“The one where you said as much.”
She was going to argue, but he’d taken her words to mean that so there was no point belaboring what she’d actually said.
“I would have thought that the knowledge I’d stayed with you despite it all would have given you more confidence. Not less.”
“What man wants to believe his wife stayed with him for the sake of their child? Not this man.” He spoke the last with a lot more force than she’d been expecting from his subdued demeanor.
“I didn’t just stay with you beca
use of Helena.” Yes, Polly’s first pregnancy had played a pivotal role in her decision to accept her life and stop beating against the walls of his indifference to her needs. But… “I loved you when I married you. I loved you when I got pregnant with Helena.” She took a deep breath and went for full disclosure. “I love you now.”
“Perhaps you do, but you are no longer in love with me. The stars…” He stopped, swallowed, then continued. “They are gone.”
His voice came out thick with emotion.
He’d said something like that before, but he was wrong. “Alexandros, when we are at Villa Liakada there are so many stars in the sky, it is like a blanket of twinkling lights.” She scooted as close as she could get to him with her seat belt. “Here in Athens, the stars are still beautiful, but there are a lot less of them.”
Polly brushed her hand over her husband’s bowed head. “Or are there?”
He stilled, but didn’t answer.
“Just because we can’t see them for the light pollution, doesn’t mean they aren’t there, Alexandros. Every star we can see in the country is still in the sky in the city.”
“What are you trying to say to me?” he asked in a thick voice.
“Alexandros, the stars are still there.”
Hot moisture splashed on the back of her hand.
Shock rendered her mute for several seconds but then another drop of moisture landed on her hand.
“Alexandros?”
“How can the stars be there?” his words came out choppy, tinged with emotion she had never heard from him before.
Even the day he’d proposed.
He’d been all arrogant certainty she’d say yes that day. And she had.
But right now? He was hurting. Hurting like she had never thought he could hurt because of her.
Polly said the only truth that mattered right then. “I love you, Andros.”
A sob snaked out of her powerful husband, then he was clinging to her while his loss of composure sparked her own. They held each other, a watershed of emotion pouring over them both.
“I love you, Polly, agape mou. You have to believe that. I need you to believe that.”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She believed he loved her. She couldn’t not, but what did that mean?
For him? For her?
Because if he’d always loved her, then what did that say about how easily he dismissed her feelings before?
“We need…” He paused like the words were too hard to find.
“What?” she prompted. “What do we need?”
“A place to talk where we will not be interrupted and where I can hold you properly.”