And if she divorced Leo she would lose the children and she loved them too. Occasional access to Popi, Sybella, Cosmo and Theon would not compensate any of them for such a brutal severance. The children would suffer, and she did not have an automatic right to write off their need for her as a mother simply because marriage to Leo was turning out to be more of a nightmare than she had innocently foreseen.
Life wasn’t that simple, she acknowledged ruefully. The innocents in her family and his would be hurt by her departure from Leo’s life. If she broke up with Leo, her mother would want to sell the apartment she lived in and return the money to him because that was the sort of woman she was. Accepting such a massive gift from a member of her family, as Leo currently was, was one thing but retaining it as the proceeds of a very short-lived marriage would strike Gillian as something else entirely.
So, she had to be tough and adapt to being married to an adulterous husband, didn’t she? She would stay married to Leo. She would hide her hurt and act as if everything in the garden was rosy and wonderful because only then could she keep everybody around her happy.
Her eyes misted again just when she was managing to use concealer on her eyes and she blinked rapidly. On one level she didn’t want to live like that but just then she didn’t feel she had much of a choice unless she was prepared to destroy everything that their marriage had achieved…
And just as Panos had required a distraction from his depressed thoughts about his broken marriage, Letty registered that she needed one too. Leo phoned her every day and while, only hours ago, she had been longing for his arrival in London, now she was considering it fortunate that it would be a couple of weeks before he returned. His absence would give her time to come to terms with his infidelity in whatever way she could, and she had to stop loving and missing him as well because that was an even worse recipe for disaster and she would have to live in a continual state of being hurt and disillusioned.
So, step one in her own necessary emotional rehabilitation, she told herself in her mirror reflection, was to stop loving Leo, step back, look after herself… That was the sensible approach.
By the time she was descending the stairs it was lunchtime, Leo’s father and her mother were still chatting and Popi was home from school, proudly displaying a homemade Christmas card with drawings of her family that made Letty crack up in genuine appreciation. Ana’s children were learning to see her and Leo as their family unit and she was proud of that achievement and resolved not to damage it with what she told herself would be selfish oversensitivity. She would cope with his infidelity because she was tough, she reminded herself doggedly, but she wouldn’t continue to sleep with him. They would have the convenient marriage he had first wanted while she devoted herself to raising the children and completing her studies. That way she would preserve her dignity and her strength.
As for the distraction she sensed she currently needed while she came to terms with the effective end of her intimacy with Leo, she decided to go for an over-the-top Christmas to delight the children and keep herself busy. Christmas was going to start in November for them, just as it had when they had still had their birthparents. And she was going to buy a family dog and buy a present for Leo, even though he didn’t deserve one. Yes, she would be treating him perfectly normally by the time he flew back from the US, doubtless having sampled various other female bodies during his time away from her, she told herself sourly. He would not even suspect that anything was amiss with her. She would be solid steel and calm and quite unbothered by what she had discovered…
Leo arrived home on the first day of December and so unrecognisable was his home he almost walked straight out of the door again. A scruffy terrier rushed up to him, sniffed him thoroughly and then retreated to bark as though he were an intruder. That was odd enough, but the transformation of the entrance hall could only put him in mind of a Christmas grotto gone mad. There was not an inch of space left because everywhere he looked there were glittering trees, giant stuffed reindeer and elves, stockings and tinsel and holly and decorations. A log fire roared in the grate of a fireplace that had never been lit before. He had vague memories of his sister’s house during the festive season but even his kid sister, bless her heart, hadn’t gone for anything quite so magnificent or…extreme.
Leo smiled though, registering that Letty treated Christmas as an explosion of glitter and good cheer, which was probably exactly what the children loved. He did notice the absence of mistletoe though, just as he noticed that the warm welcome he had subconsciously expected from his wife was missing. At that point the children came rushing downstairs and he was greeted with all the enthusiasm he could’ve wished for, attended by cries of ‘Unc’ Leo’ and ‘Daddy Leo’, because evidently the children hadn’t yet made up their minds what to call him.
Of course, all his conversations with Letty on the phone had somehow always turned into conversations about the children. No matter how hard he had tried to take those talks in a more personal direction, he had been redirected to discussing his nephews and nieces. The whole time he was away he had felt starved of Letty, as if she was a presence that could only be pinned down and enjoyed when she was face to face with him. He had sensed the difference in her attitude towards him; he did not consider himself an imaginative man and it bothered him, seriously disturbed his usual rock-solid assurance with women. Something was badly wrong with Letty and that brought him out in a cold sweat of anxiety that he had never experienced before.
