Читать книгу Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 37

STAVROS HAD BEEN expecting something to strike at the haze in which he had been living for the past month. Something that would wake him up from the dreamlike state he had been functioning in with Leah. Something so painfully real, so achingly raw, it was bound to end.

He expected the novelty of making love to her to wear off. He expected the high of being around her, the high that came with her laughter, with her irreverent humor, with how easily she gave of herself and how possessively she demanded of him, to end at some point.

He expected the amazing light and joy that had pervaded him, even as he had tried to tether and control it, to fizzle out.

Because life didn’t work like that, did it? At least, not his.

It didn’t carry so much joy, so much laughter, so many emotions that had overthrown him the last month. It never had such gnawing hunger, such desperate need to grasp what he could, such panic-ridden drive to control it so that he didn’t become its slave.

But he didn’t think it would come in such a way. He hadn’t thought it would rip his heart out like this and leave him gasping.

That it would wreak on him an avalanche of hurt and inadequacy and pain.

He had thought Dmitri uncharacteristically foolish to even indulge Alex Ralston’s demand to talk to Stavros. Yet, he had just disconnected the call with Alex, a video call that the thug had insisted on.

Nausea whirled in his gut at the things Alex had said about Calista. It was like hearing stories about a stranger, not his sister at all.

All he had known of Calista had been a front, a lie. A lie that had been neatly supported by Leah for so many years. Because Leah had known it all.

And in the sinking morass of his grief, that betrayal cut the deepest. Leah had known and hadn’t whispered a word to him. Even when he had asked it of her.

“Stavros?” Dmitri nudged him.

“Locate him, Dmitri.” He stood up with such force that the desk rattled. “He can’t go to the media with this. Theos, this is Calista… I don’t want her name besmirched like this.”

“I will stop him. Stavros…it’s not your fault. Calista…whatever Ralston told you about her, you couldn’t have known. You did everything you could to help her.”

“I should have known. All along, she had so many problems and I…” A growl escaped his throat.

“Have you ever thought that some of us are beyond help, Stavros? Too broken to be fixed? Giannis said she was just a child when your mother walked out. Whatever Calista needed, you didn’t have it.”

“She needed to be loved, Dmitri. And I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how. Not then, not now.”

He was the one in pain, and yet Dmitri looked pale. He kept shaking his head as if he could see into Stavros’s head. “Her behavior is not your fault.”

“I wish I could forgive myself as easily as you, Dmitri,” he said, hating himself, hating Dmitri for being so understanding.

He couldn’t numb the gnawing in his gut as the truth solidified. He had never had what it took to begin with.

Was that why he had clung so tightly to doing what was right? Because he hadn’t possessed, hadn’t ever known, his heart?

Beneath Leah’s betrayal, beneath the shock of learning his sister’s truth, only one thing remained.

You are made of stone.

How right Leah had been… If he had ever known it once, he didn’t remember. He didn’t know if he had buried it deep so that his parents’ indifference, their negligence didn’t hurt.

He had never understood Calista, never saw past the facade his sister presented because he had never understood her fears, her pain, her joy. Every time she had mentioned their parents, every time she had expressed her confusion, he had only pushed her to move on, had brushed her away believing that they were better off without them.

Because he hadn’t wanted to dwell on it, because it would mean acknowledging all the wrongs they had done to them, it would mean letting them be a part of who they were.

Again and again, he had closed himself off to her grief, her pain. Until she had decided that he would never understand? Until she had decided, like Leah, that he didn’t have the capability to understand? The capability to love?

In the end, his parents had robbed him of everything.

Even if he forgave Leah’s lies, what did he possess to give her? How long before she would realize the truth? How long before she realized that he had never known and would never understand love?

That he would never know how to give it and take it.

It was two hours before Stavros returned to their suite, two hours in which Leah had become half-crazy wondering what was going on. One look in his eyes, and her heart skidded to her gut.

“Pack your bags. You’re catching a flight to New York in a few hours.”

“What? The fashion week isn’t for another fortnight…”

He stood only a foot away, yet it could have been a thousand miles. Why wouldn’t he look at her?

“It is better for you in New York rather than here with Ralston around. Apparently, he’s very much interested in hearing how I’ve mistreated you.”

“But all my stuff is…” She stopped, his words slowly registering with her.

His cell phone rang and he looked at her finally. “I will ensure that Rosa packs up your stuff with utmost care.”

Rosa was going to pack her stuff, she was going to leave for New York…

Leah stared at the empty space he left behind for a few seconds. The shock slowly blunted, bringing in its wake utter panic.

Throat dangerously close to tears, she found him in the study that offered a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.

He was on the phone, listening, but his gaze stayed on her face. And that’s when Leah noticed the white pallor to his skin.

She would have welcomed his blistering contempt, or even his lacerating fury. But the resignation in his gaze… As if he had lost something precious. As if he had finally given up.

The minute he disconnected the call, she stepped inside.

“If he comes for me, he has to get through you, doesn’t he?” she demanded, anger coming to her rescue. She wouldn’t let him treat her like this again. Not after the last month.

