Thanos hadn’t had a drink in two weeks but he sure as hell could have used one. He sat opposite Kosta on the deck he would always remember from the last visit, when he had sat beside Alice, his arm around her shoulders, her body curved into his side, her fragrance, her sweetness, her willingness to help him in this ruse setting him on fire. Now he sat on the deck in a thoroughly different mindset, in a thoroughly different mood. Even the weather was different. The sky was grey today, clouds low, so the ocean was moody and unimpressed.
‘I’m sorry Alice could not be here today,’ Kosta murmured.
Did Thanos imagine the way the older man’s eyes shifted a little, sympathy swirling in their depths?
‘The contracts are ready?’ Thanos barrelled past the statement, beyond caring that he was being rude.
Kosta nodded slowly.
‘She’s not well?’
Someone, somewhere, had offered this small lie to Kosta, when the trip was being prepared. Perhaps his assistant? He didn’t know.
Kosta shifted his gaze out to the murky sea, his expression grim.
She’s not well?
It was such a simple enquiry, and Thanos had no way of answering. Was Alice well? Was she happy? His chest ached as if he’d been punched.
He had no way of knowing.
They didn’t speak, they didn’t communicate at all. He couldn’t have even said if she was still in America.
Despair groaned through him, as it often had these past three and a half months.
The whole idea had been stupid.
Pretend to be married to buy a company he was paying more than market value for from a man who was desperate to sell. Thanos should never have indulged in such a childish game. It had been foolish, foolish, foolish.
And for the first time in over a decade, he no longer cared if he reacquired Petó. It was not the most important thing in his mind or heart. In fact, the acquisition felt trivial and banal.
‘She left me,’ he said instead, turning back to Kosta. ‘We only got married to fool you.’
Kosta didn’t react for several seconds and Thanos dropped his head, running his fingers through his hair.
‘At the time, I thought I wanted Petó badly enough to do anything to get it.’
Kosta remained silent and watchful, in a way that unnerved Thanos because it reminded him so strongly of his grandfather.
‘It seemed easy enough,’ Thanos continued. ‘You wanted me to settle down, so I did. Or at least pretended to.’
‘You didn’t change your lifestyle?’
Thanos shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘So you are still making being a bachelor a championship sport?’
Thanos locked his jaw.
‘Because I have not seen you in the papers once since your marriage.’
Thanos swallowed. The idea of living the way he had before Alice was something he couldn’t contemplate. He shook his head. ‘I’m not here to discuss my marriage.’
‘Your marriage only existed because of my ultimatum,’ Kosta pointed out shrewdly. ‘You think I don’t have a right to understand?’
‘There’s nothing to understand. It’s over. It was all a lie.’
Kosta shook his head slowly, his features laced with pity. ‘No, it wasn’t.’