Читать книгу Modern Romance January 2017 Books 5 - 8 - Мишель Смарт, Andie Brock - Страница 16
ОглавлениеFOR THE FIRST TIME in days, Elizabeth finished a meal. A couple Xander knew had joined them for a few minutes to say hello, which had given her time to regroup mentally. They hadn’t spoken English so the only requirement on Elizabeth’s part had been to smile and not flinch when Xander took possessive control of her hand. Having his warm skin against hers...
She could still feel the tingles in her bloodstream.
Now they were alone again, she pushed her empty plate to one side and gazed out across the sandy beach, drinking the view in. Diadonus was more beautiful than she had imagined. ‘Why did you go to St Francis for a vacation when you live in your own paradise?’
Xander took so long to answer that she thought he was ignoring her.
‘Going to St Francis, it wasn’t a vacation, it was an escape,’ he eventually said.
‘Why?’
His eyes met hers. ‘I didn’t want to stick around for the fallout when I ended my engagement to Ana.’
‘You ran away?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ he conceded.
Looking back, Xander could see he had taken the coward’s way out. It hadn’t seemed like that at the time of course. To his twenty-year-old self it had seemed perfectly logical. If he took himself off, there would be no one in his ear demanding he change his mind. He’d determined to go back when the dust had settled but in the interim take some time out and see something of the world that wasn’t business related. Have some fun like others of his age.
In his arrogance it hadn’t crossed his mind that Ana would have to suffer the price of his absence.
‘How long after you ended your engagement did you leave?’
‘Two days.’
‘You didn’t even give me two hours.’ She shook her head, her long curls bobbing with the motion.
‘There was no point in prolonging it for either of us.’
‘For either of us?’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘That makes it sound like you cared for me.’
‘I did care for you, Elizabeth.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘Did you care for Ana too? Did you tell her you loved her and that you couldn’t live without her like you told me?’
He took a long drink of his beer, studying the tight-set face before him. He remembered saying those words to Elizabeth. He remembered meaning them.
‘My relationship with Ana was nothing like the one between you and me.’
‘Of course it wasn’t. She was your childhood sweetheart.’
‘We were never childhood sweethearts. We mixed in the same circles, we were casual friends, but that was the extent of it. We got engaged when I turned twenty because it was expected of us and our parents made it very clear it was what they wanted. It’s traditional in my family to marry young and with someone who can bring wealth and contacts to the family business. My father married my mother because she was an heiress. Their marriage was arranged by their own parents. My brother married Katerina for the same reason. Ana came from an extremely rich family from Mykonos. We were engaged for less than a month.’
‘If you were so well-suited, why did you end it?’
‘Because it wasn’t what I wanted and I should never have gone along with it.’ He should have trusted his gut instincts from the start. Instead, he’d let his misgivings fester until they’d become bugs hatching in his skin.
Elizabeth’s expression remained stony.
‘I wasn’t in love with her. I didn’t want to be trapped in a marriage I couldn’t get out of like Yanis was. Divorce is unheard of in my family. It’s too risky for the business. From what Yanis tells me, they haven’t had sex since they conceived Loukas. Even before that it was a volatile relationship.’ He drained his beer. ‘I decided that no marriage was better than living with one like theirs.’
‘Yanis wanted out even then?’
‘They both did. I’m certain it’s why they turned to drugs and alcohol. It numbed it for them.’ He paused before adding, ‘They were both in love with other people.’
Her eyebrows drew together. ‘So why did they go along with the marriage in the first place?’
‘The alternative meant being cut off.’
‘Weren’t you worried that would happen to you when you dumped Ana?’
He grimaced at her bluntly delivered words. ‘For sure, but I’ve always been more independently minded than Yanis. I took an educated risk. Yanis has never had much input in the business but I’d already proven myself to be an asset. I knew my decision would enrage my parents but they’re clever people and clever people do not cast off assets making them money.’
But they hadn’t been so clever when Xander had made the deal that resulted in Timos SE being signed under his control, taking the power and control away from them for ever.
