Leandro spread his hands wide, his expression expectant. ‘And does that tell you anything?’
‘Yes. It tells me that you made a mistake when you married me.’
He sank his fingers into his hair and said something in Greek. ‘Always if there are two ways to interpret something, you choose the wrong one.’ His usually fluent English suddenly showed traces of his Mediterranean heritage. ‘Did no other reason come to mind?’
Millie gave a tiny shrug. ‘You’re Greek.’ At the moment there was no mistaking that fact. ‘I was a virgin and you’re old-fashioned enough to like that.’
His laugh lacked humour. ‘Yes. All right. I concede that point. But I took your virginity within hours of meeting you so that wasn’t a reason to marry you.’
‘Well. Everyone makes mistakes,’ she said simply. ‘Even you.’
‘Why didn’t you contact me after the accident?’
‘What for? If I couldn’t hold you before I was injured, I knew there was no chance afterwards.’ Millie stared at the still surface of the pool. ‘And I knew I could never be the sort of wife you needed. Lying there in hospital gave me the time to think about that.’
‘The sort of wife I needed? What is that supposed to mean?’ His tone raw, Leandro sat back down next to her. His hand slid under her chin and he forced her to look at him. ‘You were the woman I married. You were the wife I needed.’
‘No.’ Millie shook her head, tears swimming in her eyes. ‘I wasn’t, Leandro. I was never the wife you needed. I learned that pretty soon after we were married. We came back from our honeymoon and I was plunged into the life you lead—and nothing about the time we’d spent together had prepared me for what was expected of me.’
‘Nothing was expected of you.’
‘Oh, yes, people expected a lot.’ The tears still glistening in her eyes, Millie moved her head away from the comfort of his fingers. ‘You’re Leandro Demetrios—declared the sexiest man in the world. Everyone wanted to know who you’d married. And everyone wanted to comment.’
‘Who is everyone? Are you talking about the media?’
‘Them, too. But mostly your friends. The people you mixed with in your daily life. They used to give me these little sideways glances that showed what they thought of your choice.’
‘You were my wife,’ he gritted. ‘I didn’t care what anyone thought of you.’
‘But I did,’ she said simply. ‘I’m not like you. When they said I was fat and that my hair was curly, I cared. When they said I didn’t dress like any of your previous girlfriends, I worried. They made me realise that I was totally wrong for you.’
Leandro growled low in his throat. ‘And you didn’t think I might have been the best judge of that?’
‘I met one of your previous girlfriends.’ She gave a twisted smile. ‘She took great pleasure in drawing comparisons between herself and me. And she made the very apt comment that if she hadn’t been able to hold you, how could I?’
‘When did you meet her?’
‘At a charity ball, the first week we spent in London. We were standing in front of the mirror together.’ Millie nibbled her lip. ‘I looked at what I was wearing and I looked at what she was wearing—well, let’s just say I could see what she was talking about. I thought to myself, OK, so I need to dress differently. I treated it like a project. When I joined you at our table, I started studying everyone. And I got home and bought magazines, went shopping…’
‘And so began your obsession with clothes. I had no idea.’ His tone flat, Leandro gently rubbed her fingers with his. ‘Those hours you spent in your dressing room every evening, trying on this dress and that dress—I thought you’d suddenly discovered the joys of shopping.’
‘Joys?’ Millie gave a hollow laugh. ‘I hated it. Not that it isn’t fun to have nice clothes, don’t misunderstand me, but when you know that everything you wear is going to be criticised…Have you any idea how many clothes there are out there? How was I supposed to know what to wear? All I knew was that every time I went out, people stared at me. I just never seemed to get it right.’
‘Why didn’t you say something to me?’
‘I presumed you could see for yourself,’ she said wearily. ‘And the fact that you were getting so impatient with me seemed to confirm that I was getting it all wrong.’
Leandro muttered something in Greek and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. ‘We were at cross-purposes,’ he said gruffly. ‘I didn’t think you were getting it wrong. I had no idea you were feeling like this.’
‘I didn’t know what looked good.
Every time I thought I liked myself in something, I’d remember how many times I’d been wrong before. Then my sister rang and told me she needed somewhere to crash in London. You were away all the time—I thought she’d be company and I thought she’d be a good person to give me advice. She’d always helped me before. By then I was a mess,’ she confessed. ‘My confidence was on the floor. Everything I put on I found myself thinking, What are they going to say about this?’
‘Why didn’t you ask me if I liked what you were wearing?’
‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’ Millie defended herself. ‘On our honeymoon you seemed crazy about me—everything I wore, you stripped it off and made love to me. And then we arrived home and…you changed. And it took me a while to understand what was going on.’
‘And what did you think was going on?’