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‘No, I was...fascinated. Why do you think I demanded you accompany me to the ball?’
‘So you wouldn’t arrive alone,’ she reminded him. ‘So the media wouldn’t get a photo of you appearing solo.’
‘I go to events on my own all the time. My ego isn’t so fragile, Beatrice, that I can’t handle being photographed without a glamorous woman on my arm. No, it was never that.’
‘So why then?’ she pressed, removing her hand from his chest and curling it around her coffee cup again. She sipped it, dropping her gaze from his, pushing him away a little. He could feel that she wanted to keep him at a distance and sought to close it.
‘I just wanted to be with you. I wanted to sleep with you.’ He threw the words at her, needing her to understand that he was that kind of man. Someone who liked to seduce women he barely knew and then move on.
No mess. No emotional confusion.
‘And if Cassandra hadn’t quit, we would have had sex and you’d have forgotten me a week later?’
Despite what he’d thought a moment ago, he contradicted himself with a shake of his head. ‘I don’t think so. You were already so far under my skin, agápi mou. When I look back at the way I spoke to you that night, the way I threatened you—I was terrified of losing you. I’ll never forget what you said to me: that if I’d simply asked, you’d have stayed. I’d never known anyone like you before. So kind and good and compassionate. So full of love, Bea, you were aching to give it.’
Her sob was almost silent, wrenched from deep within her chest.
‘You loved Danica instantly and I wanted to be a part of it.’ He grimaced, the full truth of his actions spread out before him. ‘Do you remember what you said, the morning you left Greece? You told me I made you fall in love with me, and you’re right. Not consciously, but I was so selfish. It wasn’t enough for me to have your body. I wanted all of you, everything you had to give, and that included your heart.’
She shook her head frantically. ‘Don’t. I can’t—’
He didn’t know what she was going to say, but he was getting so close to understanding his own actions. He lifted a finger to her lips, silencing her as he searched for what he’d felt and why.
‘Nothing good has ever come from loving me.’
Her eyes swirled with contradictions, but she stayed quiet.
‘I’ve loved you since that first night we met, I think, but I have no idea how to love you. I have no idea how to be a man who deserves you and, Theós, you deserve so much. I am being selfish again, coming here, telling you this, when the best thing for you would be if I had just let you walk away.’
Her sob was softer this time, and then she was leaning forward, pressing her forehead to his chest, her gentle sobs filling him with emotions he couldn’t comprehend.
After a moment she pulled back to look up at him, shaking her head slowly. ‘You’re such an idiot.’
He lifted his brows.
‘How do you not see yourself as you really are? How can you be so disillusioned?’
He frowned.
‘You keep thinking that you let people down, but I see the opposite. I see a boy who had to parent his mother, and raise his brother. Even now, as a man in his thirties, you’re picking up after Matthaios. You are good and kind and honourable, and I’ve got news for you, Ares.’
He waited.
‘You’re full of love to give as well. I watched you with Danica and saw the way you felt about her, your big, beautiful heart exploding with a need to protect her and care for her. You want to know how to be the man I deserve?’
His lips parted on a roughly expelled breath.
‘By doing this! Exactly what you’re doing right now. You came here today and you told me the truth about how you feel, even though that’s kind of terrifying. Love isn’t just an isolated emotion. It’s held up by so many others! Trust and respect, kindness, humour, intention. I trust you to do the right thing by me—and that doesn’t mean I’ll never get hurt again. It doesn’t mean you can protect me from anything bad ever happening in my life. It means that, whatever happens, I want to go through it with you.’
‘But what if—’
‘What if—what?’ she interrupted quietly. ‘Life is full of “what-ifs”. The only one that matters right now is this: what if you walk out of here today and we never see each other again? Will you be able to live with that?’
Everything inside him froze. He stared at her, revulsion barrelling through him. ‘Absolutely not.’
Her little laugh was tremulous but happy.
He groaned as realisation finally settled around his heart.