Elizabeth was silent before asking, ‘How did Ana take it?’
Xander signalled for another beer. ‘Better than I thought she would. I thought she was okay with it. For sure, I knew she would be a little hurt; everyone’s got their pride, but she understood. She was a nice girl. Better than most of the socialites I grew up with who were so vapid they made a plastic doll seem like a Nobel laureate.’
Ana really had been nice. She’d been sweet and warm, a woman any right-thinking man in his position would have been proud to call his wife. It hadn’t been her fault he’d felt zero desire towards her.
His parents had both openly taken lovers through the years but that hadn’t been something he could entertain. To Xander, marriage meant fidelity and commitment otherwise why do it? If he’d had to marry anyone it would be someone he desired and who held his intellectual interest too. He’d been selfish. He’d wanted it all. And so he’d ended it with Ana, determined that he would have it all.
Then he’d met Elizabeth and had known for certain he’d made the right choice. In his continued arrogance he’d married her without taking into account how utterly unsuited she was to a life as his wife.
His fresh beer was brought over. He took it straight from the waiter’s hand and took a large swig of it.
Talking about Ana, thinking about Ana, was hard, talking about her to Elizabeth, who he’d also hurt, doubly so. It brought it all back: all the rancid guilt that lived inside him. Ana would never marry. She would never have children.
He forced the rest of the story out. ‘Two weeks after I ended it she crashed her car into a tree. She wasn’t much of a drinker but she’d drunk heavily that night. I have no idea if she intended to kill herself or not.’
Elizabeth didn’t say anything, just stared at him with a stunned expression on her face. He searched for the condemnation he knew he deserved but couldn’t interpret what came from her eyes.
‘Her family...even though I told everyone that she was blameless, they blamed her for not doing enough to keep me. I didn’t know it at the time. Yanis filled me in when I got home. They put pressure on her. My parents got in on the act too. They all told her I would come to my senses and that she would have to change to keep me. But she knew I wouldn’t change my mind. She knew the situation was hopeless but I was oblivious to it all, thousands of miles away in a Caribbean paradise, all my problems forgotten about because I was with you.’
‘You don’t blame yourself, surely?’ she asked with sudden animation.
‘If I hadn’t abandoned her to deal with the fallout of the break-up alone, she would be alive today, of that I am certain.’ He shook his head, self-loathing filling him. Talking of Ana’s death made his guts feel they were being eaten without anaesthetic.
Elizabeth’s eyes held his for the longest time, the gold and red flecks shining. ‘If anyone’s to blame it’s her family and your parents for treating her like a commodity.’
He’d known that ever since Yanis told him of the pressure they’d all put her under, but that didn’t change his own responsibility.
He’d left Ana to deal with the fallout on her own, in his arrogance assuming that because he was all right then she would be too. It hadn’t occurred to him that their families would turn on her. He should have protected her.
At least he’d been able to protect Elizabeth from his family, however badly it had hurt her at the time.
‘And, Xander, you can’t know what was going through her head or what other influences might have been in play when she got behind the wheel.’
‘Whatever was going on in her head wasn’t good.’
‘The outcome might have been the same even if you hadn’t broken the engagement.’
What a tragic waste of a life, Elizabeth thought, her heart aching for the young Greek woman. A tiny part of her heart also ached for Xander bearing the weight of such guilt. She could see it in his eyes.
He held her gaze for an age before his eyes snapped back into focus and he said in a measured voice, ‘So there it is. You know it all. My world is a beautiful place to live in but a cruel place to be. Think yourself lucky that in a few months you’ll be able to leave it.’
She finished her wine and gazed back out at the foamy surf, a deep ache spreading out from her chest.
‘Do you want dessert?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you.’
He reached for his phone. ‘I’ll get my driver to collect us.’
She stared with more longing at the sandy shore. ‘If we walked along the beach, would it take us to your villa?’
‘Yes but it’s a couple of miles.’
‘I think I’ll do that. I need to walk.’ Walking was good. It always cleared her head and made sense of whatever madness she was living in. Right then, she had so many thoughts racing through her it would take a marathon to clear it.
