Playing At Love: A Rogue Series Novel

by Lara Ward Cosio

  “You look beautiful,” he said as if he knew she craved the reassurance.

  “Do you need my signature or something?” she asked, anxious to get to the point if this was what he was after.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Um, for divorce papers?”

  “Sophie, no,” he said. “Is that what you thought? That I came here to divorce you?”

  She forced a shrug. “It’s been a long time, Gavin. I don’t have a lot of reasons to think anything else.”

  Gavin had left her and their marriage close to ten months ago. It was logical to assume that at some point he would want to legalize the end of their union. She thought he would make the move when he had found someone new. But she had never imagined he would track her down personally. That’s what lawyers were for, after all.

  Before he could respond, the waiter returned and asked for their order.

  “Give us a minute, would you?” Gavin asked.

  “At least order a drink so I can get my manager off my back about you using the table,” the waiter said.

  Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. She caught Gavin’s eye and they shared a moment over the fact that this kid had no idea who they were. It was such a rare treat, this anonymity. The attention on them—in good and bad times—had been relentless over the years. They had never taken it seriously, though, and their lack of ego about it created a natural buffer of goodwill from the press and public alike. They were the couple everyone wanted to succeed. So it was a true oddity that they went anywhere without being recognized.

  As soon as they were able to convince the waiter to give them more time, Gavin leaned across the table. “I don’t want a divorce,” he said urgently. “I want us to be together again.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not what you want?” he asked, his shoulders sagging.

  “I don’t even know what to say, Gavin.”

  He waited for her to gather her thoughts as she gazed out at the ocean view.

  “I’ve actually made peace with things being as they are. I’ve created my own life without you,” she finally said. As she heard her words, she knew they were harsh. They would have had a deflating effect on most anyone. But not Gavin, whose intensity was unrivaled when he was focused on what he wanted.

  “That may be the case, but surely you can’t say that’s how you like it,” he said. “Because I’ve made some semblance of a life as well, but it’s painfully lacking without you in it. We can be happy again, I know it.”

  His words fell over her in comforting waves, and she longed to let herself succumb to the promise they offered. But too much had happened to take the easy route.

  “I don’t know if we should go backwards,” she said.

  “Are you with someone else? Is that it? You’re with that actor fella I’ve seen with you in the tabloids?”

  “No, I’m not with anyone.”

  It was a grand gesture, his coming all the way to Australia to track her down. His journey, at almost twenty-three hours, would have taken even longer than hers. And it was so typical of him, the die-hard romantic. But the splashy effort wasn’t what they needed. As she formulated what she would tell him next, she felt her nerves settle. It had taken a long time to build up her strength and self-worth again, and she knew she wouldn’t give it away lightly now.

  “This is about everything that has happened with us,” she said. “I don’t want to go through it again.”

  “I’m not intending to repeat my mistakes,” he said.

  “Neither would I, silly,” she said with the smile that had always made him weak. “But, so much has happened. I almost feel like we’re different people now. The idea of walking back into our marriage seems . . . impossible.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The faster catamarans were all booked, so Conor and Colette took a slower—and decidedly unglamorous—ferry from the Athens port of Piraeus to Syros.

  They had spent three days in Athens visiting Colette’s extended family, touring the must-see historical gems, and enjoying a taste of the Mediterranean city life. Colette had made all the arrangements and had them staying at the centrally located Hotel Grande Bretagne in a luxurious suite with a stunning view of the Acropolis. Only half-joking, Colette pointed out that they didn’t need to leave the hotel to sightsee since they had views of the Olympic Stadium from the pool, the Parthenon from the restaurant, and the Acropolis and Parliament building from their room. But Conor loved the noise and fine layer of dirt that gathered on his clothes and skin from exploring the city and walking through the sights.

  At dinner with Colette’s aunt and uncle, Conor expressed surprise at the lack of tourists or even locals during their sightseeing. Colette’s uncle informed them that the reason the city had been unusually quiet was because people had fled for their hometowns in preparation for Dormition Day celebrations. He explained that the very next day was August 15 and all of Greece would be concentrated into various villages to join in festivities honoring the Virgin Mary. Colette’s aunt chimed in, excitedly suggesting they cut the Athens part of their trip short and instead head to Syros to experience the holiday with other relatives there.

  Conor was intrigued by the description of the orthodox celebrations, including the emphasis on expressing the jubilation of the occasion with music, dancing, and the sharing of food.

  And thus, now the sun was hot on their skin as they sat on the top deck of a ferry headed to Syros, surrounded by people who appeared to be mostly locals in good spirits.

  Colette moaned about the lack of privacy, and especially the “screaming kids and suffocating cigarette smoke.” But Conor ignored her as he saw the smiles on the faces of parents and grandparents as they watched little ones wriggle in laps, and a circle of ancient men joking and smoking. Beyond that, he saw a vista so beautiful it made him physically ache. The sun was shining through clear skies onto rippling seas so blue it seemed a color he had never seen before. They were gliding past small white sail boats and brown islands, the salty breeze overwhelming the fumes of their own vessel.

