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CHAPTER SIX
ALEXDIDN’TTHINK of his parents that often, and he hadn’t dreamed of them in years—not since his mother had died and his brain had thrown random, ancient memories into the mix, so each dawn had brought with it a sense of total disorientation as he tried to wade his way back to the right time zone and reality.
But on that night, alone in his bed on Epíneio, he dreamed of his mother, and his father, and their fights were as vivid in his mind as if they were happening anew. He dreamed of the worst night—the one when his mother had threatened to kill herself, and a twelve-year-old Alex had run from his room to find her, heart racing, chest hurting.
They’d been in the kitchen, his mother’s face tear-stained, his father’s resolute and unfeeling. His mother held a butcher’s knife in her hands, the one she used to slice the tomatoes when they were ripe and just picked from the vines. ‘I hate you so much,’ she’d sobbed, lifting the knife higher.
Alex wasn’t conscious that he had made a noise, but he must have, because his mother turned to face him, her eyes like a wild animal’s, her body trembling with anger and shock, face contorted. Her breath was the only sound in the room, and then it grew harder and more forced as she dropped the knife onto the counter.
His father spoke first. ‘Alexandros. Go back to bed.’ The words were a command, barked from his body, but Alex ignored them, running to his mother and pushing her—pushing her away from the knife, trying to shake her out of the mood, trying to bring her back to him.
She was stiff, like a board, her eyes enormous, and Alex had the strangest sense that she didn’t recognise him. He was losing her, or had he already lost her?
He woke, on the second night of his marriage, in the early hours of the morning, face wet with perspiration despite the open windows that rolled a soft, salty sea breeze towards him. He could taste the tang in the air and, on autopilot, he stood and walked towards it, hovering at the window for several beats, waiting for his breathing to calm, for the images to recede.
His marriage had brought certain issues to the forefront of his mind. The dreams were an unwelcome intrusion.
He knew from past experience that he wouldn’t be able to sleep after the nightmare, and so he didn’t bother trying. Instead, he strode from his bedroom, wearing just a pair of boxers, into the open-plan kitchen. The full moon was high in the sky, cutting a silvery beam through the trees and across the floor, so he only flicked on the little lamp above the range hood, pouring himself a glass of Scotch in a crystal glass then resting it, untouched, on the counter.
His mother hadn’t killed herself that night, but she’d planted the seed of worry in Alex’s mind, and from that moment he hadn’t had a single encounter with her that wasn’t framed by his concern—even the good memories were tainted by his understanding of her desperation, and his apprehension of what she might be capable of. When she did, finally, end her life, it was with no witnesses, no cries, and no one to push away the knife. Which wasn’t to say Alex hadn’t been left reeling.
His lips tightened as his thoughts turned to his wife, and the marriage from which she’d escaped. Theresa was a very different character to his mother, but that didn’t mean that staying in a miserable marriage might not have led her to the same all-consuming depression that had dogged his mother.
The idea of Theresa suffering even a fraction of that amount left Alex with a strange taste in his mouth, like acid and petroleum. He threw back a generous measure of the Scotch, then kept his hand curled around the outside of the glass, his grip firm, his body wound tighter than a spring.
Once, he’d heard his father describe his marriage as ‘the dark side of the moon’, but it had taken Alex’s growing into a man for him to understand the meaning. Their marriage was indeed dark, but it was beautiful too, silvery and perfect, all too briefly, and so they’d both fought for those moments, for the silver and light, enduring the waxing of the darkness for the brief periods of shimmering joy, ever hopeful the latter would come to dominate. It rarely did.
His parents had let their emotions dictate their relationship.
His father he couldn’t help but blame. Where his mother had clearly, he saw now, been suffering from depression and anxiety, his father had refused to get her help, and he’d refused to let her go, when the marriage was so obviously one of the reasons she was in pain.
His mother hadn’t had the strength to leave.
But Theresa had.
She’d realised that the way she was being treated was wrong, that she deserved better, and she’d packed her bags and left, despite the fact that was admitting to having made a mistake. Despite the fact her bastard of an ex-husband seemed intent on continuing to mar her happiness, just because he could.
Hatred flooded Alex at the idea of any kind of person who could behave that way. Love turned to hate, hopes dashed, enmity remaining. It was a common story—one he’d sworn he would never play a part in.
Which was why, as he finished off his Scotch, he couldn’t help but feel glad that love wasn’t—and never would be—a feature of this marriage. Somehow, they’d ended up in a near-perfect scenario, having negotiated terms that suited them both. True, their desire was inescapable, but even that they could tame.
Although it wasn’t completely perfect, he thought, pouring another drink. This time he carried the glass out of the kitchen, onto the front porch, where he leaned against the railing, regarding the ocean. He could see only darkness, and a hint of seafoam on the tip of the rolling waves, as the milky whiteness of the moon formed an uneven line in the distance. Theresa hadn’t got out of her relationship with Jonathan scot-free. Her reaction to their intimacy after their wedding had shown how much of a burden she still carried.
They’d slept together before, so he understood the desire that stirred in her veins, and all the ways in which she was a passionate, sensual woman, but now it was clear to Alex that she’d been hurt badly, her confidence shaken.
His mother had been broken by marriage, and so had Theresa—albeit in different ways. And as much as he wanted to show her how great sex between them would be, he needed her to get there first, on her own. He couldn’t put his finger on why that was so important, but he knew it mattered, and he knew he would wait.
It was one thing to make a pledge to himself in the small hours of the morning to respect her boundaries and keep sex from becoming an issue, and quite another to be confronted by the sight of his newly minted wife in a shirt of his that exposed her tanned, smooth thighs and which clung to her body like a second skin courtesy of the fact she’d obviously worn it swimming. She lay draped over a sunlounger, face tilted towards the house, eyes closed, her dark hair pulled over one shoulder. She looked beautiful, untouchable and incredibly hot.
So much for good intentions. As all his blood pooled in a specific part of his anatomy, he walked towards her, glad his boardshorts were black and would go some of the way to hiding the evidence of his attraction. He moved until his shadow was cast over her face and then he watched, waiting. Slowly her eyes peeped open, locking to his, and a frown briefly tightened her features before she sat up, awkward and self-conscious, reaching for her towel and pinning it to her chest, as though instead of one of his business shirts, she wore nothing.
‘Alex!’ Her voice was croaky, her eyes huge, lashes clumped together by water. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’
‘I wasn’t. I just came outside.’
‘Oh. It was such a warm morning and the pool looked so inviting, but I didn’t have a swimming costume so I borrowed one of your shirts—I hope that’s okay?’
Uncertainty made her voice husky, and he hated that. He didn’t want her to be nervous around him.
