CHAPTER TEN

L EANDROS STOOD BY the open windows giving out on to their Juliet balcony. The early-evening twilight was gathering. Gently, he eased the cork of the champagne bottle and it gave with a soft pop. As it did so, he heard the door of Eliana’s bedroom open, and she emerged.

After tea and coffee she’d gone off to take another soothing bath, and he’d been glad, repairing to take a shower himself, and change into more relaxed clothes—a lightweight fine cashmere sweater over an open-necked shirt with turned-back cuffs. He’d touched base with his office while he had the opportunity. He’d left matters in good order, and they still were. He was glad of it. He didn’t want distractions. Not now. Right now he had only one focus.

And she was standing right there.

She was hesitant, he could see, and he wanted that dispelled.

He made his smile warm, his voice warmer. ‘Ah, there you are—how are you feeling?’ There was genuine concern in his voice.

She didn’t answer him directly. ‘I soaked for ages—it was a real indulgence,’ she said lightly. ‘My apartment only has a shower, and the water is very seldom hot anyway.’

‘Then have a bath every day!’ he said, keeping his tone as light as hers. He picked up an empty flute. ‘Champagne? Or something different? Another G and T?’

Even as he asked her, his eyes were drinking her in. She’d put on one of her new dresses, softly draped in sage-green, halfway between dressy and casual—just right for dining in. She’d drawn her hair back into a low, loose chignon at the nape of her neck. He fancied she’d put on a little mascara, and maybe some lip sheen—just a very light touch of make-up to enhance her features. Whatever she’d done, with the dress and the hair and her own beauty she looked effortlessly lovely...

Something moved inside him as he looked at her—part of this strange new feeling he had about her that he knew was changing everything, even if he still did not understand how...

She stepped forward. ‘Thank you—champagne would be very nice.’

She was still a little hesitant, and Leandros found himself wanting her to relax more. He wanted that sense of simply taking the day as it came to continue—without the complications, the confusion, the complexities that lay between them.

He filled her flute, and then his own, holding hers out to her.

She took it, murmuring her thanks.

‘Santé,’ he said in the same light tone. And as he did, he recalled the toast he’d so acerbically given the previous evening at the opera— ‘My very own Manon.’

It had been designed to taunt.

To mock.

To wound.

Regret, or something like it, smote him. Reappraisal—maybe that was the right word? There was a reappraisal he should apply—one that she deserved.

Maybe I was being unfair—oh, not in saying that she only wanted to marry for money, but knowing that, having done so, she paid a price for it. A heavy price. To be unjustly accused by her domineering father-in-law of failing to give him the grandson he demanded when that was entirely because her marriage was celibate because her husband was gay! And then her father-in-law punished her by reducing her to poverty in her widowhood.

His thoughts were sober.

Maybe she did not deserve any more retribution from me for what she did.

Maybe retribution—if that was even the right word now—had already been exacted from her...

Maybe she had already paid her price for her faithlessness.

And maybe, therefore —the words from that morning came again into his head— we should start over.

They’d made a start—today had been a good day, a much easier, more peaceable day, without their previous guarded, superficial civility. He had the grace to acknowledge that the bitterness he harboured was as deep within him as it had ever been, while she’d kept to an air of passive detachment. But today had not been like that. It had been—

Companionable.

There was that word again—the one that kept coming to him.

Almost like we used to be.

The thought flickered in his head like a light that might or might not dispel the shadows.

‘Santé,’ she echoed, dipping her head to take a taste of the gently beading champagne.

‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering dinner for us,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

He told her the choices he’d made, saying there was still time to change them, but she shook her head.

‘It all sounds delicious,’ she said. ‘Thank you. And thank you, too, for taking me to Giverny today.’

He glanced at her. ‘You don’t have to thank me,’ he said. ‘It’s all part of...’

He stopped. Part of what? Part of what he was offering her because of what he was getting in return? Like the clothes he’d bought her? This stay in a luxury hotel?

Put like that, he didn’t like the implication. Which didn’t make sense. It hadn’t troubled him when he’d put it to her in Thessaloniki over dinner. Outlining what he was offering her—what she would get out of it in return.

‘Yes,’ he heard her say quietly, acceptingly, ‘I know. But thank you all the same—for dinner tonight, and last night, and taking me to the opera, and to Giverny today, and Notre Dame and Sainte-Chapelle yesterday.’

He shook his head in negation. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want it to be like that.’

He had wanted it—but not any more. Now he knew he no longer simply wanted her gratitude for bringing her to Paris—and the reason he had brought her here.

