Now he understood that so long as she remained his wife, no matter how hard he tried to support her career or give her space to spread her wings, she was always going to feel trapped. Not because of his past, but because to her marriage itself was a prison. Or at least marriage to him was a prison. For a while there she must have believed there was a chance her feelings could change, that the desire she felt for him might grow into the right reason for wanting to stay, but he knew now there was no way it ever would, and so did she. He’d already done her too much wrong.
But he swore he’d do her no more, no matter how persistent the urge to take the stairs two at a time and haul her back into his arms. What was that phrase? If you loved someone, you should set them free? He raked a hand through his hair, the thought of letting her go excruciating. But, much as he believed in challenging accepted wisdom, he knew he should have heeded that advice a long time ago.
Rion reluctantly walked the short distance to his study and removed the sheaf of papers from the bottom drawer of his desk—the papers he’d placed there after she’d tossed them down the stairs at him, the ones she’d first pulled from her bag that day at his office in Athens. He’d been so determined not to sign them that he’d never read the small print. He didn’t read it now. If it asked for anything he’d gladly give it to her, just so he never had to see that look of desolation on her face again. But he knew it didn’t ask—knew nothing but walking out of his front door with the signed papers in her hand could ease her expression of torment.
And after that he’d never see her face again, he thought dismally, glancing round his office at the photos of the latest progress on the hospital, at the plans for the new affordable houses. The things which ought to buoy him up but just left him feeling numb. Because, yes, he’d done everything that he’d sworn he would the day Jason died: made a success of himself, returned to Metameikos and fought for the position which would allow him to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Only now did he realise that it had been at the expense of his own happiness, that life was only truly worth anything if you had love. Someone to share it with.
But he knew that he had realised it too late. Even if Libby had thought that she wanted to share her life with him once, he could never make her happy now. There was only one thing that could.
Rion looked back down at the papers before him and opened the glass cabinet next to his desk. He poured himself a measure of Scotch, knocked it back, then reached for his pen.
As Libby kneeled on the floor, pressing the mass of unfolded clothes into her suitcase, she could taste the salty drops of her tears. They weren’t the hysterical tears of sudden grief, they were the resigned, silent kind, mourning a death that had been inevitable for months—in her case years—but that didn’t make them any less painful.
Because all that time, even when she’d told herself not to, she’d kept hoping it wasn’t terminal, that underneath it all he had wanted her to be his wife, for the same reason that she’d wanted him to be her husband: love. But now there was no hope left, and she didn’t know how to begin to live without it. Even locked in the cupboard under the stairs at Ashworth Manor, she’d had that much. Now all she had was a void in her heart where hope used to be.
‘You’d better not go without this.’
She hadn’t heard him ascend the stairs or enter the room behind her, but then her mind was such a mess it was a miracle that any of her senses were working at all. Quickly she brushed the tears from her cheeks. But before she could even move on to attempting the neurological function required to process what he’d said, he slid something onto the bed in front of her.
The divorce petition.
The signed divorce petition.
Her eyes dropped from the official court logo down to the ‘O. Delikaris’ scrawled without hesitation on the line. It was the only thing she’d come here originally to get—the thing she’d once imagined would bring with it a sense of closure. She’d never been more wrong about anything in her life. It felt as if she’d been torn open.
‘You were right in the first place,’ Rion said quietly, unnerved by the way she didn’t even move her head, needing to fill the silence because he was afraid that if he didn’t the temptation to press his lips to the back of her neck might overwhelm him. ‘This is the right thing to do.’
‘Thank you,’ she choked. It felt as if she were trying to swallow a loaf of bread without chewing.
‘I can fly you back to Athens,’ he said stiltedly, ‘or drive you to the airport if you’d rather?’
The thought of sitting beside him in the plane or next to him in the Bugatti was unbearable. She shook her head and found the courage to turn around, needing him to know she was grateful for the offer.
‘If you could just call me a cab, I’ll make the arrangements from there.’
Of course, Rion thought helplessly. Anything else would encroach on her independence. He nodded and turned on his heel. ‘I’ll let you know when it’s here.’
The taxi arrived ten minutes later. She’d been watching out of the upstairs window for it to arrive, and was already halfway down the stairs with her suitcase when he called her. She knew it was rude not to have gone and waited with him once she’d finished packing, but she couldn’t have trusted herself not to break down, nor have borne him awkwardly trying to comfort her if she had.
‘Let me take that,’ he insisted, swooping to grasp the handle of her suitcase.
‘No, I’m fine, honest—’
He cut her off mid-sentence. ‘Please. Allow me that much.’
Libby relinquished her grip, the feel of his hand moving over hers too agonising to even contemplate doing anything else, then followed him downstairs.
‘So I guess this is it?’ he breathed, placing the suitcase down on the marble.
She nodded, the irony of standing just metres away from the spot where they’d made the most incredible love not lost on her. ‘I guess it is.’
The silence was deafening.
