things as you think they were, but our memories are fallible, shaped by our present perceptions. I’ve known you less than a week, yet I know you’re not the kind of person who’d willingly, knowingly hurt another.’
A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘She told me how she felt. I refused to listen.’
‘Did she listen to how you felt?’ Genevieve said, gently, aware that the last thing she wanted to do was criticise his poor, late wife. ‘Did your wants change from when you were dating, to married? Or were you always a workaholic?’
He glanced away, towards the windows.
‘Because it sounds to me like she knew what she was getting, and just wanted you to be different, once you were married. People don’t change.’
‘No,’ he agreed, gruffly. ‘They don’t.’ His hand moved to her hair, gently running over it. She shivered at the small, intimate gesture. ‘I wish I had, though.’
‘She loved you, Nikos. She stayed with you; she fought to be with you. There was enough in your marriage to make her want to stay. Take it from someone who spent almost every day of her marriage planning to leave. Hold onto that, not the arguments, not the blame. Focus on the good memories—I’m convinced that’s what she would have wanted. ’
He stood then, abruptly, unsettling her as he strode across the room and placed his coffee cup down on a side table, and stared out of the glass windows that showed a view of the distant city.
His back moved with each intake of breath.
Then, slowly, he turned to face her, his whole body radiating tension.
‘I want to help you, Genevieve. I hate what your ex is doing to you. But for the duration of this fake engagement, let us agree that you will not try to make me feel better about my own failings. I do not need it; I do not want it.’
She ran the gamut of emotions. At first, it was easy to feel hurt.
She’d been coldly rejected by James so many times that her first instinct was to see the same treatment in Nikos.
Except there was nothing cold in Nikos, nor his words.
For all he was holding onto his emotions with ruthless self-control, she could sense his feelings thrumming around the cabin.
The desperation with which he clung to his guilt, almost as a protective mechanism to save him from fully feeling grief.
He was using his wife’s death as an excuse, to stop him from moving on with his life, and to protect himself from ever loving—and losing—another person.
She could see it so clearly, all of a sudden, and the fact he had his head in the sand about it infuriated her.
So much so she stood, and weaved through the furniture, cutting across to him in a scant few seconds, and trying to rally her thoughts.
Trying to calm down, as well, to remember that, in her marriage, she had become expert at holding her temper and her tongue.
Those skills seemed to have deserted her now.
‘I don’t appreciate being told how I can act,’ she said, the words calm enough, though they vibrated slightly. ‘James spent our entire marriage sculpting my behaviour and personality, to be the perfect political wife. I will not endure the same from you.’
‘You are not my wife,’ he pointed out, and now she fully understood what he was doing.
Picking a fight with her to push her away.
Denying that there was anything real in this relationship because he couldn’t bear to face the alternative: that something was happening between them neither wanted nor had expected.
Genevieve was terrified of that, too, but at least she was willing to face it head-on.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m a grown woman, intelligent and perceptive and I can say whatever I want,’ she said.
‘You are being so selfish, to wallow in guilt and consign your wife’s memory to that alone.
Why not talk about how wonderful she was?
How clever and loyal, talk about her goals and aspirations?
Why dwell only on your guilt? On what you think you did wrong, and the arguments that led you to have? ’
‘Don’t,’ he ground out, eyes boring into hers.
But she lifted a hand to his chest, her fingers splayed wide. ‘You can’t process her loss. You’re just treading water, keeping your head in the sand, because you’re afraid to move on.’
His nostrils flared. ‘What gives you any right to think you know so much about me? We’ve just met.’
‘Am I wrong?’ she demanded, lifting up onto her tiptoes and grabbing his face with both hands, holding him still, their eyes locked.
His lips parted on a rush of breath.
‘Am I wrong?’ she repeated fiercely.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, dropping his head, so their mouths were almost touching. ‘Whether you are right or wrong, it is my life, and how I choose to live it is my business. I would ask you again to keep your opinions on this matter to yourself.’
And before she could answer, he was kissing her with all the pent-up passion, frustration, grief, guilt and need that was flooding his system, kissing her as though it could somehow fix everything.
And she was kissing him back in the same way, her mouth mashing to his, their tongues meshing, teeth clashing as they let passion control them completely.
His hands, so big, broad and strong, curved around her bottom and pushed her against his erection, so she groaned into his mouth.