by Anne Mather
She had her chance. She had to take it.
Swallowing hard, she forced the words out.
‘I’ve come to apologise—really apologise for everything that happened between you and Marty. You say you lost your father but the truth is that I lost him for you. If he’d asked me again then I’d have told him the truth. But he didn’t. He just said that you had left, spitting vengeance and vowing never to return. He said we were never to talk about it again, so we didn’t.’
Angelos was so still that he might have been part of the cliff behind him, at one with the sand and the sea, but in the moonlight she caught the faint grimace that twisted his sensual mouth.
‘He was right about the spitting vengeance—and the vow never to return,’ he admitted. ‘I meant every word of that at the time. I was only twenty-three, hot-headed and arrogant as hell. I truly believed that I would never, ever want to be in contact with him again. But I always kept a close watch on what was happening at Manorfield and a few years down the line I reconsidered. That was when I started bailing Marty out. I hoped that this time, when he saw how I could help him, that I could support him, that maybe this time he’d listen.’
Angelos’s dark eyes closed briefly and he dashed the back of his hand across them, bringing it away glistening faintly. Jessica’s heart twisted agonizingly inside her, the pain made all the worse by knowing that if she tried to comfort him he would only reject her.
‘I never thought that he would die of a heart attack before I could ever get to talk to him.’
Perhaps because of the darkness that hid the details of his expression from her, she could hear the pain of loss in his voice as never before.
‘You kept an eye on Manorfield and so you knew everything that was going on.’
Jessica had almost forgotten about the letters she had found but now she had to know the truth about absolutely everything. Deep inside she knew a desperate wish that she had been wrong, that she’d misread the dates when she’d looked at them. But Angelos’s reaction earlier had taken that hope away. And with a terrible creeping sense of dread she suddenly felt that she knew what it meant.
‘You were watching Manorfield and you knew what was going on. You knew about me—and about Chris. And you paid him a lot of money before you even came to England. What did you pay for, Angelos? What did you buy from him?’
‘Your freedom.’ It was cold, stark, irrefutable. ‘I paid him to break off your engagement—to leave you free.’
‘Free for you?’
She couldn’t believe how bitter the words were in her mouth. They burned like acid on her tongue.
‘You wanted it all—Marty, Manorfield and me and you set out to ensure you got it all. How you must have hated me. But of course I understand. I destroyed your chance with your father and …’
‘No—it was not like that.’ Angelos shook his dark head violently. ‘Never like that!’
‘You paid Chris to break off our engagement. You bought him off. There was never any other woman.’
‘Oh, but there was. I knew all about that and I used it to get him to agree. He wasn’t good enough for you, Jessica. He only wanted what he could get from you because you were the heiress to Manorfield. He was going to marry you and then walk out once you’d paid off all his debts with the settlement Marty was going to give you.’
‘Unlike you, who didn’t even trouble to marry me to get what you wanted! And you saw it as the perfect way to get your revenge. You wanted Chris out of the way so that I was free—free for you to move in on me.’
‘No.’ Angelos kicked out at the lapping water as he flung the single word at her but she was hurting too much to be able to understand his dark anger.
‘Why not? I can see how things were. I took your father away from you—you must have hated me for that.’
‘Hated …’
Angelos’s laughter was hard, brittle, seeming to shatter the air around them so that Jessica almost expected to see the word fall in tiny splinters of ice into the sea.
‘Dear God, but I wish I could have hated you—it would have been so much easier.’
‘Easier?’
Was she hearing things? Had the pain in her heart made her start to imagine what Angelos might say?
‘Easier than what?’
The look he turned on her reminded her of nothing so much as the one a wild animal in a corner might turn on the pursuers that had it trapped. It was savagely furious, defiant … and desperately lost.
And suddenly she knew instinctively that she had to press him on this. That this was the only chance she had to find out what was really going through his mind.
‘Easier than what, Angelos?’
‘Than love, damn you!’ It was almost torn from him. A sound of desperation, an admission of defeat. ‘Than bloody well loving you. Loving you so much that I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t act rationally, couldn’t make any decisions …’
Once again he shook his head in despair at his own behaviour.
‘That was the thing that was hard. Hating you would have made things so much easier. I thought I hated you when I came back to Manorfield. That I wanted revenge for the way you’d taken my father from me—but I was wrong. So wrong.’
Jessica’s throat had tightened painfully. She felt as if someone was twisting their hands around it, cutting off her ability to speak—to breathe. She didn’t dare to say a word, to risk interrupting him and perhaps stopping the flow of what he was saying. She desperately needed to know just what he was saying and the possible repercussions it might have for her.
‘What I wanted was you. It always had been—always will. I let my need for my father get in the way the first time—and because you were so very young. But I thought I had time …’
Angelos’s voice cracked on the words and once more he dashed an angry, revealing hand over his eyes.
