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Of course he didn’t. And that shouldn’t hurt, because she’d chosen it to be that way, and yet it still did. ‘Then...’
‘My mother, as you might remember, was fond of you. She doesn’t know why you left, and I have not enlightened her as to the state of our marriage.’
Guilt twisted sharply inside her. Daphne Marakaios had been kind to her during her time in Greece, but it still hadn’t been enough to stay. To stay sane.
‘Why haven’t you told her?’ Lindsay asked. ‘It’s been six months already, and you can’t keep it a secret forever.’
‘Why shouldn’t you tell her?’ Antonios countered. ‘Oh, I forgot. Because you’re a coward. You sneak away from my home and my bed and can’t even be bothered to have a single conversation about why you wished to end our marriage.’
Lindsay drew a deep breath, fighting the impulse to tell him just how many conversations she’d tried to have. There was no point now. ‘I understand that you’re angry—’
‘I’m not angry, Lindsay. To be angry I would have to care.’ He stood up, the expression on his face ironing out. ‘And I stopped caring when you sent me that email. When you refused to say anything but that our marriage was a mistake when I called you, wanting to know what had happened. When you showed me how little you thought of me or our marriage.’
‘And you showed me how little you thought of our marriage every day I was in Greece,’ Lindsay returned before she could help herself.
Antonios turned to her slowly, his eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Are you actually going to blame me for the end of our marriage?’ he asked, each syllable iced with disbelief.
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ Lindsay fired back. ‘How could I do that? How could you possibly have any responsibility or blame?’
He stared at her, his eyes narrowing, and Lindsay almost laughed to realize he wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.
Then he shrugged her words aside and answered in a clipped voice, ‘I don’t care, about you or your reasons. But my mother does. Because she has been ill, I have spared her the further grief of knowing how and why you have gone.’
‘Ill—’
‘Her cancer has returned,’ Antonios informed her with brutal bluntness. ‘She got the results back a month after you left.’
Lindsay stared at him in shock. She’d known Daphne had been in remission from breast cancer, but the outlook had been good. ‘Antonios, I’m so sorry. Is it...is it treatable?’
He lifted one powerful shoulder in a shrug, his expression veiled. ‘Not very.’
Lindsay sank back in her chair, her mind reeling with this new information. She thought of kind Daphne, with her white hair and soft voice, her gentleness apparent in every word and action, and felt a twist of grief for the woman she’d known so briefly. And as for Antonios...he adored his mother. This would have hit him hard and she, his wife, hadn’t been there to comfort and support him through her illness. Yet would she have been able to, if she’d stayed in Greece?
She’d been so desperately unhappy there, and the thought of returning brought the old fears to the fore.
‘Antonios,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m very, very sorry about your mother, but I still can’t go back to Greece.’
‘You can and you will,’ Antonios replied flatly, ‘if you want a divorce.’
She shook her head, her hair flying, desperation digging its claws into her soul. ‘Then I won’t ask for a divorce.’
‘Then you are my wife still, and you belong with me.’ His voice had roughened and he turned away from her in one sharp movement. ‘You cannot have it both ways, Lindsay.’
‘How will my seeing your mother help her?’ Lindsay protested. ‘It would only hurt her more for me to tell her to her face that we’ve separated—’
‘But I have no intention of having you tell her that.’ Antonios turned around, his eyes seeming to burn right through her as he glared at her. ‘It is likely my mother only has a few months to live, perhaps less. I do not intend to distress her with the news of our failed marriage. For a few days, Lindsay, perhaps a week, you can pretend that we are still happily married.’
‘What—?’ She stared at him, appalled, as he gave her a grimace of a smile.
‘Surely that is not impossible? You have already proven once what a good actress you are, when you pretended to fall in love with me.’
* * *
Antonios stared at his wife’s lovely pale face and squashed the tiny flicker of pity he felt for her. She looked so trapped, so horrified at the prospect of resuming their marriage and returning to Greece.
