‘Not this again—’
‘Of course this again! You’re unhappy, Antonios, but you won’t tell me why. You won’t tell me what is going on with your brother, or what happened with your father, or anything. How can I help? How can I be your wife, supporting and loving you, when you deliberately shut me out?’ He couldn’t answer and she stepped towards him, grabbing him by the shoulders. ‘I love you,’ she told him fiercely, her voice choked with emotion. ‘I love you enough to risk everything because I know you can’t go on like this. We can’t go on. Please, Antonios.’ She stared at him, tears running down her face, and the certainty he’d shielded himself with for so long started to crack.
Lindsay had kept a secret from him and he’d felt angry and hurt. Betrayed—as betrayed as when his father had kept the wretched state of the business from him. How could he keep anything from her? How could he perpetuate this life of secrets and lies?
But it’s not my secret to tell.
Yet had it been his to keep?
‘When I took over the business,’ he told Lindsay, the words coming haltingly yet with growing determination, ‘I didn’t realize—no one realized—that it was in debt. Utterly in debt. My father had a heart attack because he was faced with losing it all.’ Lindsay gaped at him and Antonios smiled grimly. ‘A shock, no?’ he said and she nodded.
‘And you didn’t tell anyone about this?’
‘My father asked, begged me not to. Some of his dealings had been...illegal. Criminal.’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘Telling my family would have brought such shame to my father. My mother loved him, and my siblings, too. I couldn’t bear for their feelings to change, and I knew it would destroy my father. So I worked to get the business back on an even footing.’
She cocked her head, her luminous gaze sweeping slowly over him, and he braced himself to hear recrimination. Rebuke that he hadn’t told anyone, that he’d kept it to himself.
‘Oh, Antonios,’ she said softly, her voice filled with so much love and compassion, ‘that must have been so very hard for you. Keeping such a secret for so long, and working so hard.’ She shook her head, more tears spilling down her cheeks, and her understanding just about undid him.
‘Lindsay, I love you,’ he said as he reached for her. ‘I know there are a lot of unknowns, a lot of complications, but that is one thing that I know. One thing that it is certain. It is my rock.’
Another tear snaked down her cheek. ‘It’s my rock, too,’ she whispered. ‘Loving you. Knowing you love me.’
He drew her to him, needing to feel her soft, slender body against his. ‘Then we’ll work the rest out,’ he murmured against her hair. ‘Somehow we’ll work the rest out.’
‘Antonios.’ She pulled away from him. ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘It can be—’
‘No,’ she answered, ‘it can’t. I wish it could because it would make things so simple. Just sail along on the certainty of our love.’ Her mouth twisted wryly. ‘But it’s not simple, Antonios. Your mother said it was endlessly complicated. And love is hard work.’
He stiffened, not wanting to hear this and yet knowing in his gut she was right. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying you need to talk to Leonidas. You need to think about what would make you happy, and how our marriage can thrive.’
He tensed, withdrawing from her. ‘Is that an ultimatum?’
She stared at him sadly. ‘Does it need to be one?’
‘This is about your job offer, isn’t it?’
‘No, Antonios.’ Lindsay shook her head. ‘It’s about so much more than that.’
Anger fired through him, coming so quickly on the heels of the love and gratitude he’d felt. ‘Lindsay—’
‘I’ll refuse the offer if you want me to,’ she told him quietly. ‘This is about you. And me. Us.’ She stared at him steadily. ‘I wish you could see that.’
And he could see it, Antonios realized. Of course he could. He just hated the thought. He stared at her, the sadness turning down her mouth, the love still shining in her eyes. He hated that he’d made her so unhappy. Again.
‘I need to be alone,’ he said abruptly and turned from the room.
He walked the length of the estate, ending up in the olive groves, memories of his childhood dancing through his mind. Memories of walking there just a few short weeks ago with Lindsay, when they’d forged this new and fragile foundation of their marriage. He’d fallen in love with her all over again these past few weeks. She’d made coming back here, dealing with Marakaios Enterprises, bearable.
