“And I flew off half-cocked to Athens, without really thinking the whole thing through. Your reaction when I called made me appreciate that it was going to take more than a few words,” Jeff admitted.
Vickie took a seat stiffly, still watching Kerry’s anxious face. “As you’ve probably guessed, I refused to come initially. I’m not proud of that. It was unforgivable. I don’t win any badges for courage. I couldn’t have done it without Jeff’s support. I did love Alex, Kerry,” she faltered and looked up at the man by her side. “But never the way I love Jeff. I’m glad it’s over, you have no idea what a relief it is…”
Jeff cleared his throat impatiently. “I think right now Kerry has to be more interested in hearing that we’ve seen Alex.”
“You’ve seen him,” Kerry echoed. “But how?”
“I thought it would be wiser if we saw your husband at his office, and didn’t involve you until we saw how it was going to go,” Jeff supplied.
Kerry shut her eyes, rocked off balance to learn that the deed had already been done. “What did he say?”
“It was…ghastly,” her sister said shakily. “He went all quiet. It was like the whole thing just suddenly sunk in on him. One minute he was raging, the next he sat down.”
“But did he believe you?” Kerry pressed in exasperation.
Jeff drove his fingers through his untidy hair ruefully. “Oh, I think he believed us all right. I’m not sure he would have if we hadn’t both been there, though.”
“You said he went quiet? Pleased quiet? Angry quiet?” Kerry prompted in desperation.
“He was appalled…stunned,” Vickie answered reluctantly.
“But he hasn’t come home.”
“He does have a lot to think about.” Her sister looked at her guiltily, unhappily. “He divorced you. Finding out the truth now, when it’s too late to really do anything about it…” Vickie hesitated. “You see, I never thought about how it was going to be for him. Telling him the truth wasn’t really giving him anything to celebrate. That’s the best way I could put it…”
Kerry viewed her in blank incomprehension. Alex ought to have been jetting home in haste to…to what? Fling himself at her feet and apologise? Like Vickie, she had never thought beyond the moment when Alex would know the true story. She had never questioned how Alex might react.
“I think it’s time we left,” Jeff said bluntly. “We’re booked into a hotel, and the last thing Alex needs is to find us plonked here when he does come back.”
“Do you think if we held off getting married for a few months, you and Alex would come?” Vickie whispered uncertainly.
“Frankly, I think your sister has got more on her mind right now.” Jeff’s tone was dry and Vickie reddened.
Kerry gave way to her sister’s red-rimmed eyes and gave her a brief hug. The ice was broken, but she still could not have looked Vickie in the eye and told her that she completely forgave her. The cost had been too high. She managed to smile as she saw them off. It was difficult. Alex’s delayed return was worrying her increasingly. She phoned the family house in Rome to speak to Mario, who was presently working as one of Alex’s aides. She learnt that Alex had left the office before lunch time. By the time she got off the phone, she regretted calling. Athene had come on to the line to ask if there was anything wrong.
At two in the morning, she finally went to bed, and anxiety had been replaced by anger. How could he do this to her? Didn’t he realise how worried she would be?
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS NOON the next day before Alex arrived home. He was as sleek and immaculate as ever, but he looked as if he had been up all night. Aside from the faint pallor, the etching of strain round his mouth, Kerry could not have read a single emotion in his shuttered dark gaze. He stared at her and sank down on to a sofa. For a moment his glossy head was bent, and then he lifted it again and the air of vulnerability was gone.
“I should have phoned, but I should imagine that is the least of my sins,” he began.
“Vickie and Jeff came here last night. I know you’ve seen them,” she interposed.
