So many memories, and she didn’t want to linger on them for too long. She wanted to make new memories, have new dreams. Inadvertently, Lindsay pressed her hand against her stomach. They hadn’t used protection in the last few weeks, something that made her insides lurch with both excitement and alarm. She knew Antonios had wanted to start a family right away; she’d been more cautious. But now she thought about a baby— Antonios’s baby—and a smile spread across her face at the possibility.
Antonios came into the bedroom, resting his hands on her shoulders as he stood behind her. Both of them were silent, gazing at the wide bed with its cream silk duvet, the shutters of the windows open to the view of the mountains.
Lindsay knew they were both remembering, reliving those last moments. Her final farewell. Then Antonios brushed a kiss against the nape of her neck and it felt like a benediction. They were both moving on from the past.
‘I have something to show you,’ he said, his breath fanning her skin and making her shiver.
‘You do?’
‘Come.’ He tugged her by the hand down the corridor of their private wing, towards a room Lindsay hadn’t been in before. He pushed open the door and then stepped aside so she could enter.
Her breath caught in her chest as she took in the spacious sunlit room: the wide oak desk with the top-of-the-line desktop computer, the comfortable chair, the bookshelves and the huge dry-erase board, just like she’d had in her office back in New York.
‘For your research,’ he said simply. ‘If there’s anything else you need, just let me know and I’ll get it for you.’
She turned and threw her arms around his neck. ‘There’s nothing else I need,’ she told him as she kissed him. ‘Nothing else at all.’
Another week slid by, a week blurred by pleasure and love, and yet not without its moments of disquiet. Antonios still spent all his days and many of his evenings at work, and Lindsay couldn’t ignore the strain that etched lines on his face and made him quiet and irritable whenever she asked him about it.
Love was complicated, she reminded herself. Life was. Whatever Antonios was dealing with, he’d tell her in his own time. They could deal with it.
But one night she woke up to an empty bed and, with unease crawling along her spine, she rose and went to their adjoining living area, stopping in the doorway when she saw Antonios standing by the window, one hand braced against the glass.
‘Antonios...’
He didn’t turn at the sound of her voice. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said, his voice flat and toneless.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. It was the same question she’d asked before, over and over, and as usual Antonios gave the same answer.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Something’s going on, Antonios,’ Lindsay protested. ‘I can feel it. You’re unhappy—’
‘Just a little stressed,’ he corrected, but Lindsay felt it was more than that, deeper than that.
She also knew she wouldn’t get any answers from Antonios now. Wordlessly, she went back to bed, lay flat on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
Why wouldn’t Antonios tell her what was going on? He’d been hurt that she’d kept so much from him, and he’d never ever noticed she was unhappy. Yet now she was noticing and Antonios didn’t seem to want her to.
Sighing, Lindsay told herself yet again to be patient. To trust. They could get through this. She had to believe that.
* * *
A month after Daphne’s name day party Lindsay received an email from a university in New York City, offering her an assistant professorship of Pure Mathematics. She stared at it in surprise, knowing she shouldn’t be so shocked since her supervisor had hinted that her research was being well received by academia in general. But that had been a lifetime ago, when she’d only had her research to think about, to keep her company...
And now? She felt a treacherous flicker of doubt and yearning. She loved being with Antonios, was enjoying this time in Greece...but for the rest of her life?
She looked up from her computer and gazed unseeingly out at the pine-covered mountains. She and Antonios had been enjoying a honeymoon period to their marriage, she realized. But even the honeymoon had its bumps, with Antonios’s stress over work. And when that phase wore off, when he worked even harder, when the stress and strain of that work took an even greater toll?
Antonios had made it clear he couldn’t leave Greece. But what if he needed to? What if working for Marakaios Enterprises, for whatever reason he refused to name, was killing him, destroying his happiness?
What if he needed something different as much as she did—or even more?
