Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks Collection - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 62

CHAPTER TWELVE

LEXI THOUGHT SHE’D welcome being back in her little Devonshire village. That she’d be relieved that her emotions were no longer spiking up and down, like one of those graphs you saw at the bottom of a hospital bed. Somehow she had imagined that life would resume a comfortable pace now that Xenon was no longer in it.

But she had been wrong.

She felt as if a giant light had been snuffed out, leaving her stumbling around in bewildering darkness. The daily routine she’d once loved now seemed empty; her days simply hours she needed to get through before she could escape to bed for yet another sleepless night. Even her jewellery making—something which had given her so much pleasure—now seemed to lack imagination and flair.

She found herself looking blankly at the crude pieces of silver and wondering what on earth to do with them. Where before she would have been bursting with ideas, her imagination seemed to have deserted her.

And she missed Xenon. She’d anticipated that; she just hadn’t realised how much. He had taken her back into his world and given her a glimpse of what life with him could be like and she had wanted that life back. God, she had wanted it. But she couldn’t have it.

She couldn’t have him.

She had left Rhodes with a heavy heart, having first crept into the sick room to kiss his sleeping grandmother goodbye. She’d said farewell to a frankly bewildered Marina, whose innate code of manners clearly prevented her from asking her why she was going so suddenly.

Xenon had kissed her lightly on each cheek just before he’d closed the door on the car taking her to the airport. And in a way, that had been almost worse than if he’d gone into a massive sulk and refused to say goodbye. But no, he had managed to don the suave cloak of civility. He had even managed to slant her a half-smile, though he hadn’t quite been able to disguise the furious glitter in his eyes. And Lexi realised that her last memory of the man she loved would be of him giving her the kind of cool kiss he might have offered some casual acquaintance he’d just met at a party.

The last thing she’d asked was for him to give her Jason’s contact details and, to her surprise, he had done this without hesitation. He’d explained that the vineyard was extremely remote and that her brother was taking a break from all electronic forms of communication, but that she could write to him there.

And Lexi had. She’d written several times. Long letters, which she’d tried to make cheerful—which hadn’t been easy, except for the bits when she told him how proud she was that he was turning his life around. That bit had burst straight from her heart.

The only things she received in return were a couple of postcards—battered old things which looked as if they had been taken when photography was still in its infancy. The messages they contained had been succinct but encouraging.

It’s GREAT!

And,

Best time of my LIFE!

Lexi found that she was longing to see him again and she told him so in her next letter, hoping that her motives weren’t selfish. That she wasn’t just wanting contact with him because her heart felt so empty.

One gloomy November evening, she had just poured herself a cup of tea when she heard the sound of footsteps on gravel, only this time she was paying attention and they were very definitely not the distinctive tread of her estranged husband.

She pulled open the door and for a moment she didn’t recognise the man who stood on the doorstep, a rucksack on his back, wearing a jacket which was way too thin for the inclement weather. His hair was bleached blonde, his skin deeply tanned—and he was fit and muscular. He looked like someone she used to know, but only vague physical traces of that person still existed.

‘Jason?’ Lexi blinked. ‘Jason, is that really you?’

‘Better get yourself a new pair of glasses, sis. Of course it’s me!’ Laughing, he dropped his rucksack and gathered her in a fierce hug.

‘You’d better come in.’

‘Just you try stopping me.’ And then he frowned. ‘Lexi, you’re looking awfully thin.’

‘Rubbish.’ She shut the door and smiled at him. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘Not since lunchtime.’

Over mushroom risotto he told her everything that had happened. How much he loved working outside, on the land. ‘But it’s more than that, Lexi,’ he said, tearing off a huge hunk of garlic bread. ‘Wine-making is so complex—and Greek wine has the potential to really do something spectacular in the marketplace—the way Australian wine did decades ago. And Xenon is pleased with what I’ve been doing. In fact, he’s offered to give me a permanent role in the family vineyards if I want it. And I do.’

Ah yes, Xenon. The one name she hadn’t mentioned. The massive elephant in the room as far as Lexi was concerned, although Jason clearly had no such reservations. He said his brother-in-law’s name with a mixture of loyalty, affection and the faintest trace of hero worship.

