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‘I’m fine.’ She forced herself to keep looking at him, even though it hurt to do so. ‘Are you okay?’
He nodded, his eyes moving past her to the suitcase on the bed. ‘You’re packing.’
Not a question, a statement. In other words, he wasn’t going to try and talk her out of leaving.
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry, but I think it’s for the best.’
‘You’re reneging on our deal?’ He walked towards her, moving with that devastating masculine grace that made her unravel inside. ‘I’m not sure you want to do that. You see, there are consequences. But perhaps you didn’t read the small print?’
She had seen him angry many times before, but this felt like an entirely different emotion. She could feel it rolling off him in waves, so that it made her feel unsteady on her feet. But he could threaten what he liked. She had nothing to lose.
‘I didn’t. But it doesn’t matter. I can’t do this. I won’t do this. I’m sorry if that is difficult for you to accept.’
His eyes locked on hers. ‘I don’t accept it.’
She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to hold in the pain that was threatening to capsize her. ‘You’re not being reasonable.’
‘I guess not,’ he agreed. ‘Then again, I’m not a reasonable man. I’m selfish and arrogant and impatient. For most of my life I’ve been angry. And unhappy.’
Achileas tilted his dark head backwards.
‘More than unhappy. I felt cursed—and then I walked into you outside the Stanmore, and everything changed. Only I didn’t realise. I just kept telling myself the same lies about why I needed a wife. Why I needed you to be my wife. I told myself that I was doing you a favour.’
‘You were,’ she said quietly.
He wanted to laugh then—because it was laughable, ludicrous.
‘No, I really wasn’t. All I did was give you money, and I have so much money I could give half of it away without noticing. But you changed me. You made me look at the world in a different way.’
Watching Effie’s eyes fill with tears, he felt as if his heart would burst.
‘Only I didn’t realise that either. I kept clinging to the past, holding on to the hate. Because I’m not just selfish and arrogant and impatient, I’m stupid too. So when you told me that I didn’t want to punish my father, that I loved him, I didn’t listen.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But the truth is, Effie, that you were right.’
She had seen beneath his anger. Seen the need to love and be loved that he had struggled against all his life.
He thought back to when he’d walked into the Alexios house. It had been the moment he had waited for all his life, and he had expected it to be transformative...seismic.
Instead, he’d felt sad, and oddly worried about the man he had hated for so long. A proud, stubborn man who was growing older and frailer. A man so much like himself.
And in that moment, he had known that some things couldn’t be changed, that he needed to find a way to accept them. That it was time to accept that he wanted more than the Alexios name.
He took a step forward. ‘You made me see that I had a choice. I could do what I planned—take revenge and stay angry—or I could accept that my father had already been punished enough by the stupid, selfish decision he made more than three decades ago. Only I had to do it on my own.’
Walking away from her had been the hardest thing he had ever done. Harder and more painful than walking away from Andreas at that rugby match all those years ago.
‘It had to be just me and him. Can you forgive me?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t need to forgive you for reaching out to your father.’
‘But I hurt you.’ Heart clenching, he reached out and touched her face...her sweet, serious face. ‘And I’m sorrier for that than you can imagine. But if you won’t let me apologise then at least let me thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For everything. You made me look at myself and see who I really was beneath the suits and the stubble. Who I wanted to be. You lifted the curse. You’re such a good person, Effie.’
Her lip wobbled. ‘Not in the garden, I wasn’t. I was rude and cruel. He’s an old man, and he’s sick, and he wants his family around him.’
Achileas brushed away the tears that were spilling from her beautiful amber eyes.
