She watched his expression change, as if everything were happening in slow motion.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I can’t come back to Sospiris.’ The brief words sounded so blunt, so harsh, but she said them again all the same.
His brows drew together, and he let go of her hand. In an instant he was not Nikos her lover, but Nikos Theakis to whom people did not say no…
Not even the woman he wanted to keep as an on-tap mistress in his home, spending her days with his nephew and her nights in his bed. A convenient mistress—there when he wanted her, while he wanted her. And when he no longer did—well, she’d still be looking after Ari.
She took a breath. A sharp one that cut like a knife. ‘I have a life of my own. One I can’t abandon indefinitely.’
His face had stilled. ‘So this was nothing more than a passing amusement for you, was it?’
His voice cut as sharply as the breath in her lungs.
‘There’s nothing else it could be, Nikos. It’s been a… a holiday. Wonderful, but—’ another breath razored in her lungs ‘—now it’s over.’
Even as she spoke her mind was shouting at her—urgently, desperately! Don’t say such things! Don’t turn down what he is offering! Take it, grab it, seize it with both hands!
But if she did—
The cold iced through her again. The icy cold of standing on the top of an Arctic crevasse. One wrong step and she would plunge down into its fatal depths. Her eyes went to him—went to the man who, night after night, had taken her into such bliss as she had never known, never could know again, whose arms had embraced her, whose kisses had melted her, whose smile alone warmed her like a living flame.
If I go back to Sospiris now—if I continue our affair—there can be only one ending, one fate for me.
A fate as clear to her here, now, as if it were already fulfilled. She said the words in her mind—forced herself to say them, to make very, very sure she faced up to them.
If I go back to Sospiris I will fall in love with him. Because already I stand on the brink of it—already I feel his power over me. But to him I will only ever be one more woman out of many. And one day he will have no more interest in me…
‘And what about Ari?’ Nikos’s voice, still cutting, still cold, sounded again. ‘You’re just going to walk away from him?’
She felt her heart squeeze. ‘It’s for the best. I won’t be out of his life. I can visit—or perhaps we can meet up. Your mother has been most generous in assuring me I am welcome for another holiday.’
‘And that’s all? All you’re prepared to do? Very well.’
Abruptly, he got to his feet, looking down at her a moment. His face was closed. Closed to her completely. The way it had been for so, so long, until this brief, precarious truce had formed between them and this even briefer affair.
‘Then there is no more to be said,’ he finished. For one last moment he looked down at her, and for a second so brief she knew she must have only imagined it she saw something in his eyes—something that shook her. Then it was gone. Shuttered and veiled and closed down.
‘You can have the task of telling Ari,’ he said curtly. ‘Since I’ll be the one to mop his tears at losing you.’
She said nothing. Her heart was hea
vy enough as it was. Inside her head the voice was still shouting—telling her it wasn’t too late, that there was still time to say she’d been an idiot, that of course she would jump ten feet at the chance to live on Sospiris, to take of him anything and everything she could, while she could, and not count the cost—never count the cost—until the bill had to be paid…
But when it does, it will be agony. So go—go now—while you can—while you can escape. Escape a fate that will be unbearable—year after year of watching Ari grow and knowing that Nikos has left you far behind…
She couldn’t face it. Not even to stop Ari’s tears, which came, as Nikos had said they would, despite all she could say to comfort him.
‘I’ll come and see you again, poppet. You know I will. Ya-ya has said so. And when you go back home Tina will be back—she’ll want to know all about your lovely, lovely holiday…’
‘But I want you, too—as well as Tina!’ wailed Ari disconsolately.
Parting from him at the airport tore her, and yet again the voice in her head shouted at her to change her mind, recant, to go with them back to Greece, not board a lonely flight to London. But she had to do it—she knew she had to do it.
The pain now is bad, but it is to save myself worse pain. So I have to clutch that sanity, that sense, and take the lesser pain now. Whatever it costs me. Before it’s too late.
But even as her plane landed at Heathrow, she knew, with a crushing of her heart, that it was already far too late. She was not standing on the brink of the abyss. She had already fallen deep, deep, deep into its fatal heart.