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‘You told her? About the charity? Your involvement?’
Ann bit her lip. ‘She asked me what I did and I told her. Why shouldn’t I have? But I never asked her for money, Nikos! I told you—I didn’t even know about this money until I got back to London. She wrote such a kind letter with the cheque—as kind as the one she wrote persuading me to give Ari up to her.’
‘I thought my money had persuaded you.’ There was something odd about his voice.
She shook her head. ‘If I hadn’t known—because of your mother’s letter—how much Ari would be loved, cherished, how desperately she hoped he would help assuage the grief of losing your brother, I would never have willingly let go of Ari! But I was already working for the charity at its London office before Carla arrived, pregnant, and I was planning on going to work out in Africa anyway. Giving up Ari to your mother, giving your money to the charity, all seemed to fit together. And it helped me too—seeing those children there, orphans like Ari, but with no one to look after them. It…comforted me.’
She met his eyes, but they were veiled, shuttered.
‘You told my mother—why didn’t you tell me?’ Again, there was something odd about his voice.
She gave a sigh. ‘You didn’t ask, Nikos. And you’d been so foul to me, I didn’t see why I should try and justify myself to you. It’s just as well, isn’t it?’ She looked at him with the faintest trace of bitterness in her eyes. ‘You’d have just said I wa
s lying to you…’
His mouth tightened, but not with anger.
‘In Paris you could have told me. When I told you I understood why you’d been so tempted to take the money.’
‘I was going to. But—’ she looked away and swallowed ‘—I got distracted.’
‘Not sufficiently distracted to stay with me when I asked you to.’ There was more than tightness in his voice. Then, abruptly, it changed. ‘But I had no right to ask you to stay with me. I can see that now. And I can see—’
His voice broke off. A deep, ragged breath was inhaled. His eyes went down to the leaflet in his hand.
‘Andreas’ House, Carla’s House,’ he intoned again, his voice stranger than ever.
‘I asked for the houses to be called after your brother and my sister in their memory,’ said Ann quietly.
His eyes lifted again, going to hers, and in them was an emotion she had never seen before.
‘I thought so ill of you for so long,’ he said slowly, as if the words were being prised from him. ‘And you have shamed me, Ann. Shamed me as I have never felt shame before.’ His face was heavy, stark. ‘I came here full of self-righteous rage at you, and now—’ He broke off again. His eyes went as if of their own accord to her passport. ‘When do you go back to Africa?’ His voice was blank, very neutral.
She answered in the same tone. All she could manage, despite the tumult raging through her. Not because she had finally told Nikos where his money had gone, but because…because seeing him standing there, so close and yet an impossible, unbridgeable distance from her, was agony. Agony….
‘Tomorrow. I’d only come home on leave when I…when I saw you in that toy store. The charity was very understanding when I requested an extension to go to Sospiris. Besides—’ she took a breath ‘—they were getting a huge donation in exchange. Worth a lot more to them than a few weeks of my time!’ Her expression deepened. ‘It’s not so much extra helpers they need as funding. There’s a never-ending need—the situation is so bad in so many parts of the region, even in the countries that are politically stable, let alone those with civil war or repressive governments. We do what we can, take in as many children as we can, but there are always more. Some are injured from landmines, and of course as well as AIDS there are other terrible tropical diseases afflicting them, so…’
She was rambling, she knew, but she was driven to talk. Driven to do anything other than face the fact that Nikos was here, in front of her, a hand’s breadth away from her. All she’d have to do was just reach out to touch him, kiss him, go into his arms…
But she mustn’t! She mustn’t! He would be gone at any moment, all over again. Walking out of the door, away from her. Because what difference did it make, him knowing about her work. What she’d done with his precious money? Even if her pride and her anger at him had kept her silent, deliberately, knowingly, refusing to justify her acceptance of his money—because why should she care tuppence about being in Nikos Theakis’ good graces after all the venom he’d spouted about her, about Carla? She’d let him call her names all the while knowing she could make him eat every one of them—and anyway having him look at her with such contempt had kept her safe from him, safe from doing what she had so, so wanted to do. What she had, in the end done despite all her best intentions and warnings.
She’d gone and done it anyway—fallen into his bed, and fallen in love with him…And it didn’t matter, that her heart felt as if it were being sheared into pieces, torn up and minced and mangled and shredded, because nothing was going to change that—even if he did know now that she hadn’t spent every last penny of his on herself, from luxury holidays to designer clothes, instead wearing Carla’s—even if they were four years out of date, as Elena Constantis had spotted instantly, and even if they had only made Nikos think she’d spent his money on them.
Thoughts, emotions, words—all ran raggedly, crazily through her mind. And she let them run on because anything was a distraction from what was going to happen any moment now. Any moment now, Nikos was going to walk out of the door, and walk away…
Taking her heart with him…
And she couldn’t bear it—she couldn’t bear it. Not all over again. Seeing him again so briefly, so excruciatingly, and now he was going to go again. She would not see him for months and months, and when she did…when she did she would just be history—ancient history. An old flame, an ex—nothing more, nothing ever again…
She heard his voice, penetrating her numb anguish.
‘Ann—’
She forced herself to herd her wild, desperate thoughts, forced herself to be what she must be now—calm, composed. Glad that he knew finally where his money had gone, that she wasn’t the avaricious gold-digger he’d thought her after all. Glad that they could part without anger and contempt.
‘Ann—’ There seemed to be something strange about his face, his voice. Something almost…hesitant. But hesitation and Nikos Theakis were not words that went together.
But hesitant was, indeed, what his manner seemed to be. His eyes were still veiled, shuttered. Wary. There seemed to be tension visible in every line of his body.
