‘Ann,’ he said again, ‘once before I paid you for your time—insulting you grievously as I did so. But…but now that I know why you took my money, what your life actually is instead of my ugly assumptions, I…I wonder whether… whether you would consider…reconsider…your decision?’ He took a deep breath. ‘In Paris you said you had a life of your own to lead, and I respect that now entirely—indeed shamingly, for it shames me to think how you have dedicated your life to children who have so little. But if…if what you just said is true…that what is most valuable to those children is money, not western aid workers…then supposing I…I…gave enough money to…to make it unnecessary for you to go back, to hire someone in your place—?’
He stopped. Said something briefly, pungently in Greek, then reverted to English. ‘I am saying this all wrong!’ Frustration was in his voice. ‘I am making it sound like I am trying to buy you out! But I don’t mean it like that, Ann—I am simply trying to say that if my wealth would make it easier for you not to feel you had to go back to Africa yourself—if you could instead stay—come to Sospiris. To Ari.’ He took another breath. ‘To me.’
Suddenly out of nowhere his eyes were unveiled, unshuttered, a new expression blazing from them. She felt emotion leap in her—impossible to crush, impossible to deny. She couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot. Rooted as he stepped forward, took her face in his hands. And the touch of his fingers cradling her skull made her weak, and faint, and the closeness of his face, the heat of his gaze, the overpowering thereness of his body towering over her, so strong, so powerful, so Nikos…
‘These days without you have been agony, Ann! I’ve been impossible—impossible to live with! Angry and ill-tempered and short-fused and hurting, Ann—just hurting without you. Because I want you so much! I just want you back—back with me again. Because of what we had—what we’ve always had—even when I hated myself for wanting you, when I thought you were little better than your own sister, whom I thought then the lowest of the low. Even that could not stop me wanting you day and night. I was driven insane with not having you—until, thank God, my mother came up with her scheme for Ari’s holiday in Paris. And then—even more thanks to God—I came to my senses over you and realised that you could not, could not be the person I had despised for four years. Having you respond to me was everything I’d been aching for, and I don’t want to lose it. I want so much for you to come back to Sospiris with me now, and not go to Africa. Ari’s missing you so much, and I…I am desperate for you, Ann!’
Her heart was cracking open. She could hear it. Feel, too, the agony in her muscles as she drew away from him.
‘I can’t, Nikos,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t.’
His hands dropped to his sides. ‘Does your work mean so much to you?’ There was emptiness in his voice.
She shut her eyes, her throat almost closing. Then she forced her eyes to open, to look at him.
‘No,’ she said. Then she said it. ‘But you do.’ She swallowed, never taking her eyes from his. ‘You do, Nikos. And I know you didn’t mean it—didn’t even think about it. Because why should you? What we had in Paris was an affair—I knew that, knew that’s all it could be. And that if I came back to Sospiris that was all it would be still. An affair. And one fine morning you’d decide you’d had enough of me, and the affair would be over. For you. But not—’ her breath caught like a scalpel ‘—not for me. And I couldn’t bear it, Nikos—living on Sospiris, helping to bring up Ari, and having to see you arrive with other women, see you choose, one day, one of them to be your wife, and knowing I was nothing more than yesterday’s affair…’
He was looking at her. Looking at her with the strangest expression on his face. Words sounded in his head. His mother’s voice. But perhaps, my darling, I am not the only one making such assumptions.
He’d thought she’d meant him. But she hadn’t. Not in the least.
‘Theos mou,’ he breathed. ‘You thought that? That I wanted you to come back to Sospiris because I wanted to continue an affair with you?’
Two flags of colour stained her cheeks. ‘It’s what you wanted before. When you offered me that diamond necklace. A clandestine affair in your mother’s villa.’
A hand slashed violently, making her jump.
‘God Almighty, Ann, that was then! When I still thought you as bad as I’d been painting you for four years! When my entire scheme was to slake my desire for you and remove you from my mother’s house by seducing you! I was going to take you away from Sospiris—keep you as my mistress for as long as it took to make it impossible for my mother to invite you to Sospiris again! But how, how, after what we had in Paris, could you possibly think I only wanted an affair with you? I wanted—want still, desperately, with all my being—you to come back to me, to make a home for Ari, and for us to be together. You and me—a family for Ari and for us!’ He took a hectic breath. ‘It was hearing Ari’s artless remark the morning he found us in bed together, saying that mummies and daddies slept together, that made it dawn on me that that was exactly what I wanted! For you and me to stay together.’ He looked at her. ‘To marry,’ he said.
Shock was hollowing through her. Shock
and other emotions even more powerful.
‘To marry?’ she echoed, as if she were uttering an alien language. ‘Because then we could bring up Ari together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because—’ she swallowed ‘—we’re good in bed together.’
‘More than good, Ann,’ he said dryly.
She dropped her eyes. She couldn’t meet his, suddenly. Not without colour flaming in her cheeks at the way he was looking at her. And that wasn’t what was needed—not now. Not now when she had to say the worst thing of all.
The hardest, cruellest thing.
‘So a marriage for Ari, and for good sex?’
‘Great sex,’ he corrected her. ‘And, of course, for one other reason.’
Slowly, as if they were weighted with lead, she made herself lift her eyes to him.
‘What…what other reason?’ Her voice was faint—as faint as she felt.
‘Love, Ann,’ he said.
She swayed. He caught her. Drew her to him. Not to kiss, but to hold, as lightly as swansdown. He smoothed her hair.
‘Love, Ann,’ he said again. ‘I didn’t know it until you left me. And now—now it’s etched in stone upon my heart. Your name. For ever. And you love me, don’t you, Ann? You said as much just now. So why not tell me, as I have told you?’