“You did plan to divorce me, and I walked out because our marriage was a business sham.”
“Our marriage was more compatible than any I’ve seen based on so-called love.”
“Rhea and Samuel—”
“Are on the brink of divorce.”
She couldn’t deny it. “But there are loads of people who are happily married and love each other.”
“Not in our world.”
“Even in our world. What about Leiandros Kiriakis and his wife, Savannah? They’ve been married for nearly a decade and are still very much in love.”
“You barely know them. You only see the surface of their relationship.”
“It’s real. The love between them is real.” Even knowing them as little as she did, she couldn’t doubt it. “Besides, they aren’t the only ones. There’s Demitri and Alexandra Petronides. You remember the scandal around their marriage, but they weathered the storm and are still very much in love.”
Ariston frowned. “We aren’t talking about our acquaintances right now, Chloe. We have things far more personal to discuss.”
“What is more personal than love?”
“For us? A great deal.”
She stared at him, trying to understand why he was so against the concept of marital love. His parents had a lot to answer for, she knew, but after what he’d shared in the restaurant, she wondered if Shannon might have even more to do with it.
But if he wanted to focus on them, that’s what she’d do. “If I had been content, I never would have left Athens without you.”
“Your father instigated that, and now I have to wonder if he didn’t do it on purpose.”
A shard of pain went through her heart as Chloe realized how very real that possibility was. Her father had made his plans and her marriage wasn’t going to stand in the way. “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t make up the divorce papers. You had them drawn up.”
“Surely you expected nothing else. You prevented any hope of our marriage lasting beyond the three years by preventing the conception of my child.”
She’d come to that conclusion herself and found it no less palatable having him say it aloud. “I did not think you would stick to the letter of the contract.”
“Why should I do anything else?”
No reason. Certainly not because he loved her and needed her in his life, or anything. She swallowed back any reply she might want to make and turned her face toward the window.
He sighed from the other side of the car. “I had the papers drawn in a fit of rage, but I would not have served you with them without clarifying matters between us first.”
That got her attention back on him. “What?”
“Unlike you, I had no intention of throwing away our marriage without first finding out why you’d been using the birth control.”
“When I left, that must have made it look like I’d never had any intention of fulfilling the contract.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed, accepting her responsibility for that. “You wanted to stay married?”
“As I said, we were compatible.”
“But you were very angry I’d circumvented the contract, weren’t you?”
“Beyond angry. I went to Hong Kong to establish some distance.”
“I had no idea.”
“That was intentional.”
“But why? If you were going to talk to me, why not do it right away?”
“I was too furious. You did not merely betray me, you betrayed my grandfather as well.”
“I didn’t intend to betray either of you.”
He made a noncommittal sound.
“Why me … I mean, this time around? There are lots of women who would be glad to give you a child.”
He shrugged as if all those other women didn’t matter. “You have something I want and I have something you need.”
“My family’s company needs, you mean.” She laughed, the sound nothing like humorous. “If all you want is a womb, more than half the planet’s population has one.”
“Pappous.”
His grandfather? What did Takis Spiridakou have to do with anything?
“You cannot tell me Takis will be happy for you to marry the mother of your child after its birth.” The old man was a traditional Greek in the best sense of the words.
“My grandfather does not recognize the American divorce decree, despite the fact we were legally married here in New York.”
Ah. So, it had to be her. Because Takis Spiridakou was not a man who considered the laws of a nation supreme to those of his church.
“We married in the Orthodox church.” They’d had a second, far more elaborate ceremony in Greece. Both their families had been in attendance for it, unlike their civil ceremony in New York for legalities’ sake.