What a fool he’d been.
Lindsay was staring at him, her face still pale and miserable. ‘One week,’ Antonios ground out. ‘Seven days. And then I intend never to see you again.’ She flinched, as if his words hurt her, and he let out a hard laugh. ‘Doesn’t that notion please you?’
She glanced away, pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling. ‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘It doesn’t.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘I know.’ She let out a shuddering breath. ‘You never did.’
‘And that is my fault?’
She shook her head wearily. ‘It’s too late to apportion blame, Antonios. It simply is. Was. Our marriage was a mistake, as I told you in my email and on the telephone.’
‘Yet you never said why.’
‘You never asked,’ Lindsay answered, her voice sharpening, and Antonios frowned at her.
‘I asked you on the phone—’
‘No,’ Lindsay told him quietly, ‘you didn’t. You asked me if I were serious, and I said yes. And then you hung up.’
Antonios stared at her, his jaw bunched so tight it ached. ‘You’re the one who left, Lindsay.’
‘I know—’
‘Yet now you are attempting to imply that our marriage failed because I didn’t ask the right questions when I called you after you’d left me. Theos! It is hard to take.’
‘I’m not implying anything of the sort, Antonios. I was simply reminding you of the facts.’
‘Then let me remind you of a fact. I’m not interested in your explanations. The time for those has passed. What I am interested in, Lindsay—the only thing I am interested in—is your agreement. A plane leaves for Athens tonight. If we are to be on it, we need to leave here in the next hour.’
‘What?’ Her gaze flew back to his, her mouth gaping open. ‘I haven’t even agreed.’
‘Don’t you want a divorce?’
She stared at him for a moment, her chin lifted proudly, her eyes cool and grey. ‘You might think you can blackmail me into agreeing, Antonios,’ she told him, ‘but you can’t. I’ll come to Greece, not because I want a divorce but because I want to pay my respects to your mother. To explain to her—’
‘Do not think—’ Antonios cut her off ‘—that you’ll tell her some sob story about our mistake of a marriage. I don’t want her upset—’
‘When do you intend on telling her the truth?’
‘Never,’ Antonios answered shortly. ‘She doesn’t have that long to live.’
Tears filled Lindsay’s eyes again, turning them luminous and silver, and she blinked them back. ‘Do you really think that’s the better course? To deceive her—’
‘You’re one to speak of deception.’
‘I never deceived you, Antonios. I did love you, for that week in New York.’
The pain that slashed through him was so intense and sudden that Antonios nearly gasped aloud. Nearly clutched his chest, as if he were having a heart attack, the same as his father, dead at just fifty-nine years old. ‘And then?’ he finally managed, his voice thankfully dispassionate. ‘You just stopped?’ Part of him knew he shouldn’t be asking these questions, shouldn’t care about these answers. He’d told Lindsay the time for explanations had passed, and it had. ‘Never mind,’ he dismissed roughly. ‘It hardly matters. Come to Greece for whatever reason you want, but you need to be ready in an hour.’
She stared at him for a long moment, looking fragile and beautiful and making him remember how it had felt to hold her. Touch her.
‘Fine,’ she said softly, and her voice sounded sad and resigned. Suppressing the ache of longing that trembled through him, Antonios turned away from the sight of his wife and waited, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, as she packed up her belongings and then, without a word or glance for him, slipped by him and out of the room.
CHAPTER TWO
LINDSAY WALKED ACROSS the college campus in the oncoming twilight with Antonios like a malevolent shadow behind her. She walked blindly, unaware of the stately brick buildings, now gilded in the gold of fading sunlight, that made this small liberal arts college one of the most beautiful in the whole north-east of America.
All she could think of was the week that loomed so terribly ahead of her. All she could feel was Antonios’s anger and scorn.
Maybe she deserved some of it, leaving the way she had, but Antonios had no idea how hard life in Greece had been for her. Hadn’t been willing to listen to her explanations, fumbling and faltering as they had been, because while she’d wanted him to understand she’d also been afraid of him knowing and seeing too much.