And do you want more from your life than bearable?
Antonios pressed a fist to his forehead and closed his eyes. Lindsay was right. Marakaios Enterprises had been slowly strangling him for a decade. Not just the secret he’d kept from his family, but the whole of it. He was reaching his breaking point and only Lindsay had seen it. Had possessed the courage to confront him.
He would be no less brave. Resolutely, he went in search of Leonidas.
His brother was not in the main villa or his own house; it took Antonios a few stunned seconds to realize Leonidas had gone to the office, on today of all days.
It was dark, twilight having descended without his even being aware of the descent into night, and a few stars glimmered close to the horizon.
A single light shone from the office building. Antonios thumbed the key code and stepped inside. He paused on the threshold of Leonidas’s office, taking in his brother’s bent head, one hand raked through his hair, the determined yet slumped set of his shoulders.
‘It’s a little late to be working,’ he said quietly and Leonidas looked up, startled, before he gave a shrug.
‘The world doesn’t stop, even for a funeral.’
For a second Antonios wanted to berate his brother for his callousness, but then he saw the grief in Leonidas’s eyes and realized this was how he coped. He was, Antonios thought wryly, starting to see people a little more clearly, thanks to Lindsay.
He took a step into the room. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Oh?’ Leonidas eyed him warily. ‘About what?’
‘About Father.’
He’d spoken quietly, but the two words seemed to bounce around the room, echo in the stillness. Leonidas glanced down at the papers he’d been studying, needlessly rearranging a few.
‘What about him?’ he asked finally.
Antonios took a deep breath, then plunged. ‘Father was deeply in debt, Leonidas. He’d nearly lost it all when he had the heart attack.’
Leonidas’s jaw dropped, just as Lindsay’s had done. Wearily, Antonios explained it all again: the debt, the shame, the secret.
After a long, taut moment Leonidas pushed away from the desk, turned towards the window. ‘You should have told me.’
‘I didn’t feel I could.’ He sounded, Antonios realized, just as Lindsay had when she’d explained why she’d left without an explanation. They were so alike, and yet in such different ways. And they’d taught each other so much. Helped each other so much. ‘I realize now,’ he told Leonidas, ‘I may have been wrong.’
‘May have been?’
Temper flared at his brother’s obvious sarcasm, but he suppressed it. ‘Leonidas, Father made me promise not to tell. He was deeply ashamed that he’d let it get so far. Telling anyone would have felt like a betrayal. It still feels like one now but I recognize that you deserve to know, perhaps more than anyone.’ And at least, Antonios thought, his mother had been spared the knowledge of her husband’s criminal folly. It was a small mercy.
‘I wish he’d told me,’ Leonidas said after a long moment. His voice sounded thick. ‘I wish he’d seen how much I loved the business, how much I wanted to share it with him. I wish he’d trusted me with that burden.’
‘I wish it, too,’ Antonios answered. ‘I wish there had been no secrets between anyone, ever.’
They were both silent, and then Leonidas looked up and asked, ‘So what now? Things will continue on as usual? You’ll give me a little more freedom?’
He sounded so cynical, so jaded and yet also despairing, and Antonios knew it was his fault his brother was like that. He’d given him a very short leash.
‘No,’ he said slowly, and Lindsay’s words echoed through his mind. She’d understood him better than he’d ever understood himself. ‘That’s not what’s going to happen.’
Leonidas let out a bitter laugh. ‘I see.’
‘No,’ Antonios said, ‘I don’t think you do.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What would you think,’ he asked, ‘if you became CEO?’
* * *
Lindsay paced her bedroom for an hour, until she feared she’d wear down the carpet with her restless tread. It was evening, and everyone from the reception after the funeral had gone. Parthenope would be leaving to return home tomorrow, and the house, Lindsay supposed, would settle into a new and unwelcome normal.
And what about her and Antonios?
She had no idea if he’d accepted or understood what she’d said. No idea if their marriage was teetering on a precipice or about to take off and fly.