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‘How would they know that?’
She shrugged, smiling. ‘They wouldn’t, necessarily. It’s most likely part of natural selection. But I certainly find it interesting. Why have cicadas adapted and other insects haven’t?’
‘Maybe they’re smarter than we think.’
Her eyes danced some more. ‘Maybe.’
‘Fascinating,’ he said, and meant it. ‘But the research you’re doing, with these huge prime numbers. How does that apply?’
‘It doesn’t, yet. But with the advances being made in technology and quantum physics, it could in years to come. Understanding the relationships between numbers could be the key to unlocking the universe.’
Her mouth curved in a teasing smile and Antonios chuckled. ‘You think so, huh?’
‘Actually, I do, in a manner of speaking. But it probably sounds weird to you.’
‘Not as weird as it did.’
She laughed and closed her laptop. ‘Then my job here is done.’
‘Good,’ Antonios said. ‘Because I thought we could go for a walk.’
She raised her eyebrows, searched his face, wondering, no doubt, why he was being so friendly. He’d been angry for so long. Too long. But he’d enjoyed the last twenty minutes and he wanted to spend more time with Lindsay. Wanted to make her smile again.
‘Okay,’ she said, and Antonios rose from where he’d been sitting.
‘You should put on sunscreen and take a hat.’
‘Where are we going, exactly?’
‘To the olive groves.’
As a child he’d loved the olive groves that spread across the hillside, all the way to the horizon. He loved the twisted, gnarled trunks of the olive trees, and the pungent smell of their fruit as it ripened. He loved the crumbly earth beneath his feet and the high, hot sun above. And most of all he’d loved walking with his father, feeling important as his father had pointed out the different trees and flowers.
Until everything had changed.
He knew, just as Lindsay did, how a parent could make you feel confused and ashamed. Unloved and rejected.
They walked through the complex of buildings that made up Villa Marakaios, passing the main villa as well as Leonidas’s, the staff housing and the central office, before coming to the wrought iron gate with Marakaios worked into the iron in curling script above them, in both Greek and English. Antonios opened the gate and ushered Lindsay into the grove.
‘So how did your family get into the olive oil business, anyway?’ she asked as they walked between neat rows of trees, their grey-green leaves rustling in the wind, the tight cream-coloured buds of their flowers raised to the sun.
‘It was my father,’ Antonios said, and heard both the tension and pride enter his voice. He had such conflicting feelings when it came to his father. Respect and disdain. Anger and grief. Love and hate. ‘He came from nothing,’ he told Lindsay. ‘His father lived in Athens and worked as a dustman. But my father had dreams and ambition, and he loved the earth. He sweated blood to buy some land, and over the years he expanded it. He decided to grow olive trees for oil because he felt it was something that would always be in demand.’
‘And he was very successful.’
‘Yes,’ Antonios said, ‘although not at first. It can be very expensive to make olive oil unless you make it in large quantities using efficient methods. My father struggled at first, but then he was able to buy more land and plant more trees.’
‘And so you inherited an empire.’
Antonios’s insides tightened with memory. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. He had sworn never to tell anyone about how the Marakaios empire had been crumbling beneath his feet when he’d been summoned home after his father’s heart attack. He wouldn’t tell Lindsay. He’d protect his father’s memory as he always had, even though it sometimes felt as if he were selling his soul to save his father’s.
He still remembered coming home after starting a job in Athens—a job his father had insisted he start because he hadn’t wanted him near the family business. Hadn’t wanted him to figure out just how badly things were going. Antonios hadn’t realized that at the time, though. He’d just felt the rejection.
Just like he had with Lindsay. God help him, he didn’t want to be blind any more. He wanted to see what was happening around him, and to help. And he would this week with Lindsay.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Lindsay asked and Antonios snapped his gaze back to her.
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re frowning.’
He shrugged. ‘I was just thinking about all there is to do.’
‘Taking time out to go to New York was costly, I suppose.’
‘But necessary.’
