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Damen did not have to close his eyes to imagine Mairi forcing herself to smile, to laugh and chat like she was not worried at all about what the future held for her as she received one humiliating rejection after another.
He knew how Greek society worked, knew that those who were firmly on the side of Esther Leventis and the Kokinos clan would not hesitate to treat her like a leper and embarrass her with every opportunity they had to do so.
And again, he knew that she did it because she loved him that much.
Oh God, Mairi, how can I ever make it up to you?
I’m so sorry. There are no words, Mairi. I’m so sorry.
“We told her to tell you...”
But she hadn’t wanted to. His beautiful, selfless, and courageous Mairi had refused to tell him because she had always considered herself a burden to him, someone who still had to prove that she was worthy of becoming a Greek billionaire’s wife.
He wanted to throw up, as if his system felt he was undeserving to digest anything that nourished him because he was that fucking useless. Worthless. She had it wrong. She had it the other way around. She never had a need to prove that she deserved him. With every day they spent together, it was he – Damen Leventis – who had to prove that he deserved her love, which was something not even all his billions could be enough to buy.
“But we didn’t know,” Mandy sobbed. “We didn’t know that she was almost raped. Why wouldn’t she tell us? Why?”
Because of him.
Because he was always to blame.
Because by choosing to love him, Mairi had also chosen to isolate herself, being smart enough to know that anyone she considered a friend would be a potential target of the enmity of Esther Leventis – his own fucking mother – and the Kokinos clan, a family whose fury she didn’t do anything to earn but became a target of anyway because of Damen.
It always came back to Damen.
Always.
Again, the most painful question lacerated his mind.
How many times did Mairi have to suffer just because she loved him?
“I’m sorry that my relationship with her has made Mairi avoid you and Velvet, but I promise you,” Damen vowed grimly, “I will make the man who had attempted to...” He had to stop speaking, had to unclench his fingers so he would not accidentally crush the phone in his hands. “The man who tried to violate her will pay. This I promise you.”
But even as he said the words, even though he knew he meant every word, Damen knew it was not enough. He feared that it would never be enough.
Chapter 3
Two months earlier
The man in the mirror wearily gazing back at Damen Leventis looked like hell. His hair was uncombed, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was haggard and unshaven. He wore expensive clothes, but they were yesterday’s clothes, crumpled after he spent the whole night tossing and turning. They hung loosely about his body, which had grown noticeably thinner.
He had not been able to sleep without the aid of drugs or liquor ever since he had learned of Mairi’s attack.
How could he when he was still not sure that she was indeed fine, that she was even alive?
The rational side of his mind told Damen that he was worrying over nothing. That if something had happened to Mairi, then her two American aunts would not have been living their lives normally. He knew from the investigative report he had ordered that the two older women loved Mairi fiercely – perhaps just as fiercely as he loved Mairi. They would not be able to pretend everything was fine if something bad had happened to their beloved niece.
But the irrational part of Damen?
It worried, desperately, and it made up the larger part of his mind. It told him that if Damen had not had a single inkling of Mairi’s suffering when she was fighting off Cleon Frangos, how could he allow himself to believe that it would be different this time...that he would know if Mairi was suffering now?
Tearing his gaze off his reflection, he bent down to splash cold water on his face, needing himself sober. After switching the tap off, he grabbed the towel hanging from the rail and patted his face dry, feeling more and more awake with each passing second.
By the time Damen sat down in front of his laptop, his mind was completely alert, his body alive, and his heart remained beating with the hope that there would come a day he would see Mairi again.
He began to type.
Dear Mairi,
I’m not sure if you will be able to read this letter. On the off chance that you are and this is the first letter of mine that you are able to read, I want you to know that I’m sorry.