A wintry smile firmed his mouth. “I almost made a derogatory comment about them both, but you have a saying about people in glass houses…” He paused, his bone structure prominent beneath his bronze skin. “I spent the night in the car. I didn’t know what to say to you then. I needed time. Your sister informed me that she had told you the truth before you married me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The impatience had drained out of her. A curious foreboding was clenching her tight now. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
He bit out a harsh laugh and studied his linked hands. “You know me too well. I shouldn’t have asked the question. A more caring and less intimidating husband might have invited confidence. I don’t blame you for keeping quiet. Jeff…it was he who phoned you on the island? You were very happy that day,” he drawled in the same measured, carefully unemotional tone.
“Of course I was…after all this time, I finally saw a hope of it all being cleared up,” she replied.
“It is now.” Releasing his breath slowly, he stared across the room at her. “An apology, no matter how deeply it was meant, would be another insult to the many I have already offered you. In my desire for revenge, I have done you incalculable harm. Nothing I could do or say would make up for the pain I have caused you.”
Her eyes were haunted pools in the ashen pallor of her face. Her fingers curled tightly over the back of the armchair in front of her. She felt sick because she was afraid. If he loved her, there was plenty he could do, but he did not love her. Faced with his own mistrust and misjudgement, all Alex could feel now was the heavy burden on his conscience, the impossibility of finding adequate words to express his regret for all that had happened between them since that day in Venice.
“You said that the clock could not work in reverse,” he reminded her. “You were correct. Even before they came to see me yesterday I had already seen this. I had also come to appreciate that a…loving husband would not have behaved as I did four years ago. I might have seen that if my wife did end up in another man’s arms, my own behaviour had undoubtedly contributed to the betrayal. But then I was not capable of seeing that…”
“Alex…I…” she faltered, torn by his pain but held back by his icy control.
He rose abruptly to his feet and moved a silencing hand. “No, don’t tell me not to say these things. I must say them. I fell in love with you because you were so full of life, and then I proceeded to crush it out of you,” he breathed contemptuously. “Worse,” he continued before she could argue that his faults had not been so severe. “I didn’t even notice I was doing that to you.”
Her fingernails bit into the velvet beneath her hand. “It wasn’t so bad as that,” she protested weakly.
The dark head flung back. “Do not be so generous to me,” he grated. “When was I ever generous to you? Had I left you in the life you were contented with, I would feel less like some Dark Ages tyrant now. But no, once again I had to come into your life and make a mess of it, even to the point of making you pregnant again. And why did that happen? Because I blackmailed you into bed. I might as well have raped you.”
Kerry was trembling. So much of the understanding she had once longed for had been locked up inside him. It must have existed before yesterday. Alex could not have put all this together overnight. But what she was hearing was too extreme, too terrifyingly linked with a hard, bitter finality for her to receive any comfort from it.
He drew something from his inside pocket. “This is the contract I forced you to sign.” He tore the document violently in half and cast the pieces into the grate. He straightened again, pale but controlled. “Now you have no restrictions. I will leave you to lead your life as you choose to lead it. If you do not want me to see Nicky,” his voice roughened and dropped low, “this I will accept, too.”
Shock was coursing through her in waves. Dear God, it was happening all over again! On
ly this time he had had the decency not to send a lawyer to do the dirty work. A searing memory of the letters she had written and the calls she had once made sealed her lips rigidly on any protest. If he was leaving, she would let him leave. Why should she tell him that she loved him, when her feelings weren’t returned? She refused to make the smallest move to argue his decision.
“You married me just to get revenge, didn’t you?” she accused with stark eyes. “And once you’d got it, it was worthless, wasn’t it?”
His dark eyes flamed golden. “Yes…worthless.” His low-pitched response was wry. “And I know that to give you your freedom back when it should never have been taken from you is poor recompense. But it is all that I have to give.”
All that he had to give. The statement rippled through her slight body, burning and wounding wherever it touched. It took her anger away. It numbed her. “And what am I supposed to do now?” she asked woodenly.
“You do whatever you want. I will do nothing. You can have a divorce, a separation, whatever you choose. Where you live is also your decision,” he laid out tautly. “Naturally, I will leave this house…”