Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 18

ON MONDAY morning Ari strode authoritatively through his own building. The gasps and shocked murmurs as he passed people by merely bounced off him. Aristotle Levakis never frequented any office or floor of the building but his own. His blood was humming, anticipation a taut wire of need, and all because he was going to see Lucy any second now—and because seeing her the other day after a week’s absence had shown him that even one day was too long. He vowed there and then to make sure it didn’t happen again.

He was too far gone to try and deny the fact that she had him wound so tight around her little finger that he couldn’t think straight. For the entire weekend his conscience had been pricking him but he’d quashed it down with a strength of will that was matched only by the strength of his desire for this woman. As he walked towards her office he finally had to acknowledge that he felt out of control for the first time in his life. One thought and one thought only had dominated since he’d seen her last: he wanted her, he needed her, and anything was better than her leaving—

He stopped in his tracks when he pushed open the outer door to his legal team’s offices only to see an empty chair where Lucy should have been sitting—where the hell was she?

The immediate hollow ache in his solar plexus stunned him with its force. Just then Theo strolled out of his office, a frown on his face.

‘Ari? What’s up?’

What’s up? Ari felt dizzy for a second. He bit out, ‘Lucy Proctor—where is she?’

He was hardly aware of Theo’s frown and obvious confusion. ‘I thought you knew …? She rang this morning and said she wouldn’t be taking the position—said something about wanting some time off. I won’t lie, I was delighted when you said she was going to be back working for us, but now …’

Ari didn’t hear the rest of whatever Theo said. He left. When he got back up to his office he shut the door on his new PA’s concerned face and found that he was shaking. Actually shaking. Aristotle Levakis—shaking like a leaf.

With a roaring in his ears he went over to his drinks cabinet and poured himself a drink. He downed it in one. For the first time in his life he did not know what to do. He sat down heavily in his chair and stared vacantly into the distance.

She’d gone. She’d not been playing coy. He’d not backed her into a corner with his threats to derail her chances of getting work. And, if anything, to remember what he’d done and said, the lengths he’d gone to to keep her near, made him feel ill. Especially when he thought of her mother and how much it meant to Lucy to have her taken care of. Immediately he went to reach for the phone, to call her and tell her that everything would be fine, that he’d look after her mother. He stopped.

He’d already done that. He’d already offered her his protection, the exalted position of his mistress, and she’d turned him down. Again bile rose as he realised he’d offered her the one thing she’d refuse even if her life depended on it. Ari sat back and closed his eyes, something awful like dread trickling through him, gathering force as it did so.

Lucy felt as brittle as a Chinese Ming vase teetering on the edge of a table. It had been two weeks since she’d not walked back into Levakis Enterprises to take the job that had been so ungraciously offered to her. She still felt sick to her belly to know that despite everything, despite all she’d shared with Ari of her life, he’d turned around and offered to take care of her.

And yet as she sat here now in her mother’s bedroom, holding the book she’d been reading from aloud, she missed him with an ache that seemed to be growing more acute and stronger by the minute. She was constantly bombarded with images of their time together, and, worse, she’d even caught herself in a daydream of them together, with a family, before she could stop herself. Having never believed she was the slightest bit maternal, it was as if she’d suddenly tapped into some universal compulsion to have a baby. With him.

Her mother shifted restlessly and Lucy looked at her, smoothing some hair off her brow. She’d fallen asleep as Lucy had read to her.

Lucy hadn’t had the heart to fight the uphill battle to look for a new job yet, so she’d spent the last two weeks coming to see her mum every day, but time was running out. She needed to get work fast. Her mouth firmed as the familiar pain rose. More than that, she needed to forget about—

‘Lucy, love, someone here to see you.’

Lucy looked up and blushed. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard the woman come in. She stood up, and as she followed the nurse out she wondered who on earth it could be … here of all places.

When she came out into the corridor the world swirled crazily. So crazily that she must have swayed, because before she knew it Ari was in front of her and holding onto her, looking down into her eyes.

With a deep inner cry of dismay Lucy wondered if she was conjuring him up, and if it was in fact just her mother’s consultant. She blinked. Ari. She blinked again. Ari.

