She cried again as the climax consumed itself in her, tears that came from a place deep within her.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, and held her close. ‘Don’t cry.’
He soothed her till her tears had ebbed away, easing from her but never letting go of her, folding her to him so that her cheek rested on the strong wall of his chest. Her heart was full within her, but a great grief ran through her still.
She lifted her head to look at him.
Her eyes were troubled. So very troubled.
‘Theo—thank you. Thank you for giving me this time now. It’s taken away so much of the stain of what happened in Greece. And I’m grateful, very grateful to you for that. But go now—please. Please go.’ She swallowed painfully.
She sat up more, so that she was farther away from him and could half wrap the duvet around her. Then, with another swallow, she began to talk.
‘I should never have married you. I knew right from the start that I should not. Not just because I didn’t approve of our reasons for doing so—I gave in to the pressure anyway, for my uncle’s sake—for another reason. One I refused to face up to until it was far, far too late.’ Her eyes gazed down at him, still troubled. ‘A marriage like the one we went through could only possibly work if both parties felt the same about it, and about each other. To me it really was a sham, a show, nothing more—a charade meaning absolutely nothing beyond the mere surface. It was nothing more than play-acting, with me cast very temporarily in the role of Mrs Theo Theakis. The play would have finite run and then we’d both go off stage and get on with our real lives again, the purpose of the play achieved. That’s why…’
She swallowed yet again, and though she did not want to speak, she did, ‘that’s why I was so horrified when it actually finally dawned on me that you were…were making a move on me. I kept thinking I must be mistaken—I had to be mistaken! I mean, of course you couldn’t be doing what I thought you were! This wasn’t a real marriage—it wasn’t anything! The very idea that you would look at me…think of me…in that way was just absurd! And when I finally accepted that in fact you did think of me in those terms—it made me angry. It made me so, so angry. How dared you do so! Because to me there could only be one possible reason why you were doing it. It was an exercise in power. That was all. Flexing your sexual ego while you continued merrily with the women who’d made it so clear to me that that was your usual practice.’
A painful breath shook through her.
‘But I couldn’t cope with that—I knew I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t treat sex with you the way those other women did. And I knew—oh, God, I knew—that for you I wouldn’t be anything more than any other woman was.’
She shut her eyes again, then opened them determinedly. ‘Even when you threw at me that you had never slept with any other woman during our marriage, it just made it worse! It threw a whole new hideous light on what you’d done to me. You’d played the arch hypocrite—observing the letter of our marriage, refraining from your usual practice—but then, of course, realising you were facing months of celibacy, you’d decided that you might as well recourse to the one woman with whom you could, by your terms, have sex. Me.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘Oh, God, that made me even angrier! To be used like that! Used! Because it meant it didn’t matter who the hell I was—anyone you’d married for the reasons you and my uncle thought necessary—anyone would have done!’
‘So it didn’t matter. Because the outcome would be the same either way. When our marriage came to its allotted end, that would be the end of what you wanted from me. I would go home, as arranged, and that would be that.’
She pulled the duvet more tightly around her, as if it were to stanch a wound.
‘That would be that,’ she said again, and her voice was bleak. As bleak as winter wind. Then she forced a smile to her mouth. It was a little twisted, a little wry—and very rueful.
‘I didn’t handle things very well—did I, Theo? I should have been up-front with you. After all, you’d been up-front with me, that time I came to see you after Aristides had done his Victorian novel stuff on me. You were very up-front about why, in fact, a marriage on the terms we made did make sense—was necessary. So, when I finally realised you were making a move on me, I should have been up-front with you, shouldn’t I? Simply told you that, unlike your other women, I couldn’t handle an affair—as it would have been, in essence—like the one you wanted. And if you really thought our marriage meant you couldn’t or shouldn’t continue with other women, then I should have told you that you either had a choice of celibacy or dissolving our marriage earlier than we had intended to. Because I just couldn’t handle anything else.’
Her smile twisted painfully. ‘So in a way it’s all been my fault, hasn’t it? My fault for not being up-front with you. My fault for being stupid and weak enough to go along with what you wanted of me, and then, worst of all, to panic the way I did and let you totally misinterpret my relationship with Jem so that I could escape from you and know you wouldn’t come after me again.’
Her fingers started to pleat the edge of the duvet.
‘I just should have been honest with you all along.’ Her eyes rested on his face, as impassive as his eyes, which were just looking at her steadily. He had one arm crooked behind his head. Absently, with a slice of pain that seemed to scrape along every raw nerve in her body, she took in the roughened line of his jaw, the feathered sable of his hair, the complex musculature of his shoulder and lifted arm, the strong column of his throat. She would not be seeing them again. She would not be seeing him again. Everything was sorted now—all the truth told. Now it was time for Theo to go. Anger spent, poison lanced, all the secrets and lies disclosed. They could both now get on with their lives.
She would move to Devon with Jem to help run Pycott, visit her mother and Geoff in the autumn, hopefully even make peace with her uncle. But she would not go to Greece again.
That would be too painful, even now. Especially now.
Now there was only one more secret left—one more lie of omission.
That could never be told. Must never be told.
Because there was no point in telling. It would serve no purpose. None at all. So she would keep silent still, the secret deep within her to the end of her days.
‘So why did you sleep with me?’
His voice startled her.
He was looking at her, his expression still impassive. ‘You say you didn’t want an affair with me, as you termed it, and yet you did sleep with me when I met you on the island. I’m curious why.’
There wasn’t any feeling in his voice, but it was not emotionless in the way that could chill her like freezing water seeping into her shoes. His voice was simply—curious. Enquiring.
She gave a half-shrug. ‘I just gave in, that’s all. I mean, Theo, after all, it would hardly have come as surprise to you. I’m sure better women than me have given in. You’re pretty hard to resist.’