‘You have to understand,’ he persisted grimly, studiedly ignoring her pained remark. ‘I was playing for high stakes tonight. I needed you on my side! Not bristling with indignation and openly despising me as you surely would have been if I had warned you what I was about to do!’
‘And that excuses you, does it?’ she demanded, blue eyes hot and bitter.
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘It simply explains why I didn’t tell you. Look,’ he sighed when she continued to wither him with her eyes, ‘the company is mine by right! And there is not a person connected with the Leonadis name who does not know that it belonged to my mother, and her father and grandfather before that! I was even named Leonadis in anticipation of the day I take over! Of course I am not going to let anyone cheat me out of what is mine by right!’
‘So you sacrificed my rights for your own.’ She nodded in bitter understanding. ‘How honourable!’ she added scathingly.
He winced, but didn’t try to defend himself from that attack. ‘I had to do what I had to do!’ he insisted instead. ‘You heard my father tonight,’ he went on harshly. ‘His health is failing him. He has known for several months now that he is no longer fit to run a company the size of ours with the success he used to enjoy. But you also heard him say that accepting that point has not been easy for him. As he feels himself grow weaker he has to watch me grow stronger! He resents that, naturally! And, in a last-ditch attempt to prove his power over me—the only person worthy of taking over from him,’ he said with angry conceit, ‘he dredged up an old grievance of his—the one where he made the ultimate coup by marrying me off to Melva Markopoulou and so uniting two of the most powerful families on this island! He wanted to bow out on a high note. But, as always when he tries to bully me, I refused to comply! So he had that stupid document drawn up and proceeded to threaten me with it. It was a bluff!’ he muttered on an angry shrug. ‘Just a bluff! He plays these games with me all the time!’ From nowhere, the memory of the newspaper article saying how his father had tied Leon’s hands over the New York deal popped into Jemma’s mind. ‘But eventually he tires of the game, sees sense, gives in, if you like.’ Another shrug. ‘He’s not a fool; he knows the company needs me! That I am its strength and its future! And, left to his own devices, he would eventually have withdrawn the threat. Except that Anthia got to hear of it.’ His grim mouth tightened. ‘And suddenly Nico is announcing his intention to marry and the damned document is mysteriously made public! Which means my father cannot withdraw it without looking a complete fool. So he begs me again. “Marry Melva—marry anyone and get yourself a child before Nico beats you to it”!’
‘So I was your father’s scapegoat,’ Jemma concluded, hurting in so many ways that she didn’t know which one was the worst. ‘How convenient it was to you both that you happened to find me like this!’ she mocked. ‘The ideal solution to your problem, in fact!’
He looked at her through hard, impatient eyes. ‘If I attempted to deny that, you would not believe me, so I will not!’ he snapped. ‘But I will insist that you believe me when I say that even without the threat hanging over my head the consequences of my discovering you were pregnant with my child would not have changed. I would still have married you, Jemma. I—care for you. I always have.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she jeered. ‘You cared enough to bring me on board this yacht and spend the last two weeks personally supervising my return to robust health so I wouldn’t look so pathetic when you made your move tonight!’
He sighed, seeing no way past her bitterness. ‘That is not true, Jemma,’ he said grimly. ‘And when you have calmed down a little, you will see that.’
‘All I see,’ she retaliated, ‘is that everything you have done since you walked back into my life has been one huge deception. Everything,’ she repeated thickly, bright tears of hurt and humiliation filling her eyes when she remembered the beauty of the day before. ‘You used me,’ she whispered tremulously.
‘Yes,’ he sighed, not even trying to deny it. ‘I’m sorry if that hurts you, but—yes—’ He sighed again ‘—I used you.’
And it did hurt, hurt so deeply that she had to turn her back on him so that he would not see the tears burning in her eyes. It was as she turned that she saw it, glittering luridly among her tears, and in an act of sudden violence she snatched up the necklace from where she had tossed it angrily on her dressing-table top earlier, and threw it contemptuously at his chest.
‘There,’ she said as Leon caught it instinctively. ‘One of your props returned to you. But I am afraid you will have to wait several months more for the other, more important one to arrive to complete your victory!’
‘Dammit, Jemma!’ he exploded, his rough voice shaking as he took a step towards her. ‘You are blowing this up larger than—’
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ she choked, spinning away so that she didn’t have to see the look of pained appeal in his eyes.
He muttered something in angry frustration, sending her spine stiff in rejection as he took another step towards her.
‘Just leave me alone,’ she whispered, pressing her clenched fist against her quivering mouth again.
There was another tense pause, when he seemed to hesitate. She couldn’t look at him. If she had done she would have seen the anxiety pulling at his face, and the underlying burn of anger aimed entirely at himself.
Then he sighed heavily. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If that is what you want.’ Then she heard him quietly let himself out of the cabin.
It was then the tears came, hot and pained and scalding. She let them flow, let her hurt and anger and miserable sense of disillusionment pour out with them.
When eventually the storm of weeping subsided, she crawled into the bed and went to sleep still huddled in her robe.
The next morning she got up, dressed herself, plucked the bankroll of drachmas out of the drawer she had put it in and walked outside and right off the yacht. Sh
e did not stop to tell anyone where she was going, nor did she even attempt to look for Leon. She needed time, time to be herself again—to learn to be herself again and not the person Leon had been turning her into. So she walked across the quay and out of the security gates enclosing their private moorings, across the busy quayside road and turned down the first street leading away from the harbour, putting herself right out of sight of the yacht as quickly as she could, unaware that Leon stood against the boat’s rail, watching her every step of the way, and unaware of the way he snapped out instructions to one of the crew who quickly scuttled after her.
She eventually found herself in what could only be the town square—a big place, flanked by brightly adorned tourist shops and cafés.
She picked a café at random and ordered herself fresh-orange juice and a bottle of chilled water, then sat back simply to let the world go by, her mind swept ruthlessly blank of anything even vaguely contentious.
It felt good, being just a simple tourist enjoying a simple breakfast in a simple café. And slowly, whatever had driven her to walk away as she had eased, until she began to feel a semblance of peace within herself.
After that, she spent the whole morning just wandering around the town, browsing through its narrow busy streets all tightly packed with interesting shops, and, in an absent, purely superficial kind of way, enjoying herself. The Kefallinían people were friendly, warm, and instinctively caring when they noticed her condition, going out of their way to find her a chair if she happened to walk into their shop, asking after her health, the baby’s health. Nice people. Genuine people who made her want to weep because they reminded her so much of the man she had married—or the man she’d thought she had married.
Wretchedly, she swung her mind away from that. She didn’t want to think of Leon—didn’t think she could cope. It wasn’t as if he’d told her lies! she reminded herself painfully. He’d just been so cleverly economical with the truth.
And even accepting all of that, accepting that he had married her for very specific reasons of his own did not hurt her as much as the way he had betrayed her with the sex of their baby.
The tears returned, burning at the back of her eyes and forcing her to swallow them down. To think, she scoffed cruelly at herself, I had actually let myself consider that he may love me!