‘What? As a criminal?’ he demanded, almost afraid of the answer. ‘A liar?’ he pushed, hurting himself just as much as he was hurting her.
‘No. I’ve seen you as the man who came to me one night, needing nothing more than I was willing to give. The man who was willing to go to prison, even though he knew it was wrong. As the man who showed me that I could reach for the things that I wanted in life, the man who encouraged me to do so.’
Something shone in her eyes, making them bright, making her words batter against the armour he so desperately needed. But he couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t bear to.
‘Well, I’m glad you got something out of it. But it’s time for you to leave.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yes, you will!’ he shouted. ‘I’m trying to protect you!’
‘No, you’re not, you’re trying to protect yourself. I love you,’ she said simply. ‘I love you. And I want to be here for you. Please. Let me be.’
Had he even heard her? Had he heard her declaration of love, or had he just chosen to ignore it? ‘Dimitri,’ she cried.
He shook his head, as if rejecting her, as if refusing to accept her love for him.
‘My feelings for my father and my brother made me weak, left me open to...’ to the pain, he said, concluding the sentence in his head—not ready to admit such a thing to anyone but himself.
‘Love isn’t a weakness. Love is strength. Let me share that strength with you now,’ she pleaded.
‘No. You’re only saying that because you’re so desperate to cling to anyone that won’t abandon you, leave you like your father,’ he growled.
The hurt in her eyes created a chasm where his heart had used to be.
‘If you do this you are no better than my father. You will be making the same mistake he did,’ she accused. In an instant, fire whipped up around him, his fury, his helplessness, causing him to lash out with unspeakable anger.
‘And what chance did you give your father, Anna? Did you speak to him? Tell him about yourself? No. You walked away from him without telling him who you really were. You didn’t give him a chance because he’d failed at the first hurdle, failed to not instantly recognise you. Just like you failed to really try to tell me about our daughter. Tell me, Anna, is it easy to walk away and blame others for leaving you?’
Pain lashed across her heart as his whip-harsh words rained down upon her. Nausea swelled in her stomach and her head swam. She reached out an arm to steady herself on the table in the kitchen.
‘How could you say that?’ she demanded.
‘Is it not the truth?’ he said with a shrug, as if it were simple, as if it were true. Horrified, she pressed a shaking hand to her lips.
‘No,’ she said, her voice wavering, no longer truly confident of what she had believed her entire life. ‘No,’ she said with a strength she no longer felt. ‘But I will not subject my daughter to this, to you. You want me to protect my child? Then I will,’ she said, turning away from him. Turning away from the accusations and the hateful words.
* * *
Anna packed with numb fingers. She filled the small suitcase she had brought with her with only the clothes she had come to Greece with. The lavish designer dresses, the trouser suits and glittering jewels lay untouched in the room. She went to the table and picked up the letter she had started to write to Dimitri, to the father of her child. But that man was, and always had been, a figment of her imagination. And she refused to share those thoughts, those words with a man who would turn his back on them. Who would get rid of them if they were an inconvenience.
What was it in her that made people turn their backs on her? She had married Dimitri in order to provide her daughter with someone who wouldn’t repeat the same cycle of accidental neglect. But there had been nothing accidental in the words Dimitri had hurled at her that night. Each one calculated to force her from his life. Each one a barb, sticking in her heart, making her wonder if he was right. If all this time it had been she who had walked away.
She had come to Greece with her daughter, and with dreams of Amalia getting to know her family. But now? Dimitri had become her world. The pain she felt eclipsed everything that had come before it. He was sending her away. Having let her into his life, having shown himself to be everything that she had ever needed, he was throwing her away. Even her father had had the decency to remove himself before she could ever know him. But Dimitri had been cruellest of all. He had shown her what her life could really be, full of love, and family...
She put the small number of belongings she had brought with her back into her suitcase and looked around the room, her gaze falling on the passports for her and her daughter almost accusingly. Her heart warred with her head. She wanted to stay. She wanted to be there for Dimitri. Through all the cruel words he had sent her way, she could see the pain and anguish that racked him so fully.
Flora, with tears in her eyes, had told her that the boat would be coming for her in one hour. So easy, so quick was it for Dimitri to remove her from his presence. Pride told her to leave, that Dimitri had burned his bridges, but her poor heart begged her to stay. Told her that he would change his mind. That he would come after her. But she knew that hope. She had felt that same hope over and over again, with her father, with her mother. It had no place here.
It was only as the private plane taxied on the runway, her daughter safely in the seat beside her, having slept through the whole awful mess, that she realised that Dimitri hadn’t come for her. And that he never would.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dear Dimitri,
You gave me hope...
ANNA LOOKED OUT at the fields that ran behind the bed and breakfast that had once been her home, remembering that night in Kavala, the words Dimitri had said. Everything was both the same and different.