‘Where’s Letty?’ he asked with a rather fake smile when his father and mother-in-law appeared in the doorway of the drawing room.
‘She had to rush out for something and she took Theon with her,’ Gillian imparted anxiously. ‘I did warn her that she might miss you but she’s got so into this Christmas stuff—’
‘It’s wonderful that she has,’ Leo commented, not having failed to notice that he had three happy kids bouncing and chattering at his side when only months earlier they had all been subdued and tense. ‘How are you doing, Dad?’
‘Oh, I’m feeling much more myself,’ Panos Romanos assured him with a grin and a hand that Leo noted, surprisingly, had been anchored on Gillian’s slim hip. ‘Friends and family, that’s what my life is all about now.’
Bit more than friends, Leo reckoned by the very sociable way the older couple kept on exchanging glances. ‘I’m disappointed Letty’s not here,’ he admitted. ‘I mean, I’ve been gone for weeks and—’
The front door opened, and Letty blew in with the baby clamped to one hip. ‘Leo, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here!’ she carolled because their respective parents were standing there as an audience and she didn’t want either of them to suspect that anything was amiss between her and Leo.
Passing over Theon to the nanny at the foot of the stairs, whereupon he wailed like a banshee in protest, Letty stripped off her coat and gloves and feasted her attention on Leo. Still absolutely gorgeous, clad in a cashmere overcoat on top of one of his exquisitely well-fitted business suits, he still took her breath away. That was a disappointment, she allowed, because she had tried to make him less sexy in her recollections, worked hard at trying to make herself less vulnerable. But there he stood and even travel-worn and badly in need of a shave, stubble outlining his wide sensual mouth and somehow accentuating his fantastic bone structure and oh, those eyes… Well, they certainly weren’t the windows of the soul, she scolded herself. His eyes were spectacular but they had to carry a hint of an innately manipulative and secretive personality, she instructed herself. After all, this was the man she had spent pretty much most of a week in bed with, striving to be the sensual woman every man was supposed to want and crave…and where had it got her?
Well, he had given her a great deal of sexual satisfaction and then he had still gone on to get into bed with other women. Oh, yes, she was convinced that there had been more than that encounter with Dido, for the opportunities to flirt and seduce for a man of Leo’s looks and wealth probably came up everywhere he went, particularly when he was travelling. This was a guy she literally could not trust out of her sight, she reminded herself sternly.
‘So, how was your trip?’ Letty asked Leo with an interest that even he could see was false, for she was not a good dissembler and her expressive face was a dead giveaway.
‘Like every other trip.’
What the hell had he done? Leo was asking himself in frustration, striving to think of something he might have said on the phone that could have brought about such a change in her. She had left Ios acting warm and confiding and caring and all of a sudden that was gone. He watched in disbelief as Letty sped upstairs, clearly keen to leave him behind, and that was the final straw that broke his control and sent him stalking up the stairs in her wake.
Letty was locked in the bathroom, frantically washing and rewashing her hands, unaware that she was doing it while she struggled to work out how she was supposed to deal with Leo, now that he was back in the house.
She had decorated the whole house for Christmas. There were trees everywhere but the bedrooms. They now had George the dog, a rescue animal with more bad habits than a criminal. George chewed everything from shoes to rugs. He stole food. He tried to get into bed with the children. Much like Leo, George had no boundaries but, unlike Leo, he was very loving. Leo would totally freak out if he knew she was comparing him, even in passing, with a homeless animal, she conceded, finally drying her hands and pulling herself together, although the tendency to cry over the pain she was suppressing still hovered over her like a threatening black cloud. It had been easier to pretend to be happy when Leo was absent. Now that he was back it was a huge challenge for her.
‘Letty!’A sharp knock sounded on the door and she froze like a burglar caught in the act of theft before swallowing hard and opening the door.
‘Sorry… I’m sure you want a shower,’ she said in a brittle tone.
‘No, surprisingly enough,’ Leo murmured with only the merest hint of sarcasm, ‘I wanted to see my wife.’
Halfway to the bedroom door to leave, Letty stilled. ‘Oh?’ she said, spinning reluctantly back.
‘Luckily for me, you are a lousy actress,’ Leo continued tautly, subjecting her to a feverishly intense scrutiny. ‘I’m not blind, Letty. What’s wrong? Obviously there’s something wrong because you’ve changed.’
Letty lost colour and stiffened, wondering how on earth he had so quickly registered that change on her part while she had flattered herself with the belief that she was treating him as she always had.