Their marriage, Lindsay acknowledged hollowly, had been doomed from the start, never mind that one magical week in New York.
And now the time for explanations had passed, Antonios said. It was for the best, Lindsay knew, because having Antonios understand her or her reasons for leaving served no purpose now. It was impossible anyway, because he’d never understood. Never tried.
‘Where do you live?’ Antonios asked as they passed several academic buildings. A few students relaxed outside, lounging in the last of the weak October sunshine before darkness fell. Fall had only just come to upstate New York; the leaves were just starting to change and the breeze was chilly, but after a long, sticky summer of heatwaves everyone was ready for autumn.
‘Just across the street,’ Lindsay murmured. She crossed the street to a lane of faculty houses, made of clapboard and painted in different bright colours with front porches that held a few Adonirack chairs or a porch swing. She’d sat outside there, in the summers, watching the world go by. Always a spectator...until she’d met Antonios.
He’d woken her up, brought her into the land of the living. With him she’d felt more joy and excitement than she’d ever known before. She should have realized it couldn’t last, it hadn’t been real.
Antonios stood patiently while she fumbled for the keys; to her annoyance and shame her hands shook. He affected her that much. And not just him, but the whole reality he’d thrust so suddenly upon her. Going to Greece. Seeing his family again. Pretending to be his wife—his loving wife—again. Parties and dinners, endless social occasions, every moment in the spotlight...
‘Let me help you,’ Antonios said and, to her surprise, he almost sounded gentle. He took the key from her hand and fitted it into the lock, turning it easily before pushing the door open.
Lindsay muttered her thanks and stepped inside, breathed in the musty, dusty scent of her father’s house. It was strange to have Antonios here, to see this glimpse of her old life, the only life she’d known until he had burst into it.
She flipped on the light and watched him blink as he took in the narrow hallway, made even narrower by the bookshelves set against every wall, each one crammed to overflowing with books. More books were piled on the floor in teetering stacks; the dining room table was covered in textbooks and piles of papers. Lindsay was so used to it that she didn’t even notice the clutter any more, but she was conscious of it now, with Antonios here. She was uncomfortably aware of just how small and messy it all was. Yet it was also home, the place where she’d felt safe, where she and her father had been happy, or as happy as they knew how to be. She wouldn’t apologize for it.
She cleared her throat and turned towards the stairs. ‘I’ll just pack.’
‘Do you need any help?’
She turned back to Antonios, surprised by his solicitude. Or was he being patronizing? She couldn’t tell anything about him any more; his expression was veiled, his voice toneless, his movements controlled.
‘No,’ she answered, ‘I’m fine.’
He arched one dark eyebrow. ‘Are you really fine, Lindsay? Because just now your hands were shaking too much for you even to open your front door.’
She stiffened, colour rushing into her face. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re so angry, Antonios. It’s a little unsettling to be around someone like that.’
His mouth tightened. ‘You think I shouldn’t be angry?’
She closed her eyes briefly as weariness swept over her. ‘I don’t want to get into this discussion. We’ve both agreed it serves no purpose. I was just—’
‘Stating a fact,’ Antonios finished sardonically. ‘Of course. I’m sorry I can’t make this experience easier for you.’
Lindsay just shook her head, too tired and tense to argue. ‘Please, let’s not bicker and snipe at each other. I’m coming to Greece as you wanted. Can’t that be enough?’
His eyes blazed and he took a step towards her, colour slashing his cheekbones. ‘No, Lindsay, that is not remotely enough. But since it is all I have asked of you, and all I believe you are capable of, I will have to be satisfied.’
He stared at her for a long, taut moment; Lindsay could hear her breathing turn ragged as her heart beat harder. She felt trapped by his gaze, pinned as much by his contempt as her own pointless anger. And underneath the fury that simmered in Antonios’s gaze and hid in her own heart was the memory of when things had been different between them. When he’d taken her in his arms and made her body sing. When she’d thought she loved him.