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She nodded, wondering where he was going with this.
“And like you pointed out so brutally earlier, this is bigger than both of us now. Bigger than our contract and little arrangement and our past even.”
It was everything she wanted Aristos to say, everything she’d wanted to hear ever since she’d been told there were two heartbeats. That this pregnancy had changed both their lives in ways they couldn’t even comprehend yet. But his words... They felt wrong, they sounded wrong. The way he looked at her was all wrong.
“Good night, Mira.”
He didn’t even wait for her response. Mira went to bed, feeling that same loneliness she thought she’d never have to bear again fall over her like a shroud. He needed time and space to process their news.
Only their kiss had been right. Nothing else. She fell into restless slumber holding on to that.
CHAPTER SIX
ITWASPASTfive in the evening when they arrived at the penthouse at Carides Towers in the business district of Athens about three weeks after Mira returned to Athens. Returned to Aristos, as she’d been calling it in her mind.
“Keep your day open.”
It was all the notice Aristos had given her the night before. As if she was the one working fourteen-hour days, pushing their body to its limits after a major accident, and acting the model spouse.
And yet, she’d barely slept, she’d been so excited.
Dressed in a loose white summer dress that flirted with her thighs, her hair braided away from her neck and face, she’d been elated to find Aristos waiting for her at the helipad that morning, dressed in a white linen shirt and dark denim. Even dressed casually, he’d stolen her breath away. It had been enough to simply watch him as he strapped her seat belt in the chopper he was piloting himself.
Being the naive fool this pregnancy and her hormones had turned her into, she’d assumed that meant she’d get to spend the entire day with her husband, who could give a master class on how to ignore one’s spouse without crossing the line into negligence.
Because he’d been doing exactly that for three weeks now. He was there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was present for all of her doctor’s appointments, including with a masseuse and a physical therapist. He lavished her with back massages and foot rubs every night. He brought her vitamins and reminded her to go to bed when she’d been studying hard for her specialization exams. He was there to hold her hair back when nausea began showing up midmorning as her second trimester began and he was there with a glass of sparkling water with a slice of lemon just as she liked it, exactly when she needed it. He was there to kiss her and hold her and rub her back when her sleep turned restless and to whisper words of comfort and endearment as if he’d learned the exact words she’d need to hear by rote. He was a warm, hard, solid presence on the bed next to her when she didn’t want to be alone.
And yet, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what she wanted. Mira wondered if she was being selfish, entitled, more than a little lovesick in her expectations.
But in her heart, in the deepest, most vulnerable part of her, from where she was trying to operate in this new stage of her life, she knew that there was a long list of things Aristos didn’t do anymore with her.
He didn’t tease and taunt her anymore. He didn’t seek out her company, he didn’t demand she give in to him with that feral seductive quality that she’d never been able to resist. He asked her nothing that didn’t seem to come out of a caregiver questionnaire. He didn’t laugh with her, didn’t provoke her, didn’t cajole her into long, warm kisses.
It was as if he had a manual—Being a Good Provider for Dummies—and followed it step by step without ever going off script. But she’d had enough.
Enough of seeing her husband while away hours upon hours on work in his study with that PA of his.
Enough of him treating her like some...fragile possession given into his safekeeping, of him keeping her at a distance.
Ironic that it was exactly what she’d envisaged when she’d signed the contract with him. And yet, the brittle, perfectly sterile quality of their marriage was a limbo Mira didn’t want to live in for another moment.
The long summer day had been unbearably hot and muggy. Even the cool, pristine white marble floors of the vast penthouse as she went in search of Aristos weren’t enough to bring Mira out of her rotten mood.
They had toured three different estates, beginning with one in Mykonos at ten this morning. Mansions with whitewashed walls, magnificent views of the sea and lush, manicured gardens abounded at all three estates. And while the real estate team awaiting them at each place had sung praises of the properties, Mira hadn’t been able to discuss the necessity of a new home with Aristos. His PA had been an ever-present shadow, winding Mira up with her mere presence.
Other than to ask her if she was tired or hungry—which he asked at the top of the hour, every hour as if he’d set a damn alarm—her husband hadn’t given her a single private minute. He had an agenda apparently not only for their day but also for their life—one she was only beginning to see now.
She couldn’t, however, blame Aristos for tiring her out because not only had they dined at a restaurant overlooking the beach right when she was getting hungry, but he’d even brought her to a suite at a nearby luxury hotel for her standard one-hour nap right after. And when she’d woken up refreshed and ready to tackle the day, there had been ginger chai and little buttery croissants waiting for her.
She’d no idea how Aristos managed to have the ginger chai made exactly the way she liked it when they were in a luxury hotel away from home, but he had. But sadly, drinking the chai, overlooking the snowcapped mountain range in the distance, while he’d pounded away at his laptop with his team hovering over them, had been the only high point in a day where her mood had been steadily spiraling.
Now, she walked through one expansive room after the other in the penthouse, furnished in light grays and navy blues and soft golds with sleek, modern pieces that were very much to her taste, as she followed the murmur of soft voices. Unlike the first two estates, which had reminded her of museums with their pristine white furnishings and priceless sculptures and paintings, the penthouse, for all it was in the middle of a concrete jungle, was refreshingly welcoming and warm.
Finally, she pushed at double doors and arrived at the study that was the size of a mini library. To find Elena mopping at Aristos’s chest with a dainty napkin in hand.
Her stomach curdled instantly as Mira noted the large brown stain on his pristine white shirt.
The image of the same woman draped all over Aristos in that darkened corridor right here in this very building flashed in front of Mira’s eyes, triggering that very same flight response. She wanted to flee. She wanted to hide her hurt, cut off the tentative hope and affection that were growing into deep roots for their budding family.
