She wasn’t going to do that thing of offering him tea—of pretending this was some kind of social call. There wasn’t going to be any of that fake stuff which just wasted time and meant nothing. She would hear him out and then he would go. But a shiver of apprehension whispered over her because an impromptu visit like this didn’t bode well—not when his expression was so serious and so brooding. Had he decided he was being too soft with her and now that she was showing no signs of moving back, he was going to retaliate? Maybe instruct his lawyers to reduce the generous amount of income she was receiving—to shock her into seeing sense. Was he going to starve her out to make her come back to him? It was an unpalatable thought until she thought of one which was even worse.
That he didn’t want her back.
Pain and panic rushed through her like a hot, fierce tide. What if he’d decided that life was easier without a wife who was constantly nagging him because he stayed late at the office? If he’d decided he’d had enough of domesticity and wanted to get back on the party scene. That she had been right all along and the marriage simply wasn’t working.
‘What do you want, Ariston?’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Why are you here?’
Ariston stared at her and the trilingual fluency of a lifetime suddenly deserted him. On the way here he’d worked out exactly what he was going to say to her but all the words seemed to have flown straight out of his head. But he knew what he wanted, didn’t he? He was a man who was skilled in the art of negotiation. So wasn’t it time to go all out and get it?
‘I’m going to reduce my hours,’ he said.
She looked taken aback, but she nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Because I realise that you’re right.’ He rubbed his fingers over the faint stubble of his chin as if only just realising he’d forgotten to shave that morning. ‘I’ve been working too hard.’
He looked at her expectantly, waiting for the praise which such a magnanimous gesture surely merited and for her to fling herself into his arms to thank him. But she didn’t. She didn’t move. She just stood there with her green eyes wary and her pale hair glowing in the thin autumn light which was streaming through the wi
ndow.
‘And your point is, what?’ she questioned.
‘That we’ll spend more time together. Obviously.’
She gave an odd smile. ‘So what has brought about this sudden revelation?’
He frowned, because her reaction was not what he had imagined it would be. ‘I allowed myself to accept that the Kavakos company is in the black and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future,’ he said slowly.
She screwed up her nose. ‘And hasn’t it always been?’
Raking his fingers back through his hair, he shook his head. ‘No. I think I told you that when my father died, I discovered he’d blown most of the family fortune. For a while it was touch and go whether or not we’d make it. Suddenly I was looking into a big black hole where the future used to be and I had so many people relying on me. Not just Pavlos but all the staff we employed. People on Lasia whose livelihood depended on our success. People in cities all over the world.’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘That’s why I put the time in—long hours, every day, way past midnight. It took everything I possessed to turn things around and get the company back on an even keel.’
‘But that was then, and this is now—and Kavakos is arguably the biggest shipping company in the world.’
He nodded. ‘I know that. But hard work got to be such a habit that I let it take me over. And I’m not going to do that any more. I’m going to spend less time at the office and more time at home. With you.’ He looked at her. ‘That’s all.’
The silence which followed seemed to go on and on and when she spoke her voice was trembling.
‘But that’s not all, Ariston,’ she said. ‘The reason you work so hard isn’t because you’ve developed some kind of habit you can’t break or because secretly you live in fear that all your profits are going to disappear overnight. It’s because at work you’re the one in charge and what you say goes. And you like to be in control, don’t you? Work has always provided you with an escape route. It’s there for the taking when your wife wants to get too close or tries to talk about stuff you don’t want to talk about.’
‘Are you listening to a word I’ve just said?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve told you I’ll reduce my hours, if that’s what it takes to get you back.’
‘But don’t you realise?’ she whispered. ‘That’s not enough.’
‘Not enough?’ he echoed, his blue eyes laced with confusion. ‘What else do you want from me, Keeley?’
And here it was, the question she’d wanted him to ask ever since he had carried her to their bedroom on their wedding night. A no-holds-barred question which would make her vulnerable to so much potential pain if she answered it honestly.
Did she dare?
Could she dare not to?
She’d once vowed never to put herself in a position where she could be rejected again, but that was a vow she’d made when she’d been hurt and humbled. All these years later she was a grown woman who would soon have a baby of her own. And it all boiled down to whether she had the courage to put her pride and her fears aside and to reach out for the one thing she wanted.
‘I want your trust,’ she said simply. ‘I want you to believe me when I tell you things and to stop imagining the worst. I want you to stop trying to control me and let me have the freedom to be myself. I want to stop feeling as if I’m swimming against the tide whenever I try to get close to you. I want ours to be a marriage which works—but only if we’re both prepared to work at it. I want us to be equals, Ariston. True equals.’
His eyes narrowed as he nodded his head. ‘You sound like you’ve given this some thought.’
‘Oh, I’ve given it plenty,’ she said truthfully. ‘Only I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get the chance to say it.’