Opening her eyes very wide, Zoe stared at him. ‘I have never made you suffer!’
‘What the hell are you doing to me now?’ He flung angry arms out, then turned his back on her. ‘I love you,’ he raked out into the darkened garden. ‘And all you can say to me is you want out.’
Shocked into uttering a choked gasp, she whispered, ‘Oh, that’s so unfair. Love is not what we’ve been about and you know it.’
His derisive laugh sprang into the night. ‘Not for you, no.’
‘Not for you either!’ Zoe yelled at the top of her agitated voice. ‘So if—if you want me and Toby to stay with you out of some n-need to fulfil your promise to Theo, then just s-say so—but don’t you dare call it love!’
Her shrill voice pitched into a startled yelp when he spun on her and grabbed hold of her by her shoulders. She was trying to wipe a fresh set of tears from her cheeks when he gave her a rough kind of shake.
‘Look at me,’ he bit out, because she was looking at the ground between them. When she refused to lift her head up he gave her another small shake. ‘Look at me, Zoe,’ he repeated deeply.
Reluctant and defiant about it, Zoe lifted her eyes up to his.
‘Now.’ He cinched in a short breath. ‘Tell me what you see.’
She knew exactly what she saw but there was no way she was going to tell him what it was. She went to pull away from him but his fingers only tightened their grip. ‘You are not moving from this spot until you look at me and tell me what you see!’
‘All right!’ She broke down on a sob of helplessness. ‘I see the man I’ve fallen in love with.’ There, she’d said it, but unlike him she meant every wretched, heartbreaking word. ‘Are you h-happy now?’
Seemingly no, Anton was not happy because, when she tried to break free of him so she could run away to some deep dark corner somewhere and hide in agony, he held her fast with those strong fingers.
‘No,’ he denied her her wish. ‘What you see when you look at me, agape mou, is the man who loves you. The same way it is when I look at you and see the women who loves me. Think about it,’ he stressed. ‘From the moment our eyes met in your London kitchen—every time since then that we do this we see it and know what it is. You are already melting for me, you know you are. Why can’t you see that it has always been the same for me?’
Did she see it? Did she dare to see it? It was a wildly crazy thought, but had she been so busy hiding from what she was feeling for him that she’d blinded herself to what he was feeling of her?
She was already melting into his deep, dark burning eyes.
‘Say something,’ he demanded when she just stood and stared at him—stared into him—ripped him open and scooped him out. And if she didn’t speak in the next second he was going to …
‘Oh Anton.’ In a convulsive lurch she reached up and wound her arms around his neck. ‘I’ve been so miserable thinking I was going to have to leave you!’
‘Then you should have known better.’ He hauled her closer. ‘When,’ he demanded, ‘Have I ever let you leave me?’
Never, thought Zoe. Not once, even when he’d kidnapped her and scared her into hysterics and felt really bad about it afterwards. Then there was the night he had first made love to her, and he’d felt really guilty about doing that—but he had not given her the option of leaving. Not this man who always believed he was in the right.
‘I need you to kiss me,’ she whispered.
He did not need telling twice. On a lusty growl, he lowered his dark head and crushed her lips with his. It was not the most passionate kiss they had shared—too many other emotions cluttering it up. Still, she had to cling to his neck when he let her up for air again, and she revelled in the accelerated beat of his heart.
Zoe lifted her darkened eyes back to his. ‘I love you so much, it’s scary,’ she confided. ‘S’agapo,’ she whispered, because it felt so right to repeat it in Greek. ‘Now you say it in case I misheard you.’
So he did. He said it in Greek, he said it in English; he even said it in Russian and a dozen other languages as he walked them across the garden and into the house.
‘Are you two ready for dinner now?’ Anthea paused on her way to the small dining-room.
‘Later,’ said Anton, his arm around Zoe’s shoulders as they started up the stairs.
Anthea just sighed and returned to her kitchen, though there was a smile on her lips, because she did not need to study the stars to know where the two of them were off to now. Anton closed the bedroom door behind them. The house eventually settled into its late-night hush.
‘If I live to be a hundred I will never get enough of you,’ he groaned after the kind of loving that left them both in a state of boneless release.
With her cheek resting against his chest, Zoe smiled sleepily. ‘I’ll remind you of that when the day comes.’
‘OK,’ he yawned. ‘That sounds like a good deal to me.’
It was a silly conversation but Zoe liked it. She wriggled closer to him and draped her leg over both of his. ‘Love you,’ she mumbled as her eyes grew heavy.