For sex—that’s what you brought her here for. You spelt it out plainly enough.

Yet somehow, right now, it was an uncomfortable thought. He felt his mind sheer away. And not just because there was suddenly a sordid edge to it...to what he’d offered her.

Because even if she’s only accepted to get out of that wretched dump she has to live in and get her hands on a decent wardrobe again, so she can kickstart her way back into a luxe lifestyle, that doesn’t justify my offer. Because what does it say about me that I made such an offer? Doesn’t it just reduce me to her level?

His mouth twisted. Well, right now there wasn’t much likelihood of his making good on the reason he’d brought her to Paris. Not after last night. And it wasn’t just a question of enough soothing baths...

He’d hurt her physically. He hadn’t meant to—hadn’t even known he could, in that way—but that didn’t change the fact that he had done so.

‘I think,’ he said haltingly, knowing this was something he wanted to make clear to her, and finding the resolve to do it, ‘that from now...well, separate bedrooms.’

As he said it, there was instant conflict in his head. He’d said the right thing, the decent thing. But the moment he’d done so scorching memory had come—vivid...leaping into punishing hyper-consciousness...

She’d torn herself away from him, in his bed, almost at the very consummation of the inferno that had been consuming him—consuming her too. For she had lit that inferno by coming to him as she had, and he had gone up in flames, and so had she, with mutual desire burning them with the white heat of passion unleashed.

But from the moment of her shocking revelation to this moment now he’d assiduously, doggedly, refused to let into his head what had come before. Yet now it seared white-hot.

Gliding up to me, hair loose and wanton, body sensuous and irresistible to me, winding her arms around me, reaching for my mouth with hers...

He had been lost instantly, totally. That had been no self-sacrificing abasement, no offering herself to him as some kind of atonement. That had been Eliana just as he’d said he’d wanted her to be—eager, aroused, passionate. And he had been likewise. Instantly. Consumingly...

He slammed down hard on the memory. It was the situation now he was dealing with. A situation that made any repetition of what had happened last night completely out of the question.

‘So you can be comfortable,’ he said now.

She was looking at him questioningly, uncertainly. ‘Leandros, why...why are you being so nice to me?’

He frowned. ‘I’d be a brute not to be, in the circumstances. It appals me that I hurt you—’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t just mean separate bedrooms. I mean...well, all day today. And...and last night too. Making hot milk for me...all that... And you’re being nice to me now too.’

He took a mouthful of champagne. Her question had been direct—his answer was not.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he countered.

Her frown remained. ‘Because you hate me,’ she said.

He stilled. ‘ Hate you?’ His voice was hollow.

‘I don’t blame you for that—I have no right to do so.’ She spoke as if she had not heard him. ‘But...’ She took a breath and he realised she was not as calm as she was appearing. ‘But even though you discovered that my marriage was not...not what the world thought it was...not in that way...that doesn’t change anything between us, does it?’

He didn’t answer, only lifted his champagne flute to his mouth, taking another slow mouthful, as if to give himself time, then lowering it again.

His expression changed, and he looked directly at her.

‘Eliana, even if...even if you went into your marriage with Damian open-eyed about his sexual orientation—and I hope that you did...that you knew what you were letting yourself in for—do you...do you ever regret it? Regret marrying him instead of me?’

He had said it—asked the question that he had never allowed himself to ask before. For what purpose would there have been in her answer? Not while she was married to Damian certainly.

But if she had come to regret it she could have had the marriage annulled for non-consummation...or just gone for a divorce—

‘No.’

Her one-word answer was quietly spoken, but there was in it something that made Leandros know she had spoken only the truth.

‘No, I don’t regret marrying Damian. It was my choice to do so—and it would be my choice again.’

Leandros felt a heaviness inside him at her answer. He pursued it to its conclusion—the conclusion he already knew...had known for six long years. Now stated again.

‘Because if you’d married me you’d have faced poverty—and you couldn’t face that.’

‘No.’

Again, the one-word answer gave tacit agreement to what he had said, and was quietly spoken, but it was neither hesitant, nor holding regret.

‘I could not have faced the consequences of marrying you. And so for that reason, whatever kind of marriage I had with Damian, I cannot— do not—regret it.’

Her expression changed.

‘It’s the only truthful answer I can give. I’m... I’m sorry I can’t give you any other. And I’m sorry that I hurt you...that I killed the love you felt for me.’ She took a breath. ‘And I am glad, for your sake, that you no longer feel anything for me—’

She broke off, looked away, out of the window, over the rooftops of Paris.