He looked up, a bitterness curving his mouth. “I’ll be busy trying to stop him from taking the story to the media, from turning my life and Calista’s…and yours into a cash cow.”

“What?” she said, fear spewing into her words now.

“If you go to New York, you’ll be free to do as you please. I know how much you don’t like being told what to do. I’ll make sure Ralston doesn’t follow you.”

“Why does it sound like you’re sending me away?” She sounded desperate, pitiful, but she didn’t care. It seemed she had no armor left.

He stood up from the chair, his every movement precise, his skin tautly pulled over those sharp features. There was nothing anymore of the man she had known this last month. The man who had smiled, laughed, kissed her, the man who had looked at her as if he would drown if he didn’t possess her one more time, nothing.

It was as if he was pulling himself back, word by word, second by second, until he became that Stavros she hated again.

Her gut twisting, she walked around the huge desk until he was forced to look at her. Placing her hands on his chest, she asked, “What did I do this time?”

He grabbed her wrists to push her away. But she didn’t let go. She would never hold him again if she let go, the fear clamored through her. “Tell me what’s going on, Stavros. Or I swear I’ll…” she broke off on a sob.

“You’ll what, Leah? Tell a new lie? You have won.” He became stiff, like he was a statue who possessed no feeling, no weakness. “I’ll sign the divorce papers, release your inheritance as soon as possible. You are just Leah Huntington again.” His gaze moved over her features with a hunger she knew he would deny. For all his withdrawal, she had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t untouched. That he was struggling just as she was.

Or it was the delusion she really wanted to cling to, she thought pitying herself.

“There’s nothing binding you to me or to Katrakis Textiles now.”

Her breath whooshed out of her in a painfully long exhale. Legs shaking beneath her, Leah grabbed the table. Tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over. Just breathing became a chore. “You’re punishing me again…”

“Punishment, pethi mou? No. I’m finally freeing us both. Giannis is gone, and you’ve proved beyond doubt that you can take care of yourself, ne? What is left of our relationship, if it could be called that, if we take away my duty and your lies, Leah?”

“The last month—”

“Last month has been nothing but sex. Five years of celibacy and you…it would mess with any man’s head, even a stone like me.”

That he would reduce the last month like that, that he would cheapen what they had shared so easily…she couldn’t even breathe.

Fear stole coherence from her. Slowly, she thought back to how the dreadful afternoon had begun. “What did Alex say?”

“Threatening to go the media with a colorful story about Calista and her monster of a brother who neglected her and then married the heiress… The pictures he has of her, the horrible things he’s threatening to say about her…” Restrained violence simmered in him as he moved away from her. As if he didn’t trust himself to be near her. “The parties, the drinking, the men… Cristos, I didn’t know my sister at all, did I? And you knew it all along.” He turned toward her again, accusation and pain in his eyes.

“She begged me not to tell you, Stavros. Every time you found us at some party, she would beg me to leave her out of it. She asked me to cover…just once more. When she saw you, when she was with you, she…she wanted to be perfect. She was desperate to not lose you. Desperate to not lose your love. She was afraid that you would…”

“All your arguments with me, if you had thrown it once in my face that she was the one—”

The calmer he got, the more she panicked. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until that night. Stavros, I was immature, foolish. I told you, I didn’t know that she was using. I feel sick to my stomach when I think I could have helped, when I could have—”

“What about the last few weeks, Leah? What about when I begged you for the truth about her? What reason could you possibly have to lie after all these years? Were you afraid that I would punish you for her actions? Even after these few weeks, were you just looking out for yourself?”

Her heart hammered away in her chest, her knees trembled beneath her and all she wanted was to be held by him, to see him smile, to do whatever she could to remove that betrayal, that pain from his eyes.

And just like that, the truth struck Leah. In that dark-paneled study in a majestic hotel in one of the loveliest cities in the world, with Stavros looking at her with utter resignation, it came to her.

She was in love with Stavros. A few months ago, she would have cackled hysterically at the prospect. And yet, had she ever truly stood a chance against the man she had discovered him to be?

Despite all the wrongs done to him as a child, he had done his duty. He could cajole and love and support as fiercely as he followed his duty, he could care, even though it was through actions and not words…

Calista had been so wrong in not trusting him, in doubting his love, so painfully unknowing of her own brother…But Leah understood him finally, she knew what a complex and honorable man her husband was.

And knowing Stavros meant loving Stavros, loving his generous heart, his sense of duty, even his rigidly autocratic dictates.

Why else had she risked everything she had always been scared of, this past month, how else would she have thrown herself into this madness with such relish… “After all these years, I didn’t think the reasons for Calista’s death mattered anymore. Not when I was finally…”

“When you were finally getting what you wanted,” he finished and utter fury filled her.

She gasped as it unfurled inside her, this new feeling, sinuously breathing courage into her very veins, filling her with a tremendous energy.

