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His eyes hardened. Honour. A strange word. Meaning nothing—and everything.
She should have told me. Told me right from the start that she could not marry me because she was still involved with another man. Aristides might not have approved—might have wanted to know why she was not marrying this man if he meant so much to her as to have an affair with him—but he would not have persisted in his hopes and plans for a dynastic marriage to underpin and justify my investing in Fournatos.
But she had said nothing. Why? She had been vociferous enough on the whole subject of the kind of marriage that was commonplace in his and Aristides’ circles. Vociferous and scathing. Yet not a word on the one subject that would have put an instant stop to the whole notion.
About that she had kept completely silent.
Keeping it her little secret…
Her dirty, dishonourable secret.
Not worth disclosing.
Again in his head he heard her indignantly self-justifying outburst. ‘It wasn’t a real marriage…’
Did she really think that gave either of them carte blanche to ignore its existence? Did she really think that was what he had done? Had she actually thought that he would continue with other women for the duration of their marriage?
I gave her no cause to think that. None! And she knows it!
No, she had just trotted out that convenient disclaimer of all responsibility for her own act of adultery! Trying to make out he was as culpable as she! Just to exonerate her own despicable behaviour.
He felt anger knife through him, as emotion so strong it seemed to white out in his head.
She went to him from me…
From my bed to his…
The violence of his emotion shook him.
The house phone rang again. Insistent. Intrusive. But he needed its interruption. With visible force he wiped his mind. Took back control of himself.
He lifted the phone.
It was not his chauffeur, but the on-duty security guard. A visitor was at the entrance, asking for him.
‘He refuses to give his name or state his business, kyrios. Should I phone the police? I have him on camera, if you wish to view him.’
The monitor in Theo’s office flickered, cutting to the exterior view of the electronically controlled gates to the driveway. A taxi was pulled up, and standing by the intercom, in full view of the security camera trained on him, was the man who was asking for him.
For a second Theo just looked at the image in front of him. Then, slowly, his face drained of expression.
‘Show him in,’ he instructed.
‘Vicky, these figures don’t add up to that total.’
Vicky looked up from her work. One of her colleagues was holding a printout of some financial calculations she’d just produced.
‘Oh, Lord, sorry. I’ll sort it—’ She held out her hand for the papers.
Her colleague handed them over. ‘So long as the master file is accurate. I’ve marked where the sums went wonky,’ she said with a smile, and headed back to her own desk.
Vicky stared bleakly at the figures in front of her. They were blurring even as she looked. She just couldn’t get her head around numbers these days. Or around anything else. She seemed to be moving in a perpetual fog. Everything seemed so very hard to do—even the simplest things, like making a cup of coffee, or getting up in the mornings. Let alone anything that required the slightest brain power.
Depression—that might be the clinical name for it.
She had another name. But it was not one she must ever, ever give voice to.
It was her secret. Her terrible, unspeakable secret. And she could tell no one. No one at all.