From somewhere deeply welcome she came back to earth and pulled herself free of his touch. She stalked to a small empty waiting area nearby. She crossed her arms and turned around, feeling her cheeks grow hot as she took in the reality of facing him again. Those recent images of small dark-haired babies mocked her.

‘What are you doing here?’ She injected all the frost she could muster into her voice, but when Ari winced imperceptibly she treacherously felt nothing but remorse.

He looked awful. As if he hadn’t slept in a week or shaved in days. He was wearing jeans and a sweater, nothing like the cool urbane businessman she’d first seen at a distance two years ago. He was more like the man she’d seen on Paros. Her heart clenched painfully.

He looked at her, and she quailed inwardly but tipped up her chin. When he spoke she had to strain to listen.

‘I thought that here might be the only place you’d speak to me. Please forgive me for intruding on your personal space with your mother.’

One fire died in Lucy’s belly and another started. Her arms relaxed fractionally. How was it that he still had the power to surprise her, damn him?

‘Lucy, I want you to come back to Greece with me. Right now. I want to show you something. I need to talk to you but I can’t …’ He looked around for a moment. ‘Not here …’

Lucy’s arms tightened again. She shook her head fiercely. Go back to Greece? He had to be kidding. The thought of being in close proximity to this man was about as dangerous as sky-diving without a parachute.

He registered her reaction and Lucy saw something flicker in his eyes.

‘Lucy, please.’

Something in the quality of his voice made her stop, but still she shook her head. Nothing on this earth would persuade her to set herself up to be hurt again. She crushed the treacherous need to know answers: why did he want her to go to Greece? Why wasn’t he sweeping in here and demanding to know why she hadn’t taken the job? It was what she might have expected. Why wasn’t he acting like the proud, arrogant man she knew? And—the worst question of all—why had it taken him two weeks to come after her?

Ari’s jaw clenched and something trickled down Lucy’s spine. She saw a glimpse of the man she knew. Hard and implacable.

‘Very well, if the only way I can persuade you to come is by threatening to reveal to the press that your mother is here, then so be it.’

Lucy gasped and went icy cold. On some level she was certain that Ari would never do such a thing, but on another level she wasn’t absolutely sure, and the fact that he was even threatening such a thing made her feel acutely disappointed, and if she was disappointed what did that say about her own pathetically skewed judgment?

‘You absolute bastard.’

He stepped forward and she stepped back, seeing colour flash through his cheeks. He held out a hand imperiously, and when she didn’t move he just dropped it and said, sounding utterly defeated, ‘I don’t know where that came from. I’m sorry. Of course I wouldn’t do that to you or your mother. I just want you to come with me so that I can show you something and talk to you … I promise that if you want to return after you’ve seen it and we’ve talked, I’ll bring you straight back here.’

Lucy looked at him for a long moment. She was already starting to drown in those green depths. The real and awful truth was that she’d go to the ends of the earth if this man asked her. A very weak part of her was saying, Go, go, go, and she could already feel resistance washing away. He was confusing her with his behaviour, with the vulnerability she’d glimpsed but couldn’t quite believe. Even so, she had every intention of keeping him to his word.

She said tightly, ‘You promise? Then you’ll leave me alone and let me find another job?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll make sure nothing stands in your way.’ Lucy waited for what seemed like an interminable moment, and then finally said, ‘I’ll get my jacket and bag.’

A scant few hours later they were landing at Athens airport, and Lucy still felt slightly winded at knowing that she’d been sitting at her mother’s bedside just hours before. The steward opened the plane door and Ari stood and held out a hand. Lucy looked at it. They hadn’t spoken a word on the flight. Ari had been sternly cold.

Feeling intense trepidation, she put her hand in his and let him pull her up. He led her out, and then they were climbing into a nearby helicopter, which was lifting into the clear blue sky within minutes.

Lucy’s hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and she avoided looking at Ari as much as possible. After a while Lucy could see that they were circling an island, and she recognised Paros. A mixture of sheer pleasure and intense pain gripped her. If he’d brought her here just to—

But the helicopter was landing, and then they were out, and it was just Lucy and Ari, standing by the same Jeep they’d used the last time. Memories were too intense.