There had been a bleakness in her voice just then that had been absent from the quiet, unhesitant way she’d told him she did not regret her marriage to Damian. But it was her last words that echoed inside Leandros’s head. They were true—of course they were true. How could they be anything other than true?

And yet—

Are they still true? Do I feel nothing for her?

The question hung in his consciousness, wanting an answer—an answer he could not give.

For a moment he stood still, eyes resting on her averted face, on her fingers curved around the stem of the champagne flute she was holding. Then slowly, so very slowly, his hand reached out to touch the curve of her wrist...so lightly...so fleetingly.

‘Things change, Eliana,’ he said softly. ‘They’ve changed already between us. They could change again.’

He let his hand fall away. He was conscious of the beat of his own heart. The silence between them. She did not turn back, so he could not see her face, but he saw her fingertips around the stem of her glass tighten. And her free hand moved to fold over the place where he had touched her so briefly—so gently.

Was she sheltering herself against his touch? Or sheltering the touch itself? How could he tell? How could he know?

How can I know anything about her, about what she feels? And why should I care?

He did not know that either. Knew only that somehow, now, he did care.

His own words to her echoed.

‘Things change, Eliana. They’ve changed already between us. They could change again.’

Could they? Could they change again?

And do I want them to?

That was another unanswered question. So many unanswered questions...

So much confusion and complexity—how can I make sense of it all?

The sound of the doorbell was intrusive in the silence that had fallen between them. Was it welcome? Or the opposite? Whichever it was, he turned back into the room, pulling open the door to admit the butler and his minions.

The arrival of dinner needed to be attended to, and maybe he was glad of it. That exchange with Eliana had been too intense, going too deep into past and present. He needed respite from it—and maybe so did she.

She seemed glad to take her place at the table in their dining room while a resplendent meal was presented to them.

Leandros had specifically selected a menu that would enable their entrée— boeuf bourguignon —to be kept warm in chafing dishes, with chilled tarte au citron for dessert, so that he could dismiss the staff...not have them hover.

Yet the moment they were gone he felt silence threaten again. He dismissed it with resolve. He’d wanted an easier day, and wading into asking questions such as he had on the balcony was not conducive to that end. Now he wanted that sense of ease back again. Wanted the atmosphere lightened.

Wanted to feel again what he had felt during the day.

Companionable.

Deliberately, he raised his refilled champagne glass to Eliana across the table.

‘Bon appetit,’ he said. ‘I hope our dinner is as delicious as you have said it sounds.’

He made his voice light, replacing his flute and picking up his fork to start to do justice to the beautifully layered vegetable terrine that was their first course.

‘I’m not sure what all the layers are,’ he pondered, ‘except that one of them, judging by its colour, is definitely beetroot.’

‘There’s courgette in there somewhere,’ Eliana answered, and he was glad that her tone of voice was as light as his. ‘And perhaps asparagus?’

They went on identifying the multi-coloured, multi-textured layers. It was easy conversation, light and inconsequential. But it served its purpose. Lightened the atmosphere.

He glanced towards her. As ever, her beauty made his breath catch.

It comes to her naturally—she makes no effort, but it is there all the time.

Memory came—how struck he’d been when he’d first been courting her, wooing her, making her his own, by just how naturally beautiful she was. Unsophisticated, yes, unlike the females he usually ran with, but her beauty had been in her smile, her eyes, her sun-kissed hair... In the way she’d laughed, and dropped her gaze when he looked at her—not in a flirtatious way, or to entice him... Although sometimes he would catch her stealing a look at him from beneath her smoky lashes...a look of longing...

He’d liked that—had liked to bring the colour flushing to her soft cheeks when he’d paid her compliments, which she’d absorbed like a flower drinking in the warming rays of the sun...

I thought I’d found a woman different from any that I had known. One to fall in love with.

He hadn’t intended to fall in love at all. It had not been on his agenda—but Eliana had changed all that. With her in his life he’d no longer wanted to play the field, hadn’t been interested in the chic, sophisticated females he’d once focussed his attentions on. Eliana had swept him away—swept him totally away.

Until she’d walked away from him. Handed back his ring. Walked out of his life.

But now she’s back in it. I’ve let her in. Thinking I knew why.

His gaze rested on her now, and he felt again the confusion he’d felt in the night, when he’d realised the truth about her marriage...felt again, even more intensely, what had passed between them out on the balcony just now.

What do I want of her? What do I want at all?

No answers came—or only one, to which he now returned.

He wanted to be with her as he had been today—easy, peaceable...companionable.

Nothing more than that.

Nothing less.