‘It was very decent of him to help you,’ she ventured.

‘Yes, it was.’ Jason’s silvery-green eyes—so like her own, only without the myopic tendencies—started shining with enthusiasm. ‘Without being too melodramatic about it, I owe him my life. If he hadn’t come and found me and plucked me out of the gutter, I don’t know where I’d be today.’

There was complete silence. With a hand which wasn’t quite steady, Lexi put her fork down on her plate. ‘What are you talking about? You went to him, didn’t you? You asked him for money because you were in terrible debt.’

‘Is that what he told you?’ Jason grinned and swopped his empty plate with her still almost full one. ‘The debt bit was right—but I didn’t ask Xenon for help. I think I was past the stage of knowing I needed it, when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told me he was going to give me one last chance to turn my life around. But that if I blew it, there wouldn’t be another.’

He finished off Lexi’s risotto. Then started talking about integrating into Greek village life and a young woman he’d met who now made such integration seem vital, but Lexi barely took in a word he was saying.

She didn’t understand.

Xenon had come to her and made it sound as if Jason was demanding financial help—and that he would withhold that help without her co-operation. But now Jason was telling her that Xenon had been the instigator. That he had gone to her brother and offered him a solution to his problem.

Why had he done that?

There was only one reason she could think of. The same reason he’d given her for wanting to stay married to her—childless or not. Because he loved her. Because he’d never stopped loving her.

Oh, God.

She made herself coffee and poured Jason a second glass of wine. ‘Do you happen to know where Xenon is?’ she asked casually.

‘Sure. He’s in Hollywood. It’s the tenth anniversary of My Crazy Greek Father coming up and there are loads of celebrations planned.’

Lexi chewed on her thumbnail. Athens would have been simpler and London simpler still. Hollywood seemed like a scary kind of place and one she’d moved on from a long time ago. And could she really risk making a transatlantic flight on the evidence of a single fact which might no longer mean anything?

She felt the twist of pain in her heart.

Could she risk not doing it?

With Jason sleeping soundly in the spare room, she tossed and turned all night, trying to reinforce all the reasons why it was best to leave things as they were. But the morning brought with it nothing but a burning certainty that she couldn’t let matters rest.

‘How long are you staying?’ she asked Jason.

He shrugged. ‘That depends how long you’ll have me. I’m not due back in Athens for a couple of weeks.’

She tossed him a spare set of keys. ‘Stay as long as you like. I have to go away for a few days.’

She could see the look of gratitude on his face and she guessed her offer was yet another mark of his successful rehabilitation. She would never have allowed him the freedom of her house before now.

She hadn’t booked a flight in a long time—actually, when she stopped to think about it, she’d never booked a flight for herself. Her management had always done it when she was in The Lollipops and when she’d been with Xenon, his private jet had always been at her disposal.

It was a fiddly business but she sorted out her ticket and all the entry requirements she needed to get into the US, and three days later her plane passed the giant Lego-like skyscrapers of Los Angeles, before coming in to land.

The palms of her hands were clammy and her stomach was tying itself up in knots. She hadn’t told Jason she was coming here and she certainly hadn’t warned Xenon of her plans. She wanted to see the expression on his face when he saw her again. She was scared that his love for her might have died. She was scared that he might now have considered himself lucky to have escaped from the prospect of a childless marriage.

She knew he always stayed at the hotel on Wilshire Boulevard owned by his friend Zak Constantinides, but, of course, all that could have changed. These days he might have changed his allegiance to one of the newer, trendier places on Sunset Boulevard, which she’d discovered on the Internet. Nevertheless, she’d booked into Zak’s hotel, even if the room rates had made her eyes water.

She waited until she had taken her bags upstairs before she dialled Xenon’s number and her heart started pounding when he picked it up on the third ring.

‘Lex,’ he said, his voice sardonic and not particularly welcoming. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Yes, I realise that. I want to... I wondered if we could have a talk.’

‘I got the distinct impression we’d said everything there was to say.’