Not, of course, that they would truly resume their marriage. It would be a sham only, for the sake of his mother. Antonios had no intention of inviting Lindsay into his bed again. Not after she’d left him in such a cold-hearted and cowardly way. No, he’d take her back to Greece for a few days for his mother’s sake, and then he’d never see her again...which was what she obviously wanted. And he wanted it, too.
‘A few days?’ she repeated numbly. ‘And that will be enough...’
‘It’s my mother’s name day next week,’ Antonios told her.
‘Name day...’
‘In Greece we celebrate name days rather than birthdays. My family wishes to celebrate it especially, considering.’ Grief constricted his throat and burned in his chest. He could not imagine Villa Marakaios without his mother. Losing his father had been hard enough. His father had built the vineyard from nothing; he’d been the brains behind the operation, for better and definitely for worse, but his mother had always been its heart. And when the heart was gone...
But perhaps his own heart had already gone, crushed to nothing when his wife had left him. He’d thought Lindsay had loved him. He’d believed they were happy together.
What a joke. What a lie. But Antonios knew he should be used to people not being what they seemed. Not saying what they meant. He’d had hard lessons in that already.
‘We are having a celebration,’ he continued, just managing to keep his voice even. ‘Family and friends, all our neighbours. You will be there. Afterwards you can return here if you wish. I will explain to my mother that you needed to finish your research.’ He knew Lindsay had been pursuing her doctorate in Pure Mathematics, and when she’d left him she’d told him she needed to tie a few things up back in New York. He’d said goodbye in good faith, thinking she’d only be gone a few days. She’d already told him that her research could be done anywhere; she’d said there was nothing for her back in New York. But apparently that, like everything else, had been a lie.
Lindsay’s face had gone even paler and she lifted one hand to her throat, swallowing convulsively. ‘A party? Antonios, please. I can’t.’
Fury beat through his blood. ‘What did I ever do to you,’ he demanded in a low, savage voice, ‘to make you treat me this way? Treat my family this way? We welcomed you into our home, into our lives.’ His insides twisted as emotion gripped him—emotion he couldn’t bear Lindsay to see. He’d told her he didn’t care about her any more, and he’d meant it. He had to mean it. ‘My mother,’ he said after a moment, when he’d regained his composure and his voice was as flat and toneless as he needed it to be, ‘loved you. She treated you like her own daughter. Is this how you intend to repay her?’
Tears sparkled on Lindsay’s lashes and she blinked them back, shaking her head in such obvious misery that Antonios almost felt sorry for her again. Almost.
‘No, of course not,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I...I was very grateful to your mother, and her kindness to me.’
‘You have a funny way of showing it.’
Her eyes flashed fire at that, and Antonios wondered what on earth she had to be angry about. She’d left him.
‘Even so,’ she said quietly, one hand still fluttering at her throat, ‘it is very difficult for me to return to Greece.’
‘And why is that? Do you have a lover waiting for you here in New York?’
Her mouth dropped open in shock. ‘A lover—’
Antonios shrugged, as if it were a matter of no consequence, even though the thought of Lindsay with another man, violating their marriage vows, their marriage bed, made him want to punch something. ‘I do not know what else would take you so abruptly from Greece.’ From me, he almost said, but thankfully didn’t.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes wide, although with what emotion Antonios couldn’t tell. ‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I don’t have a lover. There’s only been you, Antonios. Ever.’
And yet he obviously hadn’t been enough. Antonios didn’t even know whether to believe her; he told himself it didn’t matter. ‘Then there is no reason for you not to come to Greece.’
‘My research—’
‘Cannot wait a week?’ Impatience flared inside him, along with the familiar fury. Didn’t she realize how thoughtless, how selfish and cruel she was being?
Even now, after six months of coming to accept and learning to live with her abandonment, he was stunned by how completely she’d deceived him. He had believed in her love for him utterly. But, Antonios reminded himself, they’d only known each other a week when they had married. It had been impulsive, reckless even, but he’d been so sure. Sure of his love for Lindsay, and of her love for him.
