She dared not think why such a marriage as Nikos had wanted was so impossible! She must not let in those memories that made a lie of all her insistence that she did not want a marriage such as Nikos had wanted.
She couldn’t afford to let those memories surface. Memories that haunted her...memories that were a torment, an agony of loss...of their bodies entwined beneath the burning stars, bringing each other to ecstasy.
Gerald’s dry voice sounded in her ears, making her listen. ‘Well, Diana, if you have no grounds for divorce then you will simply have to wait until you can divorce him without his agreement. That will take five years.’
She stared aghast, disbelieving. ‘Five years?’
‘Unless you can persuade him to consent to end your marriage.’
He shifted position again, leafed through s
ome papers in a fashion that told Diana he was looking for a way to say what he had to say next.
He glanced across his desk at her. ‘You may be able to change his mind, Diana,’ he said. ‘Your husband has indicated that he will discuss the matter with you personally.’
‘I don’t want to see him!’ The cry came from her. ‘I couldn’t bear to see him again.’
‘Then you will have to be prepared to wait five years for the dissolution of your marriage,’ he replied implacably.
She closed her eyes again, emotion tumbling through her. To see him again—it would be torment, absolute torment! But if it was the only way to plead with him to end this nightmarish façade of a marriage—
She looked across at her lawyer. ‘Where and when does Nikos want to meet me?’ she asked dully.
* * *
The uniformed chauffeur who was waiting for her at Charles de Gaulle Airport gave no indication of where he was driving her, but she could see it was not into Paris, but westwards into the lush countryside of Normandy. There was no point asking. Nikos had demanded this meeting and she was in no position to refuse—not if she wanted to be free of the crushing chains of her torturous marriage.
Apprehension filled her, and a clawing dread—knowing she must face him, plead with him for her freedom. She could feel her stomach churning, her breathing heavy, as the car drove onwards.
The journey seemed to last for ever, longer than the flight had, and it was past noon before they arrived at their destination, deep in the heart of the countryside.
She frowned as she got out of the car, taking in the turreted Norman château in creamy Caen stone, grand and gracious, flanked by poplar trees and ornamental gardens, and the little river glinting in the sunshine, winding past.
It was a beautiful house, like something out of a fairytale, but she was in no frame of mind to appreciate it. Its beauty only mocked the tension in her, her pinching and snapping nerves. Why was she here? Did Nikos own it? Was he renting it? Simply staying here? It could be a hotel for all she knew.
A man was emerging from the chateau, tall and dark-haired, and for a moment, with a tremor of shock, Diana thought it was Nikos. Then the rush to her bloodstream that had come just with thinking she was seeing Nikos again subsided.
‘Welcome to the Chateau du Plassis,’ he said. ‘I am Antoine du Plassis. Please come inside.’
Numbly she followed him, having murmured something in French, she knew not what. Inside, the interior was cool, and there was an antiquity about the place that was immediately was familiar to her. It was a magnificent country house like Greymont—but in another country.
‘Is Nikos here?’ Her voice broke the silence as she followed her host.
The tall, dark-haired man, who for that heart-catching moment she had thought was Nikos, glanced back at her.
‘Of course,’ he said.
He threw open a pair of double doors, standing aside to let her enter first. She saw a beautiful salon, much gilded, and a huge fireplace with the characteristic French chimneypiece. But she took in little of it. Nikos was getting to his feet from his place on a silk-upholstered Louis Quinze sofa, and her eyes went to him with a lurch of her stomach.
He said something in French to her host—something too low, too rapid for Diana to catch—and nor could she catch Antoine’s answer.
Her eyes were only for Nikos, and she was wishing with all her heart that her pulse had not leapt on seeing him, that her eyes were not drinking him in like water in a parched desert. He was looking strained, tense, and she found herself wondering at it.
Then, as her eyes went back to her host, Diana’s eyes widened disbelievingly.
The Frenchman was slightly less tall than Nikos, less broad in the shoulder, less powerfully made, with features less distinct, less strongly carved, and there was more of a natural Gallic elegance in his manner. His hair was slightly longer than Nikos’s, less dark, as were his eyes, but the resemblance was immediate, unmistakable.
Her gaze went from one to the other.