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His eyes narrowed in on a bird, flying along the beach, before it disappeared from view.
“I’ve been calling and messaging. What’s happened?”
Well, Kat, I got your daughter pregnant and then I married her. He winced. “I’m on the island,” he said, finally.
“Why?” He could practically hear her pulling a face of disbelief. “You never go there this long.”
“I’ve decided to spend more time here,” he said.
“But it’s so far from me!” A pout was in the words. “And I miss you.”
“How’s married life?” he asked, and regretted the tone of his voice almost immediately, because it had sounded accusing, as though he blamed her for re-marrying, when in actuality, he was glad.
“Lorenzo is still cross with me,” she sighed.
“I’m sure he will forgive you eventually.”
“When will you be in Athens next, darling?” She turned the conversation back easily. “I miss you.”
Panic rose inside of him, and it was an unwelcome and unfamiliar experience. He had the strangest sense the four walls of his office were closing in on him, pushing at his edges, squashing him into a tiny gap; air was scarce, and stars danced against his eyes.
“Not for some time,” he said, surprised the words weren’t laced with self-condemnation.
“It is only a short flight. Why don’t you send the helicopter for me, next time I’m in Greece. I’ll come for the weekend…”
Danger lurched at his feet. “Kat, you’re married. And even if you weren’t, Andrew was my closest friend, and you were his wife. We have had this conversation many times. I cannot fathom why you think I will change my mind.”
She expelled a soft breath, and he waited, holding his own, his body held stiff and tight, his mind on pause. “Because you’re a man,” she said, and laughed lightly. “And I’ve seen how you look at me. How you’ve looked at me for years. One of these days, you’re going to get sick of denying yourself what you really want.”
His stomach clenched at the words that might have been true six months ago – words that revolted him now. And though he’d decided to wait, though he knew the situation required tender handling, he heard his drawled response: “I got married, Kat. Not long after your wedding.”
Silence filled not just the room, but the whole world. Silence that was sharp and accusatory, and prickled with rage. “You what?”
“I got married. I’m on the island with my wife, and I’ll be here for the foreseeable future.”
“You … can’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re… you don’t believe in marriage.”
“On the contrary, I believe in it emphatically.”
“The general idea, perhaps, but not for you,” she insisted. “You always said you didn’t want to marry until you were an old man.”
“I changed my mind,” he said, and now the words were kinder, softer. “I met someone who changed my mind.”
A harsh intake of breath made him pity Kat, and hate himself for hurting her. “Are you in love with her?”
The walls closed tighter; nausea rolled through him. “You’re married,” he said instead. “You have Lorenzo, and I have… my wife. It’s time to put an end to this. These calls, the insinuation, the flirtation. It is no longer appropriate. I’m not sure it ever was. But I do know it will be the death knell to our friendship if you cannot accept this.”
She sucked in a breath, and his heart hurt for her, for both of them. Most of all, for Bella, who was an innocent in this situation – she said she’d known what she was doing the night they’d slept together, but how could she have? She didn’t know he was using her body to obliterate Kat from his mind, to ravage his anger at the fact the woman he’d wanted for ten years had just got married.
“Let it go, Kat,” he said, finally. “Just let it go.”
“You’re going to change your mind,” she said, finally, softly, confidently. “You’ve slept with every woman under the sun and still you looked at me as though I am everything you want in this world. Nothing’s going to change that, not even this ‘wife’ of yours.” She laughed quietly. “And I’ll be waiting, as I have been since I met you…”
She disconnected the call but Vitalo held the phone to his ear, his anger all self-directed. No. Not all of it. He felt rage for Kat, too. Rage for the fact there was a part of what she’d said that was right. He had wanted her with a ferocity that had sliced through him, he had coveted her when she was married to Andrew and then, after Andrew had died, he wanted her so much more – he had told himself it didn’t matter. She was free now.
