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In bare feet and a floaty white dress that whispered softly around my body, I approached the sound of infant giggles, a deep, sexy voice and the playful splash of water.
Axios was enjoying a lazy swim with Andreos. And, as much as I wanted to stop and frame the beautiful picture father and son made, so I could carry it in my heart, I knew my emotions were far too close to the surface to risk detection.
Instead I made my way past the pool and through the glass hallway that led to another stunning wing of the multi-tiered luxury villa. To the special place I’d discovered on our arrival.
The suspended treehouse was accessed by a heavy plank and rope bridge from the second level of the villa and a broad ladder from the level below. I took the walkway, enjoying the swaying movement that made me feel as if I was dancing on air, and entered the wide space laid out with polished wooden floors, wide rectangular windows and a roped-off platform that gave magnificent views of the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
A riot of vivid colour brush-stroked the horizon, signalling the approach of night. Silently awed, and my breath held, I watched the colours settle into breathtaking layers of a purple and orange sunset.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, lost in my turbulent thoughts, selfishly praying for things I couldn’t have. And even when I sensed Axios’s approach I didn’t turn around, didn’t give in to the raw need to fill my senses with the sight and sound of him.
Instead I gripped the rope barrier until my knuckles shrieked with just a fraction of the pain shredding my insides.
Whether he sensed my mood or not, Axios didn’t speak either. But when he stopped behind me I felt the intensity of his presence. And when he slid an arm around my waist and engulfed me in the poignant scents of father and son I couldn’t help the scalding tears that prickled my eyes.
With a soft moan I sagged into his hold, and the three of us stood on the platform, staring at the horizon as the bright orange ball of the sun dipped into the sea and a blanket of stars started to fill the sky.
‘Come,’ he said eventually, his voice low and deep. ‘The chef is almost done preparing dinner. Let’s go put our son to bed, hmm?’
Throat tight with locked emotion, I nodded, making sure to avoid his probing gaze as we made our back into the villa. After putting a dozing Andreos in his cot, we retraced our steps to the open terrace, where a candlelit dinner had been laid out.
There, Axios pulled out a chair and I sat, my stomach in knots and my heart bleeding, as I looked at the face of the man I was hopelessly in love with.
The man I could never have.
* * *
Theos mou, she was gorgeous.
The breath that had stalled in my lungs fought to emerge as I watched candlelight dance over her face and throat. Even the veil of melancholy shrouding her didn’t detract from the captivating mix of fire and calm I wanted to experience for a very long time.
For ever.
Our three-course dinner had passed in stilted conversation, and our appetites had been non-existent. She’d refused dessert and I’d downed my aromatic espresso in one go.
But it was time.
Business pressures had forced this conversation to the back burner for the last four days. It was time to lay my cards on the table.
‘About the divorce you requested: I would like to renegotiate...’
r /> A vice tightened my sternum when wild panic flared in her eyes. The hand resting on the table began to tremble and she snatched it away, tucking it into her lap as she exhaled sharply. ‘What do you mean, “renegotiate”? You gave me your word!’
For the first time I felt a visceral need to take it all back, to smash it to pieces and rebuild something new, something lasting from the rubble created from greed and blind lust. Because there was something more here. This...distance between us had cemented my belief that this wasn’t just sex. That I’d fallen deeper, farther than even my imagination could fathom. Perhaps even into that dimension where Calypso could exist.
The thought of that ending...of never experiencing it or her at some point in the future...twisted in something close to agony inside me.
The state was further evidenced by the quiet panic this very argument was fuelling inside me—the fine trembles coursing through my body, taunting me with the possibility that this might be the one deal that eluded me. That my actions last year and since finding her on Bora Bora might have doomed me in her eyes. The very thought that I might fail where I’d succeeded at everything else. Everything that mattered...
No.
‘I know what I promised, but I no longer think it’s—’
‘No!’
She surged to her feet, and the trembling in her hand seemed transmitted to her body as eyes steeped in turmoil centred on mine. But when she spoke her voice was firm, the most resolute I’d ever heard her. And that only twisted the knife in deeper. Because I sensed a dynamic shift in her the like of which I’d never experienced before.
She seemed to falter for a moment, her hand sliding to her stomach, before she shook her head. ‘You made a promise, Axios, and I’m going to have to insist you deliver on that promise.’