Lucy backed away and mocked herself inwardly for having such a weak and delayed reaction. He’d got her here by barely saying please. She was pathetic.

‘Ari, if we’re just here so that you can—’

He came and stood close—too close. ‘Lucy, please, just trust me. A little further, that’s all.’

Where could she go anyway? Lucy looked around. They were miles from anything. Silently she got into the Jeep. Ari got in too, and then they were driving. When she recognised the signs for his mother’s tiny village Ari turned and went eastwards. After another ten minutes he took a sharp left turn down towards the coast, and they stopped at a set of ancient wrought-iron gates, nearly overgrown with vegetation.

Ari came round to meet Lucy. He helped her out but when he saw her open her mouth as if to speak he put a finger to her lips. He’d never been so terrified in his entire life; his heart was hammering painfully.

‘This is what I wanted to show you.’

The feel of her soft lips against his finger nearly undid him, but he controlled himself.

He led her in through the gate, which was hanging off its hinges, then down an overgrown path and out into a huge clearing where an old and rambling villa, clearly dilapidated, stood on a bluff overlooking the sea.

Lucy’s hand tightened reflexively in Ari’s. It must have been stunning in its heyday, and the view was priceless. Already she could imagine what it might be like if it was done up, restored to its former glory.

‘What is this place?’

Ari brought her over to the other side of the house and an unimpeded view of the sea to where a trail led down to a private beach.

‘I bought it … signed the papers just yesterday.’

Lucy felt a little bewildered. He’d brought her here to show her his latest acquisition? ‘Oh … well, congratulations.’

He turned and looked at her intently. ‘You like it, don’t you?’

Lucy frowned, feeling very vulnerable. ‘Well, of course I like it. It’s beautiful, idyllic, but what does it matter what I think about it?’

He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he said, ‘Because I bought it for you … for us.’

Lucy tried to make sense of his words, feeling a little spaced-out. ‘You mean …?’ Something struck her then, and anger flowered deep down. She took her hand from his. ‘Ari, if you’ve bought this as some kind of … of love-nest, just so that I can be your mistress—’

He was shaking his head, a curious light in his eyes. ‘No. I want it to be a home—a place where we can come … perhaps even with a family …’

Lucy was starting to flounder badly. His words were making all sorts of things bloom in her heart, making it beat faster. How could he know of her deeply secret daydreams? It felt as if he was looking straight into her head. ‘Ari—I don’t … What are you talking about …?’

He brought a shaking hand to her face, his eyes so intense it nearly hurt to look at them. ‘Lucy, I brought you here because here is the only place I know how to be me, where I can say what I need to say. I’ve been going crazy these past two weeks. At first I told myself I didn’t need you, that I wasn’t devastated beyond belief when I found out you hadn’t taken the job with Theo. And then one night, at three o’clock in the morning, when I found myself driving to your flat and sitting outside like a stalker, I had to face up to myself.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I think I fell in love with you when you appeared like a whirling dervish to defend me against Helen. I’ve never had anyone stand up for me before—care about me before. I’ve never needed it. But you made me realise how lonely I’ve been all my life.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I thought I had it all figured out. I’d keep you on in the company if you insisted on working, but essentially I wanted you as my mistress. It was only when I said the words out loud I realised what an insult it was—especially to you, after all you’ve been through. And it was then that I knew I wanted much, much more than that. I wanted everything. A life together. A marriage.’

He laughed harshly. ‘Of course I denied it to myself. Love? I’d cut myself off from anything like that when I was sent away to England and it became my home. Helen effectively cut me off from my father, wouldn’t even allow a normal relationship to develop between me and my brother. That’s why I’d locked away my memories of here and my mother … I couldn’t believe it had existed. But meeting you, falling in love with you, made me believe in them again. It made me remember the love I felt.’