She could sense his surprise. ‘Okay. Give me a minute to settle the bill and we’ll get going.’
* * *
To reach the beach from the restaurant involved descending a steep incline with only the moonlight to guide them. Inhaling the air that reminded her so heavily of St Francis it made her heart clench and twist. Biting the swirling emotions back, Elizabeth removed her heels and navigated her way carefully down the incline until she felt cool sand between her toes.
The night sea was making its familiar lapping noise. She remembered how soothing she’d found the sound on her first trip to St Francis, her first trip to any beach. Everything on St Francis had been soothing. Except it had all been an illusion. The serenity had created an ambiance that had lulled her into believing things that weren’t real. Here, on Diadonus, there were different scents, equally beautiful, but without the muscle memory reactions.
Would she one day inhale a scent and be taken back to this moment in time?
At least if that happened the memories wouldn’t lance her.
There was a gentle breeze coming from the sea and she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and walked right to the water’s edge. She prodded a toe into it but the surf was too cold and she stepped back, right in time for a gentle wave to cover her foot.
Needing to move, she set off, treading footprints into the wet sand that were eradicated almost immediately by the waves. Just as their marriage had been eradicated almost immediately after exchanging their vows.
‘If divorce is too risky for your business, how can you risk divorcing me?’ she asked quietly.
‘You haven’t brought any assets into the marriage. There’s no contract between us. I can pay you off and that’s it. Over with.’
‘And when we finally are over with? Will you ever marry again?’
‘No.’ The word was blunt. ‘I know of no marriages that last without turning to hell. I would be left with the choice of living with someone I dislike or risk destroying my company with a bitter divorce.’
Elizabeth knew exactly how vicious divorces could be. And while he wasn’t saying anything she didn’t agree with, it still made her heart twinge.
‘What about children?’ she forced herself to ask, glad she didn’t have to see his expression when he gave his answer. He was walking beside her, his hands deep in his pockets, a foot apart but close enough that her senses danced with awareness.
It had always been like this. She’d only needed to catch a glimpse of him to feel every atom of her body vibrate.
‘Don’t you want to produce the next generation of Trakases?’
‘Loukas is the next generation.’
‘But don’t you want your own?’ she persisted. He had once. Or had that been a lie too?
‘Children need two parents. I’m never going to marry again so for me it’s not a consideration.’
‘What if Loukas doesn’t want to join the business?’
‘That’s for him to decide when he’s old enough. While I’m alive and kicking I shall run it the best way I can and put the structures in place for it to thrive when I’m gone.’
There was nothing she could say to that. And what did it matter to her in any case? They would go their separate ways soon enough and then she’d never have to see him again.
They were approaching a harbour. A row of yachts of varying sizes lay before them, pearlescent under the moonlight.
She remembered the day Xander had chartered a yacht for them. It was the first time she’d really considered that he must come from money, his familiarity with sailing and the unwritten protocols...
It should have been a warning sign. Instead it had delighted her. In her head she’d already moved to Diadonus to be with him. They wouldn’t starve while she completed her degree, learnt his language and found a job.
Her blood burned and her heart ached to remember her innocence. Voices called out in her head, happy memories that had turned into scars.
‘I seem to remember you never liked walking,’ he said, breaking the rolling silence that had formed between them.
She tried not to flinch. It was hard to hold on to her loathing of him when he so casually dropped in things she’d expected him to have forgotten.
She was finding it hard to hold on to her loathing period.
‘I learned to like walking when I enrolled at New York State. After rent and tuition were paid I was stony broke. To save money I walked everywhere. I still do.’
‘Why did you quit Brown?’
After the confidences he’d shared over their meal it seemed petty not to answer him. ‘My mother withdrew her funding so I had no choice.’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘I told her I didn’t want to major in English any more.’
She could feel his eyes burning into her.
‘Why on earth would you do that? You’d only ever wanted to be a writer.’
