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‘Oh...thank you.’ She stepped back to let the woman in, and then watched uncomfortably as the man deposited the suitcases in the bedroom before leaving and the maid began unpacking the clothes she’d barely worn and then hanging them in the walk-in closet.
Lindsay offered to help but the woman insisted she’d do it herself, so she left the bedroom and went to the living area of the villa, gazing through the sliding glass doors that led to a private pool. If she were in the deep end of that thing, she thought disconsolately, she couldn’t be more out of her depth.
Dinner, she knew, would be in just a few hours. She needed to get ready, and not just her clothes and make-up. She needed to prepare emotionally. Mentally.
Lindsay made herself some tea and took it outside to the pool area, sitting in one of the loungers and cradling the warmth of the mug between her hands as she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She pictured the ornate dining room where the family gathered for more formal meals, imagined each chair, each face, and focused on keeping her breathing slow and even.
Visualization, her therapist had told her, was meant to be helpful when trying to manage new or difficult situations. And she’d become good enough at it that she could picture it all and still stay calm.
It was when she was actually in the situation, facing all those people, all their stares and questions, that she started to panic.
‘What are you doing?’ Lindsay’s eyes flew open and she saw Antonios standing by the gate that led out to the drive, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. ‘You sound like you’re hyperventilating.’
‘No, just breathing.’ She felt a blush heat her cheeks and she took a sip of tea. ‘Trying to relax.’ And not succeeding very well.
Antonios’s mouth twisted as he glanced around at the pool, the water sparkling in the bright sunlight, the whitewashed villa looking cool and pristine, everything beautiful and luxurious. Lindsay braced herself for some cutting remark about how difficult she must find it to relax in such a paradise. But to her relief he said nothing, just nodded towards the villa, his mouth tight.
‘You should get dressed,’ he said as he walked past her. ‘We need to be at the main house in an hour.’
The maid had gone when Lindsay went back inside, and she spent a long time in the huge, sumptuous shower, as if she could postpone the inevitable moment when she faced Antonios’s family.
He’d told her it was casual, which meant full make-up and a nice dress. The Marakaios family didn’t do casual the way she’d ever understood it, and that just added to her stress and tension.
An hour later she stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, wiped icy palms down the sides of the lavender linen shift that Antonios had bought for her in New York. She remembered the joy of trying on new clothes, parading them for him, laughing at his deliberately lascivious expressions. An ache of longing swept through her and she leaned her forehead against the mirror. They’d had so much fun together, for such a short while. No matter if it hadn’t been real or lasting, she still missed that. Missed him, and missed the woman she’d been with him, before he’d taken her back to Greece. Before everything had gone wrong.
A sharp knock sounded on the bathroom door. ‘Are you ready?’ Antonios called. ‘We need to go.’
‘Okay.’ Lindsay lifted her head from the mirror and stared at her reflection once more. Her heart was starting to beat fast, her chest to hurt, and she had that curious light-headed sensation that always preceded a full-blown panic attack.
Breathe, Lindsay. You can do this. You have to do this.
She gripped the edge of the sink, focused on her breathing and willed her heart rate to slow.
‘Lindsay...’ Antonios called, impatience edging his voice, and, after a few more agonized seconds of trying to keep the panic under control, she straightened and opened the door.
‘I’m ready,’ she said as she walked out of the bathroom. She was feeling light-headed enough to have to focus on her walking, the way a drunk person would. She didn’t think she was very convincing because Antonios regarded her silently for a moment. She didn’t look at him, just kept her chin held high, her shoulders back. Breathe.
‘You look lovely,’ Antonios said finally. ‘I remember that dress.’
‘Thank you.’ It was hard to get words out of her throat, but she just about managed it. ‘Why don’t we go?’
She started out of the villa and Antonios followed. She stumbled slightly on the gravel drive and he took her arm, exclaiming as he did so.
‘You’re freezing.’