The thought was so incredible, so revolutionary, that Lindsay couldn’t take it in fully. And maybe it was just wishful thinking because she wanted Antonios’s plans to fit in with her own. But she’d tied herself to him and promised to try life in Greece again. She couldn’t suggest something else now, not even for his sake. Antonios wouldn’t countenance it for a moment.
And, really, she couldn’t imagine Antonios anywhere else. This was his home, his kingdom. Yet she also knew she missed the excitement of teaching a class, discussing number theory with students and professors. Being part of a community, however small, of people who were as passionate and excited about mathematics as she was.
Restless and more than a little anxious, Lindsay closed her laptop and headed outside. It was a glorious fall day and the estate gardens were still in full flower. She walked down the winding brick paths that led to different gardens: the walled herb garden where she’d talked to Daphne, the courtyard with the fountain where she and Antonios had reconciled and made love. Just looking at the stone lip of the fountain where she’d wrapped herself around his body made her blush and smile.
She sank onto a stone bench, staring at that fountain, trying to untangle all the feelings that had become twisted up inside her. Hope and fear. Frustration and joy. Anxiety—not for herself, but for Antonios.
‘Li-li!’ Lindsay turned around to see two-year-old Timon toddling towards her. He’d started calling her Li-li a few days ago, much to everyone’s amusement. Now Lindsay reached out and grabbed him by his chubby hands.
‘Have you escaped, young man?’ she asked, and Timon grinned up at her uncomprehendingly; he was learning both English and Greek, but he understood Greek much better.
‘Timon!’ Parthenope appeared around the corner, worry replaced by exasperation as she caught sight of her son. She let out a stream of scolding Greek but the little boy just giggled. Rolling her eyes at Lindsay, Parthenope gathered her son up on her lap and sat next to her on the bench.
‘You are well?’ she asked, a frown settling between her straight brows, and Lindsay laughed lightly.
‘Do I not look well?’
‘You look worried.’ She hesitated then asked cautiously, ‘Are things all right between you and Antonios?’
Lindsay stiffened at the implication that Parthenope, and who knew who else, suspected they weren’t. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Because, you know, when you left for New York he walked around like a raging lion. He pretended he was fine; he wouldn’t tell us a thing, but we all knew better.’
Lindsay fought a flush as Parthenope subjected her to a searching gaze. ‘Well...things are a lot better than that,’ she said after a moment. ‘We’re working out our problems.’
At least, she hoped they were.
Parthenope laid a hand on her arm as Timon squirmed out of her lap. ‘Marriage is not always easy.’
‘No, that’s what your mother said,’ Lindsay said with a small smile. ‘“Endlessly complicated and difficult” were her exact words.’
Parthenope let out a little laugh. ‘Perhaps not quite that bad. But if you both try, it will be good, yes?’
Lindsay saw the hope and concern in Parthenope’s eyes and slowly nodded. She sincerely hoped trying was enough. But was Antonios even trying? If he was, surely he would share some of his concerns with her. Maybe, Lindsay thought, she needed to ask him more bluntly. Demand, even, out of her love for him.
She smiled at Parthenope, not wanting to burden her sister-in-law with her private concerns. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it will be good.’
* * *
That night Antonios stayed late at work, which left Lindsay alone in their bedroom, waiting for him and thinking far too much. At nearly eleven o’clock at night she finally broke down and headed out into the night to look for him.
The air was cool and crisp and she shivered in just her light sweater and jeans as she walked down the deserted drives towards the office building; she could see a single light burning inside.
The front door was open and she slipped silently inside, her heart starting to beat hard. She walked towards Antonios’s office; his door was ajar and she stood at the threshold, peeked inside.
At the sight of him her heart lurched with fear, swooped with sorrow. He looked so despairing, his head cradled in his hands, his shoulders bowed.
‘Antonios...’ she whispered and he jerked up straight, anger blazing in his eyes.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was looking for you.’
‘You shouldn’t have. You knew I was working.’