Lucy was more than shocked. She was in danger of floating away from her body. But at the same time she felt welded to the ground, incapable of processing his words, because she realised just how badly she wanted this. And yet …

‘But I heard what you said to Helen just before she hit you … about never marrying someone like me …’

Ari looked confused for a moment, and then his face cleared. ‘Thee mou, that wasn’t about you. Helen was suggesting I marry Pia Kyriapoulos, which would have suited her ends perfectly and kept me marginalized. Pia is not exactly the epitome of the blushing Greek bride.’

‘Oh.’ Lucy tried to look down, away from his intensity, but Ari wouldn’t let her budge.

He took something out of his back pocket and held it out to Lucy. It was a small velvet bag. She looked at him and he just said, ‘Open it—please …’

She was all fingers and thumbs, so Ari helped her, and then it was open and something fell into her hand. It was the stunning butterfly necklace she’d seen all those weeks ago and it glinted up at her now. She felt her eyes film over with tears. Ari took it and placed it tenderly around her neck, making tingles run up and down her spine. He tipped her chin up again, forcing her gaze to meet his. His eyes blazed into hers.

‘So will you, Lucy Proctor—marry me? Please? Because I cannot imagine going forward from this day or this place without you by my side.’

Emotion was cracking open inside Lucy, and it was the most gloriously painful thing she’d ever felt in her life.

‘I never wanted to feel this much.’

Ari’s mouth quirked. ‘It’s painful, isn’t it?’

It was the sudden complicit feeling of mutual emotion and how similar they really were in their hearts that made Lucy’s eyes water in earnest. Her mouth wobbled precariously. ‘I thought I’d settle for someone boring—someone who wouldn’t make me face up to myself, to the desires I kept hidden. But you made me believe I had nothing to be scared of … I love you, Ari. I fell for you the day you gave that stupidly expensive necklace to two strangers in the street. And it was when you brought me here that I knew I’d fallen in love with you. And, yes, I’ll marry you.’

Lucy could feel the tremor in his hands as they framed her face.

‘Thank God,’ he said huskily, and bent his head to seal their vow with barely restrained passion.

When they broke apart she could still feel his hands trembling, and his face had such an endearing mix of expressions—pure Ari arrogance and then something she’d never seen before, sheer childlike joy—that she couldn’t help smiling at him.

He returned her gaze, and for just a moment Lucy caught a glimpse of something achingly vulnerable cross his face before he said haltingly, ‘That night I was sitting outside your flat, apart from lurid fantasies featuring a certain tight skirt, I found myself imagining you pregnant … having a baby … our baby. I suddenly wanted a family. And not just for an heir … but to create something—a secure foundation. It scared me to death, and it’s the only thing that’s held me back from coming for you sooner.’ He quirked an unsteady smile. ‘That and the fact that you might reject me. But the thing is … I’ve no idea how you feel about kids …’

Lucy looked up at him and wondered how her heart hadn’t exploded into tiny pieces. ‘Funny you should mention that …’

In more or less exactly the same spot where Ari had proposed to her three years before, Lucy shaded her eyes and looked down to the private beach, where her husband was holding their son high in the air before dunking him back in the glittering sea. The childish shrieks of delight made her smile and she sat down, rearranging the tiny baby in her arms so that she could feed her from the other breast.

‘You’re very happy, darling, aren’t you?’

Lucy looked over to her mother, who was sitting in a wheelchair in the shade on the other side of the table, and smiled. ‘Yes, Mum … I am.’ Her mother looked away again, out to sea, with an enigmatic smile of her own.

Maxine had these moments of lucidity every now and then, ever since Lucy and Ari had moved her here to the refurbished villa on Paros permanently, with a full-time nursing staff to take care of her every need. Her Alzheimer’s hadn’t improved, but it seemed to have slowed its development, and sometimes when Lucy looked at her she knew her mother was imagining herself to be in this beautiful place being cared for by one of her besotted suitors.

Lucy had insisted on Ari keeping his mother’s house nearby exactly as it was, and sometimes they went back for a night on their own, and revelled in their private space that no one knew about.

Just then a dripping wet Ari appeared, holding an exuberant Cosmo steadily on his shoulders. He smiled widely, his eyes flashing with secret promise and something much deeper and more enduring—love. Lucy couldn’t remember when she’d once wondered what he’d look like if he smiled. She smiled back, for life was good.