  The question came unbidden to his mind whether Felicity had ever been to these parts. He had a sense she would love it.

  “Let’s go find something to do,” Colette said.

  “Hmm?” He found it hard to focus as he pictured Felicity standing at the white metal railings, her hair blowing gently as she soaked up the view. He guessed the sun would deepen the color of the light layer of freckles over her cheeks and nose. But would her delicate ivory skin burn?

  “Let’s go,” Colette said again and grabbed his hand.

  She pulled him up and away from his thoughts, leading him in an exploration of the ferry.

  ~

  The port was alive with fishermen, their boats weighed down by fresh catch, and others offering transportation to nearby areas of the island coastline in their smaller caiques. Preparations for the holiday events were underway, including a set of caiques being loaded with various fireworks apparatuses. The frenetic activity was all being done with a kind of jovial approach Conor found contagious.

  They were met at the port by two of Colette’s distant cousins, slight but good looking men named Thanassi and Sotiris. Colette’s Greek was spotty at best and the cousins spoke very little English, so communication involved a lot of smiles and hand gestures. Before long, Conor recognized in their wolfish grins and nudges the international male sign language expressing how hot they thought Colette was. He had never minded others’ appreciation of her as she was objectively beautiful and that kind of beauty should be admired. But at the same time, he knew that enjoying the view was all anyone else would get.

  Not wanting to settle for the modest accommodations her cousins could provide, Colette repeated the name of the hotel she had booked several times until they were escorted there. The gray stone and yellow painted Hotel Ploes, a neoclassical former mansion, offered the seaside luxury Colette had been anxious to have after their time in the city. The superb staff registered them
without delay and they quickly dropped off their bags in their suite and cleaned up.

  From there Thanassi and Sotiris guided them through the city’s more significant sights. Conor enjoyed the near silent nature of the tour as it allowed them to absorb what they saw on their own. They traversed the narrow alley-like streets to the wide open Miaoulis Square where pale gray pigeons pecked at the marble tiles in front of the Town Hall’s elegant colonnades. The influence of the Renaissance was everywhere in the design of the island’s capital, including the meticulously restored Apollo Theatre. They ducked inside to admire its Corinthian columns and dome painted with the portraits of important theater and music innovators.

  They surmised that the cousins wanted to take them to Koimisis church to view the famous religious painting by El Greco but they needed to wait for the current service to end. It was agreed they would stop for a coffee and lukumi, a traditional sweet, at one of the outdoor cafés that lined the square. Conor watched the cousins fight over who was to help pull out Colette’s chair. Their deference to her reminded him of her three older brothers. He had met them and her parents in Quebec when they were engaged the first time. Colette’s father displayed the same competitiveness she did and Conor got the sense it was something to do with their Greek heritage. The older man had challenged Conor to a game of chess every day of his stay, and Conor was careful to keep the games close but hand the victory over in the end. The strategies of chess had always come naturally to him, and he enjoyed the sense of control it gave him. But it also made him all that much more aware that his ability to manipulate other things in his life didn’t come as easily.

  Colette’s mother was classically beautiful, elegantly stylish, and a true coquette. She flirted as easily with Conor as she did with her husband and sons. In return, she had the men eating out of her hand. But she also had a way of catering to Colette, seeing to her every need and whim. And she was positively obsessed with her daughter’s career. She had raised her on a steady diet of Vogue and restricted calories, grooming her to become the glamorous model she never was.

  Seeing the way the men in her family treated Colette had given Conor insight into her need for attention. They had made her into their princess, fawning over her at every turn. Conor had supposed this was due to her being the only girl, as well as her having left them for modeling at such an early age. They treated her as if she was still a child and she did nothing to dissuade them of the behavior as in return she got everything she wanted. By the end of that visit, Conor had been glad to be free of the atmosphere that granted her the power to dictate what they ate, did around the city, or even talked about.

  It was curious that she had ended up with him, then, as he wasn’t the type to fawn for the sake of it. He realized this may have only heightened her desire to create drama between them, but he stubbornly held to the belief that she would let go of the games and settle into something more stable with him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Gavin sat back in his chair with a resounding sense of defeat. He realized for the first time that he had never truly considered the possibility that Sophie wouldn’t want to jump right back into their marriage. He had unconsciously assumed she would still be in the position he’d last known her in, one of weakness and neediness. That wasn’t who she was, though. And he had to own the fact that he’d been the one to bring her low, just as he had written in the song “You Made Me This Way.” He had boldly taken her words to him during an intense fight the last night they were together before he had run off to Los Angeles

  and put it into song:

  You made me just as weak and selfish as you

  You pretend to want to be alone with your misery

  But you made sure I was right there with you

  You made me this way

  But now he admired the strength and resolve she was showing in the face of his declaration of wanting her back, while also feeling sad for what it meant for their future.

