She shut her eyes a moment, her jaw clenching. Then her lids flew open and she looked straight at Nikos. He was stock-still, his face unreadable, his eyes unreadable. It didn’t matter. She had to say this now. Had to.
‘And to ensure that I did he gave up all hope of ever finding anyone else to make him happy. Gave up all thoughts of marrying again. For my sake. Because...’ She gave a sigh—a long, weary sigh. ‘Because he would not risk having a son who would take precedence over me—inherit Greymont, dispossess me of the home I loved so desperately.’
There was a heaviness inside her now, like a crushing weight, as she lifted her eyes to his, made herself hold them, as impossible as it was for her to do so.
‘His sacrifice of any chance of happiness for himself made it imperative for me to honour what he’d done. He ensured I’d inherit Greymont—so I had to save it, Nikos, I had to! I had to make it the most important thing in the world to me. Saving Greymont. Or I would have betrayed his trust in me. His trust that I would keep Greymont, pass it on to my descendants, preserve it for our family.’
She looked about her again, at the elegant salon with its antiques, its oil paintings on the walls, the vista of the grounds beyond, the sense of place and history all about her—so absolutely familiar to her from Greymont.
Her lips pressed together. She had to make him see, understand...
CHAPTER TWELVE
HER GAZE WENT back to him, with a pleading look on her face.
‘It’s something those not born to places like this can never really comprehend—but ask your brother, Nikos, whether he would ever want to part with his heritage, to be the Comte du Plassis who loses it, who lives to see strangers living here, knowing it’s not his any longer, that’s he’s had it taken from him?’ She shook her head again. ‘But places like this demand a price. A price that can be hard to pay.’
She did not see the expression on Nikos’s face change, the sudden bleakness in his eyes. He knew just what price had been paid for his brother to inherit. And who had paid it.
There was a hollowing inside him. Yes, he had paid the price, had been farmed out to foster parents. But his mother had paid too. Had stayed locked in an unhappy marriage in order to preserve her son’s inheritance. Her husband had been pitiless, refusing to release her, punishing her for not wanting him whilst chaining her to him.
As he, Nikos, had kept Diana chained to his side, punishing her for not wanting him.
Again a chill swept through him.
No! I am not like him!
Denial seared in him. And memory—memory that flamed in his vision.
Diana in my arms, with the desert stars above, her face alight with passion and ecstasy. Diana laughing with me, her face alight with a smile of happiness. Diana asleep in my embrace, my arms folding her to me, her head resting on me, her hair spread like a flag across me.
Each and every memory was telling him what he knew with every fibre of his being, every cell in his body.
She wanted me just as I wanted her. That desire that flamed between us was as real to her as it was to me. So how could she deny it—how?
A ‘mistake’, she’d called their time in the desert. The word mocked him, whipped him with scorpions.
But she was speaking again, her voice heavy.
‘And so I married you, Nikos, to keep Greymont safe. That’s why I married you—for that and only that.’
His gaze on her was bleak. ‘A man whose touch you could not tolerate? Would not endure? Despite all we were to each other in the desert?’
A cry broke from her—high and unearthly. ‘Because of it! Nikos, are you so blind? Can you not see?’
Her arms spasmed around the column of her body, as if she must contain the emotion ravening through it. But it was impossible to contain such emotion, to stop it pouring from her, carrying with it words that burst from her now.
‘Nikos—when you came to Greymont and put down in front of me your offer of marriage I wanted to snatch it with both hands! But I hesitated—I hesitated because—’
Her eyes sheared away. She was unable to look at him directly, to tell him to his face. But emotion was tumbling through her, churning her up, and she had to speak—she had to! Her arms tightened about herself more fiercely.
‘I’d seen the way you looked at me at that dinner. Seen the way you looked at me at Don Carlo, and in the taxi back to my hotel. I saw in your eyes what I’d seen in men’s eyes all my adult life. And I knew I could not...’ Her voice choked again. ‘I could not have that in our marriage!’
She did not see his expression change. His face whiten. She plunged on, unable to stop herself.
‘But I was desperate to accept your offer and so I persuaded myself that it wasn’t there. I believed what I wanted to believe—confirmed, as I thought, by the way you were during our engagement.’ She gave a high, hollow laugh, quickly cut short. ‘And all the while you were just biding your time. Waiting for the honeymoon to arrive.’
She shut her eyes, not able to bear seeing the world any longer. Not able to bear seeing him.