Rion fought the urge to offer her money, or the use of his apartment in Athens. ‘You’ll file the papers when you get back to the city?’
Libby felt her stomach lurch. He seemed so keen to have it all over with now.
She nodded. ‘I’m sure the solicitor will send you copies, along with the decree absolute once it’s finalised.’
‘It should come through pretty quickly, since we’re both in agreement.’
His voice seemed to Libby to go up at the end of his sentence, almost as if it was a question. But she told herself not to read anything into it. She’d spent six weeks reading things that weren’t really there, that had never been there.
‘I should go. The taxi’s waiting.’ She stepped forward and reclaimed her suitcase. ‘I can take it from here.’
With great effort he forced himself to take a step backwards. ‘Who knows? Maybe we might bump into each other if you run those excursions here some time.’
‘Maybe,’ she agreed. Though in her heart she’d already made up her mind to tell Kate there was no way she could carry on with the Greek tours. There was no point in pretending that her memories would do anything other than destroy her if she remained on Greek soil. Maybe even if she didn’t.
‘Well, in the meantime, I hope your tours in Athens go well.’
She wanted to look back. She wanted to give him a blithe smile and say Thank you. Good luck running Metameikos too. She wanted to be glad they understood each other now, if nothing else. But she wasn’t, and she couldn’t. It took everything she had to place her fingers around the door handle and wrench it open.
‘Goodbye, gineka—’He stopped himself and sighed deeply. ‘Goodbye, Libby.’
‘Goodbye, Rion.’
If the sound of Libby packing her things had been the worst noise in the world to Rion, then the click of the door latch as she pulled it shut behind her was Libby’s equivalent. Leaving him once had been hard enough—but then she’d been sure their marriage would have broken th
em both if she’d stayed, had been able to throw herself into discovering who she was and what she wanted. But now that she had, all her discoveries had led her to was the fact that she was completely and irrepressibly in love with him.
She swallowed hard, tears thick in the back of her throat. As much at the discovery that he’d spent all those years believing that in her eyes he’d never been good enough as for the end of their marriage.
But what would he believe now? she wondered. The thought made her whole body jolt forward. Did he fully understand that had never been an issue to her? She hadn’t actually explained the real reason why she hadn’t felt able to agree to have his baby, hadn’t told him that a huge part of her wanted to. And, even though she knew it would change nothing, the thought that he might be in any doubt—now or in years to come—that maybe they still didn’t fully understand one another, clawed at her heart.
She closed her eyes, contemplating whether she could bear the pain involved in putting that right. She wasn’t sure she could, but maybe that was why she should. Maybe, in the absence of any other kind of closure, just going back in and saying the words, leaving them there in the hallway, was the closest she was going to get.
‘Are you ready to go, Kyria Delikaris?’
Libby’s eyes flew open to see the taxi driver, looking at her from his vehicle with a mixture of perplexity and concern, and it suddenly occurred to her that standing outside Rion’s front door with tears rolling down her cheeks was an exceptionally thoughtless thing to be doing. Whilst he’d have to publicly confess that they were getting divorced at some point, he didn’t need speculation starting now.
‘I just—need to do one last thing,’ she replied, and without giving a second thought to the pros and cons she turned and rang the doorbell.
Rion opened the door instantly. If she hadn’t known better she would have guessed that he’d been leaning up against it, contemplating whether to come after her.
He stared at her, hollow eyes wide. ‘You’ve forgotten something?’
She hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes.’ She supposed you could put it that way.
Rion did a quick mental tour of the house. ‘Of course—your work.’ He stepped back, encouraging her to wait inside. ‘It’s still on the table in the lounge. I’ll get it.’
‘No—I mean—yes, please—in a minute. But that wasn’t what I came back for.’
‘Oh?’
‘I just…need you to know something.’
He turned fully back to face her, and nodded to confirm that she had his undivided attention. Her misgivings quadrupled, but she forced herself to go on.
‘I need you to know that the reason I said I didn’t want to have your baby has nothing to do with your past.’
‘I know,’ he said softly.
Libby knotted her hands together self-consciously. ‘Good, I just didn’t want you to think—’
‘I don’t.’
An awkward silence descended.
‘I’ll get you those papers, then,’ he said, disappearing from the hallway.
Libby looked at herself in the mirror on the opposite wall, appalled. Oh, yes, Libby. Great job of expressing your feelings.
He returned swiftly, his hands full of her brochures and notes, but she didn’t even register them.
‘In fact,’ she bulldozed on, before she lost her nerve, ‘there’s no other man I would want to be the father of my children, if I had any. It was one of the reasons I married you then.’ And it’s one of the reasons I’d marry you again tomorrow, she almost said—until she realised how ridiculous that would sound, given that there was a taxi waiting outside to carry her and her suitcase containing their divorce papers away from him for ever.
One of the reasons I married you then, Rion noticed. Before she’d realised that marriage and a family couldn’t make her happy. He felt a certain relief that it sounded as though she didn’t foresee any other man being able to change her mind. Yet the thought that she’d never have any children, his or not, made him infinitely sad. She’d make a wonderful mother.