There was no softening in his voice. Not a single hint that he was pleased to hear from her. She sensed that he wasn’t going to make this easy for her. She was going to have to face the fact that it might be too late. Please, God, let it not be too late. ‘Could we?’ she persisted.

‘Go ahead. Talk. I’m not stopping you.’

‘I meant face to face.’

‘You might have a little difficulty with that one. I’m in Hollywood.’

‘So am I.’

A brief silence followed.

‘What did you say?’

‘I’m in Hollywood. Actually, I’m in Zak’s hotel and I’m wondering if you are, too. Jason told me you were over here, so I made a stab at guessing where you’d be staying.’

‘Presidential suite,’ he snapped and cut the connection.

Lexi told herself she should have waited before calling him. She should at least have given herself time to wash the long flight out of her system. As it was, there was barely time to splash cold water on her face and brush her hair into some kind of order before she took the lift up to the penthouse suite.

The door was on the latch and she pushed it open.

‘Xenon?’

‘I’m in here.’

She followed the direction of the voice, her heart clenching at the sound of his forbidding tone. She told herself it was probably too late. Of course it was too late.

He was standing in the sumptuous main reception area—all glowing shades of gold and claret. Tulips the colour of burgundy added to the almost medieval feel of the room and, in complete contrast, Xenon added a note of dark formality. He was wearing a black tuxedo and the exquisite suit made Lexi feel like the hired help in her jeans and T-shirt.

But his blue eyes were cold and he made a rather ostentatious show of glancing at his wristwatch. ‘You have half an hour before I’m due at a reception downtown,’ he said. ‘So you’d better get a move on.’

Suddenly she didn’t know where to begin. She wondered if she’d pushed him too far.

‘Jason came to see me.’

‘I thought he might once the harvest was over.’

She sucked in her lips. ‘He told me what happened.’

‘Anything in particular?’ he enquired unhelpfully. ‘How good the grape yield was? How he seems to have fallen for one of the local women?’

‘He told me that he didn’t come to you, asking for your help,’ she whispered. ‘That you went and found him out and offered it and I was wondering...’ She cleared her throat. ‘I was wondering just why you did that.’

But if she was hoping for a softening of his obdurate features, she was in for a disappointment because the only reaction she got was the contemptuous curve of his lips.

‘I think we both know exactly why I did it, Lexi. I wanted a legitimate way back into your life. I wanted to give our relationship one last go. Which I did. And I found out what I needed to know. It’s over. We’re over—we both know that. So why are you here?’

She wanted to curl up and die because the expression in his eyes was so cold. She’d never seen him look like that before and she felt the chill whisper of foreboding.

‘Because...’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Because finding that out...discovering that it wasn’t just some random act that brought you back into my life, well, that made a difference. It made me realise how important our marriage was to you. It made me examine what I was doing. It made me realise what I was about to throw away.’

He shook his dark head, tugging at his black bow tie as if he was impatient to be away. ‘You’re just focusing on a detail,’ he said. ‘Not on what is important. And what’s important is that you don’t want to make a life with me on any terms—you told me that yourself. But it’s okay. I’ll survive, Lex. We’ll both survive.’

‘But I don’t know if I will.’ Her voice sounded as light as a feather. ‘Because surviving doesn’t sound like a good way to live. Not when I consider the alternative. I meant it when I said that I love you, Xenon—I’ve never really stopped, even though I’ve tried hard enough. If you want the truth—my life has been...well, awful without you. And if you’re prepared—I mean, really prepared—to accept a marriage without children, then you only have to say the word. Just say the word, my darling, and I’ll be back in your arms so quick you won’t even have time to blink.’

His mouth tightened as he looked at her and she was aware of the ice which had hardened his cobalt eyes. ‘Get out,’ he said and turned his back on her as if he found the view outside the window infinitely more alluring.

Lexi stared in disbelief at the forbidding set of his shoulders, at the coiled tension in his tuxedoed body, which was contrasted against the busy rush of Wilshire Boulevard.

‘You don’t mean that,’ she whispered, her heart pounding with fear.

‘Oh, but I do,’ he said grimly. ‘You think I’m your puppet, do you, Lex? That if you keep me dangling long enough I’ll dance exactly to your tune? Well, you had your chance and you blew it. Sorry.’