Reaching him, she refused to let him dismiss her so easily. “When, finally, you saw me for what I was, and let me see what kind of a man you were. I thought I should leave the past where it was. I thought…I could have—”

“Your wants, your needs—it’s all about you, isn’t it, pethi mou?”

“For years, it has been, yes. All I thought of since stepping in Athens was protecting myself from pain, from ever having to mourn another loved one again. But not anymore. For the first time in my life, I lied, not for myself, but for you. I lied to protect you, to spare you from this pain of knowing Calista’s reality.

“I lied because I…care about you. I lied because, somehow, you gave me the courage to live without fear, I lied because you made it impossible to not love you.”

His skin pulled into a taut mask, he looked as if she had dealt him an invisible blow. Everything in her scrunched into a painful ball as Leah realized that her words, somehow, had only hurt him even more.

“Say something, Stavros,” she said desperately.

“I didn’t realize until today how ill-suited we are for each other, pethi mou. Even if I continue this charade in the name of Giannis, it won’t be long before we rip each other into shreds. Before there’s nothing but pain left.”

The bridge of his nose, the sculpted planes of his face, the stubble that was already coming in…it hurt to look at him. “Is that any worse than what you’re doing now?” A shuddering gasp left her. “Somehow, I doubt that you can get any more cruel, any more heartless, Stavros.”

“Then you know why our farce of a marriage needs to end,” he finally said after what felt like an eternity of hell. “You have your freedom. Goodbye, Leah.”

For the first time since Giannis had brought him to Athens years ago, Stavros did not return to work after Leah left.

He let Dmitri’s calls go unattended, told his assistant to cancel everything indefinitely, heard from his head of security that a particularly treacherous board member, a distant cousin of Giannis who had always resented that Stavros and Dmitri were the topmost shareholders on the Katrakis board, was planning a coup to take over.

Rumors swirled about that Dmitri and he had fallen out, causing the stock for Katrakis Textiles to sink.

But Stavros, try as he did, still clinging to his wretched sense of duty, couldn’t give a damn. He and Dmitri had slaved night and day to build it into a multimillion dollar industry for over a decade, given it their all because they had wanted Giannis’s legacy to mean something…because they had both wanted something to anchor their lives.

And yet, he did not care if it all crashed and burned. All he wanted to do was shrug off the world and retreat. And he did.

Yet, wherever he turned, there were signs of Leah at his estate.

From the workers at the vineyard to the seamstress who asked if Leah was taking New York by storm, from the trails she had loved running through to the small, inconsequential things she had left lying around the house, like her iPod. She was everywhere.

She was under his skin, in his every breath, she had somehow become an irrevocable part of himself.

The peace he had found on his estate, the rules he had set in place all his life, everything was shattered. He felt empty within and he hadn’t even known that he had something so precious.

It was as if Leah had breathed life into him, showed him what it was to laugh, love and live.

For days, he let himself remember every bleary moment from when his mother had left to when his father had died, and he grieved for Calista. Grieved for the innocence he had never had. For days, he sat in the study in his estate, wandered into Leah’s empty workroom.

And slowly, her words gained strength in him, shifted and morphed his very view of himself.

For the first time in my life, I lied, not for myself, but for you, Stavros. I lied to protect you, to spare you from this pain.

I lied because I…care about you. I lied because, somehow, you have given me the courage to live without fear, I lied because you made it impossible to not love you.

Leah loved him, she had protected him. When had anyone ever thought of him like that?

The Leah that wouldn’t leave him alone the night of Giannis’s death, the Leah that had so innocently and full of hope, asked him if he was happy, the Leah that had teased and aroused him with such stark, possessive need…that Leah who refused to let him deny what they both wanted, needed when he had worried that it was becoming an obsession, a madness, the Leah that had held him tightly, when in the aftermath of making love to her he had confided that he didn’t remember how his mother looked, the Leah that had believed in the sanctity of marriage…

That woman was worthy of a fight, was worthy of a man he could be.

She had made him love for the first time in his life, she made him care, had made him live for himself, made him want with such gnawing hunger.

Had given him a taste of happiness, of pain, of ache, of loss.

She had made him feel everything he had shied away from his whole life. And he wanted to live like that again. He couldn’t go back to being an automatic machine.

Shaking at the very chill in his bones, he leaned his forehead against the glass door looking out into the estate.

In a moment of utter desolation he had admitted to Giannis that night that he had been wrong about Leah, that he had ruined her life. Even facing death, Giannis had smiled, had said that Leah needed him, that he, Stavros, was a man worthy of her… Those words pushed through to the fore, crushing his self-doubt.

Maybe he hadn’t deserved Leah five years ago.

But now, facing his own incapability to love Calista as she had needed, and accepting that, despite his every effort, his parents had somehow damaged him, forgiving himself for not loving Calista as she had needed, he deserved Leah now.

He deserved to be happy, he deserved to think about himself after a lifetime of thinking about everyone else.

Suddenly, Stavros couldn’t live without telling Leah that, couldn’t bear that she was thousands of miles away. Not when he loved her so much.