‘You don’t have to explain. I know that married life could never make you happy.’ His voice grew self-critical. ‘It’s taken me too long, but I understand now that freedom and independence are the only things which can.’
She did a double-take, her heart beginning to pound in her ears. That was the reason why he thought she didn’t want his child?
‘Then you misunderstand, Rion.’ She shook her head, relieved that she had turned around on the doorstep to set the record straight. ‘Crazy, I know, but the only times in my life when I’ve felt truly free have been times when I was with you.’ Their wedding day. Making love here in the hallway. Inside that lift.
Rion took a step towards her, the tempo of his breathing beginning to accelerate. ‘Then why are you leaving?’
She dropped her eyes, tears hovering beneath their lids. ‘Because the only times I’ve ever felt that kind of freedom have been times when I stupidly thought it was possible that you might love me as much as I love you…the way I’ve loved you ever since I was fifteen years old—so much that when I’m not with you it feels like I’m only half alive.’
‘You think I don’t love you that way?’ Rion bit out, trying to stop his own tears from falling, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. But Libby wasn’t looking at his face. She was staring at the floor, stifling her own sobs.
‘I know you don’t. Maybe you had a passing attraction to me once, when I presented you with a challenge, but—’
Rion’s foot came into view, and she realised he’d taken another step forward and was now only inches away from her. He placed his forefinger under her chin, tilted her face upwards, and smoothed her hair away from her eyes before she had a chance to even try and hide behind it.
‘A passing attraction?’ he repeated in disbelief. ‘You think what I feel for you is a passing attraction? I can’t tell you how many times in the years since you left I’ve wished that was all it was—so I could just forget you, stop wishing you’d come back and move on.’ He shook his head. ‘I never could. Libby, I want you so much that when I’m with you I can barely control myself—so much that it makes me ashamed.’
‘Ashamed?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Why ashamed?’
‘Because you are my wife, and you do not deserve me taking my own pleasure like the boy from the streets that I am.’
Libby’s mouth fell open and her heart-rate rocketed. Good God, had what she assumed was uninterest in her in bed really been him thinking he was showing her respect? Was it possible that it could always be the way it had been when they’d made love here, in this hallway?
‘Rion, I wanted to bring you the pleasure you brought me. I didn’t want to experience it alone; I wanted to experience it with you. I wanted to experience everything with you. That’s what marriage is about.’
Rion nodded with more than a hint of self-recrimination as he truly understood for the first time the damage he had done to his marriage all those nights he’d worked late, failing to see that she didn’t care about money, that she just wanted to be with him.
‘It took the thought of you leaving to make me realise that—to realise that you were right about me being obsessed with making it on my own. After Jason—’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘After Jason’s death I was so determined not to waste one moment of the life he’d been denied—to become a success and to prove men like Spyros wrong, to make sure that I was giving you the life you deserved—that it didn’t occur to me that what really matters is sharing life’s experiences with someone you love.’
She gave a sad smile and nodded, trying to contain her soaring heart. ‘I bet if Jason could tell you what he missed the most it wouldn’t be not having all of this, but not being here by your side, to share it with you.’
He managed the smallest of laughs. ‘And trying to beat me at it.’ The glazed look in his eyes cleared. ‘I’m sorry I never let you share my life properly, Libby. I’m sorry I just a
ssumed—so many things. And I wish…’ He raised the brochures still clutched in his right hand before dejectedly placing them on the windowsill. ‘I wish we could have lived out our dreams together.’
Libby looked up into his liquid brown eyes, and this time she let her heart soar. In doing so, all the wounds which had been inflicted upon it began to heal, as if it had been doused with a miracle cure. Hope returned. No—more than hope, faith. She wasn’t entirely sure how it was possible, but she knew it was real. She could feel it.
Slowly she pushed back against the door until the latch clicked behind her. This time the noise had never sounded better. Then she reached down into to the flat front pocket of her suitcase and pulled out the sheaf of divorce papers.
‘And I’m sorry that I wasn’t ready to share my life either, that I was so preoccupied with myself that I never tried to understand you. But I don’t see any reason why we can’t start now, do you?’ she whispered.
His eyes blazed with delight in exactly the way she’d been hoping, and it was the final confirmation she needed. He hadn’t signed the divorce petition because he’d wanted to. He’d signed it because he loved her, because he’d thought it was what she wanted. It wasn’t. This was what she wanted, what she’d always wanted, only it had taken them five years to be ready to open their hearts and cherish it. Frantically, elatedly, she took the divorce petition in her hands and tore it into tiny pieces, flinging them in the air so they rained down on them like confetti. Or snow.
Rion’s mouth slid into a wide, wide smile, and he reached his hands around her waist, closing the remaining distance between them.
‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘I have these to go as well.’ She reached down into the pocket of her suitcase again and produced a sheet of foiled pills.
Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife Page 14
