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Somehow, the place was even more beautiful now. Her heart twisted and yearned for something that was impossible.
Tears threatened and she dug her nails into her palms to stave them off, but when Alex came around to her side, she suspected he knew how she felt, because his jaw tightened and his face bore a mask of concern.
‘I’m fine,’ she reassured him. ‘Please, stop worrying.’
His response was to take her hand and help her down from the helicopter, but before he could lift her again she shook her head. ‘I’m okay to walk. Please, Alex, don’t fuss. I just fainted a moment, it was nothing really.’
‘It’s not...it’s not just that you passed out,’ he said, shaking his head, silencing whatever else he’d been about to say. He tugged on her hand lightly. ‘Come inside.’
She nodded, but with each step that brought them closer to the house she felt as though a piece of her was breaking off, so before they reached the delightful doors she stopped walking and stood completely still, staring at it. ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ she said, the words strained.
‘Oh?’
She threw a quick glance at him, reminding herself she’d said she would never burden him with her love again. He’d been honest about his feelings all along, it wasn’t his fault she’d broken the terms of their arrangement.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said finally, the words halting.
‘Is it? To me, it seems very simple. Here, we were happy. And I have not been happy since. Have you?’
She almost rolled her eyes. ‘This isn’t real life, though. We were happy here because it was a holiday. No, a fantasy.’
‘Was it? Was loving me also a fantasy?’
Her heart squealed but her mind flicked to life. Perhaps that was a way to let him off the hook? She could lie to him and say that yes, everything she’d felt had been a fantasy, none of it was real. But she couldn’t lie to him. Not about something so important.
‘What I wanted was an illusion,’ she said carefully, eyes roaming the house now, frown on her lips. She was unaware of the way Alex stared at her, nor of the way his own mouth turned downwards.
‘Then come inside to rest for a time. Eat. Drink. Swim. You have been working too hard.’
‘I love my work.’
‘And it will still be waiting for you, or you can use the studio here.’
‘How would you feel if I ripped you out of your office?’
‘If I looked as dead on my feet as you do, relieved,’ he muttered, throwing her a warning glance. ‘Do I need to carry you the rest of the way?’
She was here now—the only alternative to going into the house was insisting he fly her back to Athens, and that filled her with a bag of cement. ‘Fine,’ she agreed mutinously. ‘I’ll go inside.’
But it was like stepping back into the past. The last time they’d left, they’d both presumed they’d come back again soon after, and the house had that feeling—as though it had been left quickly, everything still exactly as it was. Her heart turned over in her chest as she walked deeper into the living room, her pulse going wild as memories flooded her.
‘You were happy here,’ he said quietly, moving to stand behind her. ‘I like seeing you happy.’
Her eyes swept shut, because she heard what he wasn’t saying. He didn’t like seeing her hurt. He didn’t like knowing he’d hurt her. He was terrified of turning into his father and worried their marriage was going to dissolve into that same awful merry-go-round of fights.
She turned to face him, needing to reassure him. ‘I’m happy in Athens too,’ she lied.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ he said flatly. ‘You hide from me at home. You leave any room I am in. We have not had a conversation in over a month. Do you want a divorce, agape? Because I would accept that—I would accept anything—rather than seeing you like this and knowing me to be the cause.’
Her pulse hit a crescendo and her eyes stung with unshed tears. ‘Do you want a divorce?’ She volleyed the question back to him.
Alex’s eyes flared to hers, something deep in their irises. She held her breath, waiting, her nerves stretching to breaking point. Finally, he shook his head. ‘That is the opposite of what I want.’
She exhaled slowly, nodding. ‘It would be bad for my father.’
His eyes were shielded from her by his long lashes. ‘That’s true.’
Had she been hoping for a denial? Her heart thumped. ‘I’m sorry if what I told you the other week made things difficult for you,’ she said quietly. ‘It won’t happen again.’