Lindsay didn’t answer and they walked on for a bit, the sun hot on their heads and shoulders even though the air was still cool and crisp. The aromatic scent of the olive flowers wafted up from where they trod over fallen buds.
The grove stretched in every direction, a sea of land and trees that gave him a fierce, almost painful sense of satisfaction. He’d held onto it all, if only just. He might have sold his soul, but at least he’d saved this. Lindsay turned to him with a small smile.
‘You look like a king surveying his domain.’
‘I suppose I feel a bit like one,’ he admitted. ‘I am very proud of what my father built from nothing.’ And what he’d kept, if only by the skin of his teeth.
Lindsay laid a hand on his wrist, her fingers cool and soft. ‘I’m glad you showed me all of this, Antonios. It helps me to understand you.’
He gazed at her, conscious of her hand still on his wrist, her lovely grey eyes so wide and clear. ‘And do you want to understand me?’ he asked quietly.
Her eyes clouded and she withdrew her hand from his arm. Antonios felt the loss. ‘I...’ she began, and then shook her head. ‘I suppose there isn’t much point, is there?’ she said, her lips twisting in a sorrowful smile. ‘But I’m still glad.’
Antonios just nodded. He felt emotion burn in his chest, words rise in his throat and tangle on his tongue. Too many memories, too close to the surface. Too much hopeless longing and unsatisfied desire.
Their marriage, he reminded himself grimly, was over.
‘We should get back,’ he said. ‘My mother is hoping to have us over to the main villa for lunch.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘Just the two of us. Will that be all right?’
‘Fine,’ Lindsay assured him. ‘I’m all right in small groups of people. And I like your mother, Antonios. I like being with her.’ Her expression clouded once more as she turned to him. ‘I’m so sorry about her illness.’
He nodded, his chest tightening once more. ‘I am, too.’
‘I’m...I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when she was diagnosed.’ She bit her lip. ‘I know I should have been.’
Antonios struggled for words for a moment; the emotions that swooped through him were too powerful and overwhelming for speech. He couldn’t untangle one from the other: gratitude and compassion, hope and sorrow. He wished she’d been there. He wished she’d wanted to be there, had been happy there.
‘You’re here now,’ he said. ‘That’s what matters.’
They started walking back the way they’d come. ‘When will you tell your family that we’re getting divorced?’ Lindsay asked and Antonios tensed.
‘When the moment is right. Are you in such a rush?’
‘No, but are you really going to keep up the deception for the rest of your mother’s life?’
‘That won’t,’ he answered, ‘be all that long. The doctors have only given her a few months or maybe even weeks. The cancer has spread, and she doesn’t wish to undergo invasive treatment again.’
‘Do you want me to tell her?’ Lindsay asked quietly. ‘I owe you that much, at least.’
‘No.’ His voice came out too loud, too hard. ‘It would only hurt her. Why can’t we let her die happy, believing we’re happy?’
Lindsay nibbled her lip. ‘I don’t like lying.’
‘I don’t either.’ And God help him, he’d been doing it for too long. But for a greater good, just like now. ‘It would be a mercy for her, Lindsay,’ he said quietly. ‘Why trouble her in the short time she has left?’
Lindsay gazed at him, her eyes shadowed, and then slowly she nodded. ‘All right. But what about your sisters and brother, Antonios? They seem suspicious already—’
‘After,’ Antonios said, his voice hoarse and raw. ‘I’ll tell them after she dies.’
Lindsay’s face crumpled and she reached out for Antonios’s hand, seeming to surprise both of them. She squeezed his hand, her face filled with compassion. ‘I’m so sorry, Antonios. Daphne has been more of a mother to me than my own ever was.’
‘We’ll both miss her,’ he agreed, his voice still hoarse. He didn’t want to let go of her hand. Didn’t want to resort to this careful politeness and wary friendship. Maybe what they’d had before hadn’t been real, but it had been good. And maybe they could build something real now.
The thought was like a dagger slipping inside him, slyly finding his heart—and hurting. Because he knew he couldn’t suggest such a thing to Lindsay. Not when being here with him had only caused her unhappiness. He owed her her freedom, at the very least.