Lexi felt the tears begin to well up in her eyes. Hot, salty tears which mocked her and told her that she’d left it too late. Xenon didn’t want her any more and it really was over. For a split second she thought about turning and fleeing from the room and this terrible pain which was tearing at her heart. But she was through with running away and, besides, something about the way he spoke jarred. And not just in the way he spoke, but in the way he was holding himself, with his fists clenched and his shoulders now hunched. He looked like a man who was doing battle. Who was trying to fight something in himself.

She swallowed down the tears and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘And that’s the only thing which seems to make sense right now.’ She saw him tense and now she couldn’t seem to stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. ‘I love you and I will never stop loving you, but I will go if you want me to.’

‘Good.’

‘But only if you turn around and tell me to my face.’

For a moment she thought he was just going to ignore her request and that she would be left standing there, like a fool. Then he gave a small snarl, like a wounded animal, and when he turned around she could see that his face was ravaged with pain.

He stared at her and she waited. Waited for him to say the words she prayed wouldn’t come. But the words he said were the ones she was least expecting.

‘You’re crying,’ he observed.

The stifled tears now became ugly gulps. ‘Of course I’m crying!’

‘But you never cry, Lex,’ he said and she could hear the note of surprise in his voice.

No, she never cried. Not all through those long nights when she’d lain awake to protect Jason and Jake, flinching with terror when she heard the drunks crashing around in the corridors outside their hostel room. Nor even during those times when she’d been coping with the miscarriages, when her dreams had been shattered. She’d been too scared to cry, for fear that once she started she might never stop.

‘What else am I going to do, when the man I love doesn’t want me?’

Xenon’s jaw tightened. He saw how tired her eyes looked, magnified behind her glasses. He saw the tracks of her tears, the creased jeans and a T-shirt which looked as if it had been slept in. And in that moment he loved her so completely and so powerfully that it took his breath away.

‘Oh, but he does,’ he said softly. ‘He wants you very much, but only if you promise never to leave him again, because that he really couldn’t bear.’

There was a moment before she said anything because her throat was so choked with emotion that she wondered if she’d ever be able to speak again. And when she did, the words burst from her lips, like water from a dam—strong and straight and true. ‘Oh, Xenon, I’ll never leave you. Never, never, never.’ There was a pause as she saw the blue glitter of his own tears. ‘Because I love you. Oh, I love you so much.’

‘Then you’d better come right over here and let me kiss you,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Because I don’t think I can wait much longer.’

Her legs felt shaky. It was like walking in shoes a size too small, but somehow Lexi made it across the sumptuous carpet and into Xenon’s arms, her body shaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his suit jacket and removed her glasses, tenderly wiping her face dry before replacing them.

And then he started to kiss her. He kissed her until she was dizzy with longing and when he let her go she was so happy that she wanted to dance around the fancy suite. But then she noticed that he was glancing at his watch and that he was frowning.

‘You know, I really do have to be downtown very soon,’ he said. ‘If it was any other engagement, I’d break it—but this film means a lot of things to a lot of people and I want to put a very positive image of Greece out there. But if you want me to stay—’

‘Go,’ she said, lifting her hand to his cheek and stroking it. ‘I can wait here until you get back.’

‘Well, you can. Or you could ride across town with me to where a great deal of the world’s press will be assembled, and we could give them a picture which will tell the world that we are very definitely back together. Because I have this insane and very uncharacteristic desire to want to shout it from the rooftops.’

Lexi looked down at her crumpled jeans and T-shirt, before lifting her gaze to the pristine appearance of his tuxedo. ‘You mean, like this?’ she questioned doubtfully.

He smiled. ‘I mean exactly like that.’

‘When every other woman there will be dripping in sequins and diamonds?’

‘Who cares? There’s no woman to compare with you—no matter what you wear.’

‘Oh, Xenon. You do say the most gorgeous things.’

‘Well, that’s only because you are the most gorgeous thing.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘So come along, Mrs Kanellis. Because the sooner I take you out, the sooner I can get you home.’