‘Marty’s death showed me that we can never be sure of how much time we have with anyone. That was why I had to come to Manorfield. At first I thought it would be enough to call in Marty’s debts from here—to know that I owned Manorfield and that you were out … But I had to go to Marty’s funeral and as soon as I saw you I was lost. I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. I’d always wanted you and I still did.’
Jessica had to speak now. She had to know …
‘So you didn’t pay off Chris for revenge?’
She knew that Angelos had understood the importance of the question because of the way he suddenly stilled as she asked it. The way that his deep, dark eyes went straight to hers and held them.
‘Revenge—no. I knew what he was up to and I couldn’t let him get away with it. I couldn’t stand by and let him treat the woman I love—’
‘Loved?’
She had to force herself to say it. She needed to know the full truth. Without it, she felt that her heart would stop beating, her brain cease to function. She needed to know if he was talking about the past—or—please, God—the present.
‘The woman you once loved—or …’
The words tangled up in her throat as Angelos moved forward at last, stunning her by reaching out to take her hand, hold it close to his chest.
‘The woman I loved—still love now and always will love, kardia mou. Jessica, you have my heart—my soul—all that is good in me. Damn it …’
He broke off on a raw, self-deprecating laugh that tore at something in Jessica’s own heart. Instinctively, she reached out a hand towards him, wanting to touch him, soothe him, assure him … but she hadn’t completed the action before he started again and she froze, leaving her hand halfway between them like an incomplete lifeline, waiting to be finished.
‘You even have all the worst of me. I love you and I can never stop loving you. You have everything—all that I am. And, to prove it …’
He was reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, but now Jessica had to stop him. Now she had to complete the gesture, moving forward to put her hand over his, stop his action
. With her fingers resting where they were, just above his heart, she could feel the frantic race of his pulse that told the truth of what he was saying, with no words being needed.
‘No, Angelos—don’t—not until I’ve told you …’
Once again his stillness told her that he recognised the importance of the moment. That and the burning darkness of his eyes that were fixed on hers in the moonlight, reading what she was about to say in the strength and the calmness of her gaze. But she still needed to say it because, along with a faint lightening of the shadows in his eyes, there was also a touch of something raw, something uncertain, something desperately vulnerable as he opened himself up to her in all the strength of his feelings.
‘I don’t need any proof, Angelos. Not from you. Not when I can see what is in your heart—and when I know what is in mine. I love you too, my darling. I love you with all that is in my heart, all that …’
She got no further because Angelos reached for her, pulled her to him, brought their mouths together in a long, hungry, searing, loving kiss that made words superfluous because it said everything and left nothing at all unsaid about the way they felt for each other.
It was a long, long time before either of them could bear to move apart, and even when they did their foreheads still rested against each other, their hands still linked, keeping them together.
‘I still have something to give you,’ Angelos managed, his voice husky and raw.
‘You’ve given me everything,’ Jessica could only whisper. ‘What more could I want when I have you?’
But what he put into her free hand made her stare in blank bewilderment and confusion, unable to believe what she saw.
‘Angelos … these are the deeds to Manorfield and all that’s in it. What …?’
‘It’s yours, my love. Manorfield is yours.’
‘But you love the place almost as much as I do …’
Jessica broke off as Angelos laid a gentle finger across her mouth to silence her.
‘I thought I did, but I realised that I loved you more. And it was being at Manorfield with you that I wanted. If you weren’t there, then the place wasn’t a home …’
His voice deepened, became rich with a sincerity of love that brought tears to her eyes. ‘Without you, nowhere was a home. These past few days, coming back to you on the island, I’ve learned where my true home is—and it’s with you, wherever you are. In your arms I know I’ve come home. So today I came to a decision. I was going to give you Manorfield, so that you knew you always had a home, no matter what—and then …’
‘Then …’ Jessica prompted softly when he hesitated, looking deep into her eyes, and his grip on her hand tightened, revealing the strength of feelings he was keeping inside.
‘Then I was going to ask you—to marry me. To share my life and my home, wherever I was, for however long we live. So tell me, agape mou—if I asked you that—I am asking you what your answer would be.’
Looking up into his intent, loving face, Jessica smiled softly and leaned forward to press a long, lingering kiss on his mouth. She knew that her answer was in that kiss but still she had to say the words, wanting him to know that her love for him was every bit as deep and as powerful as his for her.
‘Angelos, darling, I am already home. My home is with you, my life is you—and without you I am only half alive. It’s your love that makes any place my home, and your love that makes my life so complete. And so, my love, my beautiful Black Angel, my answer is yes. Yes, I will marry you.’
ISBN: 9781408981009
Greek Affairs in his Bed
© Anne Mather/Carol Marinelli/Kate Walker 2012
First Published in Great Britain in 2012
Harlequin (UK) Limited
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