She always went cold when she had a panic attack, a result of her blood pressure dropping, but she wasn’t about to explain that now. ‘I’m fine—’
He stared at her for one long, fathomless moment, his arm gripping hers. He felt warm and steady and strong and the temptation to lean into him was nearly unbearable. She stood straighter.
‘Let me get you a wrap. The nights are chilly here.’
‘Fine.’ Not that a wrap would actually help.
He came back a few minutes later with a matching lavender pashmina and draped it over her shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ Lindsay murmured, and they kept walking.
The quarter mile to the main villa felt like a trek across the Sahara, and yet Lindsay would have willingly walked it forever rather than face what was inside.
All too soon they had arrived; Lindsay paused before the huge double doors that led to the enormous marble foyer with its sweeping double staircase. Antonios greeted the manservant who opened the front doors, and then several other servants who circulated through the foyer, trays of canapés and glasses of champagne held aloft.
Definitely a casual dinner, then.
Lindsay managed to murmur a few hellos, offer some smiles. After a few minutes Antonios led her into the living room where his family waited; Lindsay saw his brother, Leonidas, by the window, Parthenope sitting on a sofa, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed as she stared at her. Xanthe and Ava stood together by the window, heads bent together. Lindsay watched as one of them whispered something to the other.
Her chest constricted so much it felt as if she were having a heart attack. She stopped where she stood, flung one hand out to brace herself against the doorway as Antonios walked into the room to greet his family.
‘Lindsay,’ Daphne Marakaios said and, rising from her chair, she walked towards Lindsay, her arms outstretched.
Lindsay accepted the woman’s embrace, felt how much thinner and more fragile she seemed from the last time she’d seen her. ‘Daphne,’ she murmured, and pressed a kiss against each of her mother-in-law’s wrinkled cheeks.
Daphne eased back, her gaze sweeping over Lindsay. ‘It’s so good to have you back, my dear.’ She squeezed her hands. ‘I hope it is good to be back?’
The questioning lilt in Daphne’s voice made Lindsay wonder just how much her mother-in-law knew about the state of her son’s marriage.
‘Of course it is,’ she murmured. It was good to see Daphne again at least, and she hoped her mother-in-law knew it.
‘Come sit by me,’ Daphne instructed, and led Lindsay to a sofa in the corner of the room. She was grateful for her mother-in-law’s attention; it kept everyone else from besieging her with questions, even if she felt their speculative stares from across the room. Still, she’d got one of the worst parts of the evening over with: the grand entrance that being with Antonios had always entailed, that had always reminded her of those unbearable evenings with her mother’s friends.
Daphne chatted with her briefly, asking surprisingly pertinent questions about her doctoral research; in Lindsay’s experience most people’s eyes glazed over when she started talking about the abstract details of number theory, but Daphne seemed genuinely interested.
And talking about mathematics was the most calming thing Lindsay could have done; explaining the impossible and even mystical beauty of transcendental numbers made her breathing slow and her body relax.
From across the room she caught Antonios glowering at her and her mind blanked.
‘I find your work so fascinating, my dear,’ Daphne said and Lindsay realized she’d just stopped speaking, maybe even in the middle of a sentence. ‘You have such a lively mind, such a fierce intelligence.’
Lindsay smiled, or tried to, because the sincerity in Daphne’s voice made her suddenly feel near tears. If she’d stayed, perhaps if she’d just tried harder, she could have developed a relationship with this woman that would have gone a long way to addressing the absence of a mother in her own life since the age of nine. Maybe she would have made friends with Antonios’s sisters, rather than having them now staring at her stonily from across the room.
And just like that the panic swamped her again. She pressed one hand to her chest to ease the pain, and Daphne laid a hand on her arm.
‘Lindsay, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’ Those two words had become her mantra. Lindsay forced herself to drop her hand from her chest and smile at Daphne. ‘Sorry, just tired from the flight. But how are you? Antonios told me—’
Daphne smiled wryly. ‘Then you know I’m not so well. But I’ve lived a good life. I have only a few regrets.’