  And he saw the arrogance with which he had approached her. He knew he could be self-centered but he realized he had taken it to a new level. Sophie was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he might have lost her while assuming that she would be waiting for him to get his act together.

  “I’m sorry, darlin’. You deserve so much more than me coming to you like this.”

  He saw her blink back tears for a second before the damned waiter came back with their drinks. As he was served a sparkling water, he wished he had ordered something stronger.

  Sophie asked the waiter for some detail on the scallops dish and Gavin stared at her openly. There was no denying that she was still the single most beautiful woman he had ever known. With long blonde hair, high cheekbones, and hazel eyes that could pull green so deeply and unexpectedly it could be disarming, she was an extraordinary beauty.

  But his connection with her had gone beyond physical attraction as teenagers when she had coaxed out of him a direction to his songwriting. The first time was when he confessed to having willfully misheard lyrics from David Bowie’s “Heroes” to say “we could still time” rather than “we could steal time,” because he had often fantasized about freezing a moment that felt precious so he could savor it longer than fleeting emotions would allow. In telling her this, he had expected her to nod blankly as other girls had but her response ended up being the exact moment he had fallen in love with her. She had told him that he was lucky then, if this was his aim because as a songwriter he had that very ability to still, or freeze, time with the stories he could create musically. Each song was an opportunity to capture a moment that would then live on as the perfect embodiment of what he had experienced.

  He counted on the reference to “stealing” and “stilling” time in the song “The Sweetest Would Be” to remind her of that long-ago conversation, hoping it would bring forth a willingness to rekindle the connection they had had. It was too unique, too special, to let go. He knew now he had realized this much later than he should have.

  Despite her reaction to him so far, he found it inconceivable that she was done with their marriage, with him. He looked at her hands and saw she still wore her wedding rings, and he couldn’t help but smile.

  After hastily ordering, he told her, “I guess all that I can hope for is that you’ll spend some time with me. Because I miss you being in my life, Sophie. I miss you something desperate.”

  “Oh, Gavin,” she said. “You’re seriously messing with my head. I’ve spent all this time trying to accept that we were done.”

  “What about your heart?” he asked. “Have I gotten to your heart?”

  She took a deep, shaky breath, and he wanted to move to her side of the table and hold her. It was entirely foreign to him to be in her presence and not be able to touch her with familiarity. But he didn’t want to spook her.

  “I have missed you,” she said, and he smiled broadly. “And I’ve wanted this so much. But now that it’s happening, I don’t know how to feel.”

  He nodded. “I understand completely. More than you know. It was like that when I visited with my mother.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened at the news and she reached out and squeezed his hand. He hadn’t planned on telling her about this right now, yet she had been the one he had ached to talk to about it since the second he had left his mother’s home. Only she would understand the emotional turmoil he had been through.

  And he was grateful that except when their food was placed before them, she didn’t let go of him for the next hour as he told her of his reunion with his mother and how all his hopes and expectations had been distorted by reality.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The sweat trickling down Conor’s neck reminded him of the kind of release he felt when playing a gig. This sweat was different than sweat from a run or lifting weights. It was the sense of it having been earned through a mutual experience, tied to the audience they were playing for and engaging with. Similarly, the sweat now was a result of the crush of people all around him
as he and Colette danced to the live band.

  They were well into the evening Dormition Day celebrations. Everyone in the square was happily fed from the plentiful pots of communal fish stew and feeling the effects of liberal quantities of alcohol to wash it down. The strings of bare bulbs hanging overhead cast a warm yellow glow over the square. They shone down on the smiles and flirting of those dancing, the young and old spectators sitting at the sidelines, and the band on a small stage. The music was traditional rebetiko, a Greek version of blues and primarily played with distinctive stringed bouzouk and baglamas instruments, both of which produced a sharp but evocative metallic pitch that paired well with often romantic lyrics. There was also an acoustic guitar player, a woman with finger cymbals, and a clarinet player.

  Conor had watched the band intently for a song, trying to sort out the unusual long-necked instruments before Colette pulled him away and on to the dance floor. They hadn’t stopped for almost an hour and couldn’t have if they wanted to, as the layers of people closing in around them were impenetrable. As they moved to the music, he realized this was the most fun they had had together during their trip. Until now, they hadn’t had the same traveling priorities. Conor was by nature an explorer. Colette carried blasé with her everywhere and only lit up when shopping. She explained away her indifference being due to having traveled so often for work. She said all she wanted out of a vacation was pure, mindless relaxation. He couldn’t fault her argument, but he still would rather be met in the middle so the trip could satisfy them both.

  Their bodies synced to both the quicker tempo songs and the slower ones, and he knew that half the square was watching them. Or really, watching her. Colette was stunning in a short white dress, her long legs lean and sexy. The neckline was a deep V and the split sleeves exposed the skin of her shoulders. The material was soft and flowed with her body as she moved.