‘I did,’ she agreed, wishing her heart didn’t twist to remember the person she’d been then. ‘I wanted to write scripts for films about modern-day love; stories with hints of the classics running through them, but when I returned home to New York the idea of writing anything about love was laughable. There was no way I could write about something I didn’t believe in any more, and script writing? Every girl in my class and her cat wanted to do that. I decided to go into business instead. I had no idea at the time what kind of business I wanted, but I knew I would be my own boss. My mother had other ideas, so I decided to go it alone.’
‘Why would she not want you to go into business?’
‘The only thing my mom has ever taken pride in about me were my achievements in English. I was winning literature prizes when I was eight and a career in writing was a foregone conclusion. When I told her I wanted to major in business...’ She took a deep breath, hating the memories. It felt like a different life. ‘The long and short of it was that if I refused to major in English, she would stop supporting me.’
‘So you moved out and transferred colleges off your own back?’
She wrapped her shawl tighter around her. The breeze had picked up, the chill now setting goosebumps off on her flesh. ‘I was legally an adult. She couldn’t force me to do anything. No one could. I still had some of the money granny had left me. It wasn’t enough to support me at Brown but was enough to pay for the first year’s tuition and rent at New York State, which was my home college. So I moved out of my mom’s and transferred there.’
‘Your father couldn’t help you?’
‘Nope. He’d just remarried a woman equally as manipulative as my mother. After a decade of war with my mom he was tired of arguing with women—that’s what he told me, anyway.’ She speared him with a look. ‘So you don’t have the monopoly on dysfunctional, emotionally abusive parents.’
‘I’m beginning to see that,’ he said after a long pause.
Somehow during their walk, their pace had slowed and the distance between them closed. Xander’s arm brushed lightly against hers.
The heat that rushed through her...
Her lungs seemed to close in on themselves.
‘No wonder you forgot to chase our annulment with all that going on,’ he murmured.
She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation at hand, not on the warm body brushing against her own, and moved out of his way so they were no longer touching.
The chill felt starker without his heat warming her.
‘The annulment was the last thing on my mind,’ she croaked. ‘I never even thought there might be a problem with it.’
Xander’s villa appeared shortly ahead of them. As they got closer, they drifted together again, close enough that if she flexed her fingers she’d be able to touch him.
In silence they passed the barrier onto his private section of beach, security lights bathing them the moment they stepped onto his land.
Her heart rate increasing so much she no longer felt the individual beats, Elizabeth hurried up the steps to enter the villa from the kitchen. She didn’t know the entry code.
She moved back down to allow him to get to it but the steps were narrow and it turned into an awkward kind of dance as they tried to step around each other.
And then, without knowing how, she found herself trapped between the railing and Xander.
Her breath caught in a throat that had filled with moisture. Unable to help herself, she tilted her head to gaze into eyes that trapped her more effectively than any chain could. The few senses not already on high alert sprang to life, lips tingling, every cell in her body straining towards him.
The look in his eyes...it was as if he wanted to eat her whole.
His mouth drifted slowly to hers, his eyes open and holding hers in their hypnotic gaze until the lids closed and she felt his warm breath brush against her skin in the moment before his mouth found hers.
For the longest time they didn’t move, their lips only whispering against the other’s.
He pulled back a little to stare at her again, and the hunger in his eyes darkened and he wrapped his arms around her to crush her to him.
Their lips fused together in a kiss full of such passion that her bones melted and then she melted, right into him, her hands grasping round to hold onto his back, crushing herself to him.
As their tongues danced together and the heat of his mouth consumed her, she clung even tighter, dizzy with the familiarity of his taste and the terrifying yet exhilarating familiarity of her own responses.
His hands burrowed into her hair and she wanted to cry as she remembered how he had done the exact same thing the first time he’d kissed her all those years ago.
If the kitchen door hadn’t burst open at that moment, there was every chance she would have lost herself completely.
‘So this is what you get up to when you’re supposed to be caring for my grandson.’
Elizabeth let go of Xander as sharply as if she’d had ice tipped over her.
Standing in the doorway, as tall and menacing as Morticia Adams with all her hair chopped off, stood a woman she could only presume was Xander’s mother.
