CHAPTER SEVEN

L EANDROS STILLED . S HE ’ D cut it fine, timewise, but Thee mou , it had been worth it! His gaze went to her like a magnet. Six years ago her beauty had been that of a young girl, just on the brink of womanhood. Now...

She has become the woman—no longer the girl.

No longer the sweet, innocent ingenue he had known.

His heart hardened. But she had never been that, had she? Not when she’d been threatened by a reality she did not wish to accept.

She wanted me only when she thought me wealthy.

Well, now his wealth would lift her out of the poverty into which she had sunk at least for the duration of his desire for her. Then she would have to make her own way in the world again. He would be done with her.

‘The car is waiting,’ he said.

His voice was curt, his thoughts dark. Her beauty, her allure, mocked him.

Mocked him even as his eyes went to her as they took their places in the limo and it set off through the Paris traffic for the opera house on the Right Bank. He made no attempt at conversation—his mood had darkened and he saw no reason to disguise it.

There was something about the way she was just sitting there, resplendent in the soft white faux fur jacket nestled around her shoulders, the upswept hair exposing the line of her neck, the cut of her cheekbones, her always beautiful eyes deepened and darkened by make-up and thick, blackened lashes. Her face was semi-averted from him and she was looking out of the window, studiedly taking no notice of him. All he could see of her gown was the sweep of silk from waist to ankles, her legs slanting away from him.

She was remote from him, withdrawn from him—as if he did not exist for her.

Something flared in the depths of his eyes and he rested his gaze darkly upon her averted profile. He would make himself exist for her—she would take notice of him. He would make it impossible for her not to.

I want to be rid of this desire for her—dear God, I just want to be rid of it! I want it not to be able to torment me ever again.

It was his only wish.

The car had pulled up outside the opera house, the Palais Garnier, and the driver was opening her door for her. Eliana stepped out carefully, her gaze going to the grand edifice—a legacy of the opulence of the Second Empire of Napoleon III in the mid-nineteenth century. Then Leandros was beside her, taller than ever, it seemed to her, in his evening dress, guiding her in.

The glories of the interior were breathtaking, and she gazed around the lobby, already crowded with women in evening gowns, men in black tie tuxedos. The sheer opulence was almost beyond belief. Her eyes went to the massively imposing staircase that divided in two to sweep to the upper floor with a flamboyance that only the extravagances of the Second Empire could justify. Everywhere there were columns and carvings and statuary, gilded and glowing in the lamplight. She all but blinked at the dazzle.

She felt a touch at her elbow and started.

‘This way,’ Leandros said at her side.

And then she was being guided up that magnificent staircase, gazing around her as she went. She gathered the skirt of her evening gown with one hand, her heels ringing on the marble stairs. Others were doing likewise, making the ascent to the next level up. There was a chattering of mostly French but other languages too all around her, and the scent of expensive perfume in the air.

They were shown into their loge and she stood gazing out over the auditorium, filling up now, and at the other boxes all around as well. She felt hands on her shoulders, and started again.

‘Let me take your jacket,’ Leandros said.

She was reluctant to part with it, but he was already sliding it from her shoulders—and besides, she was already too warm. Yet with it gone she felt horribly exposed, knowing just how much of her flesh he was seeing—her shoulders, her arms, and the expanse of her décolletage that she had been unable to cover, even with the aid of the safety pins raising the drape of her bodice.

She sat herself down on one of the gilt and velvet chairs, leaning forward slightly to continue her perusal of the spectacular interior of the opera house—and to avoid having to pay any attention to Leandros. Her nerves were on edge, and she was supremely and uncomfortably conscious of her appearance, and of his presence behind her.

She heard him saying something in French to someone who seemed to have come into the back of the box, and she wondered if they were to share it. But then the exchange ceased, and instead she heard the sound of effervescent liquid being poured. A moment later Leandros was standing beside her, proffering a glass of lightly foaming champagne. She took it without thinking, and he raised his own glass to her. The light from the wall lamp threw his features into chiaroscuro, accentuating the planes of his face—hardening them, it seemed to her—and she felt herself tense.

‘To my very own Manon,’ he said.

His voice was as edged as a knife-blade inserted between her ribs.

‘My faithless fiancée...’

She paled—she could not help it. The blade in her flesh twisted, and she almost cried out in pain. Yet she had no defence against it.

She had only the glass of champagne he had bestowed upon her.

She took a mouthful, ignoring the delicate mousse, simply swallowing it down, needing to feel its impact. Yet for all that she could still feel her eyes sting, and she lowered her gaze, letting her mascara-laden eyelashes veil it from him. What good would it do to let him see her pain at his scathing taunt? He would only think she deserved to feel it.

And I know I have no defence to make.

She took another mouthful, welcoming its effervescence in her mouth, in her suddenly constricted throat, as she swallowed it down. She felt its kick and was glad. Grateful.

Leandros was taking the seat beside her—too close, far too close—angling his long legs away from her, then handing her a programme, which presumably had been delivered along with the bottle of champagne.

She was grateful for the programme, which gave her something to do other than knock back her champagne. She balanced the glass carefully on the unoccupied chair on her other side and bent her head to peruse the programme. It was in French, and she had to focus on trying to understand its explanation of the contents of each act. But she knew the sorry tale well enough—even though Manon had never been a favourite Puccini for her. How could it be with such a heroine?

Though ‘heroine’ was scarcely the word for her. She was vain and conceited and unrepentant, as well as faithless and venal.

Does Leandros truly think me as despicable as she was?

She reached for her champagne again to block the anguished question. As she did, she realised that the house lights were starting to dim, and the audience had taken their seats. The orchestra was done with tuning up, and a hush was descending over the auditorium. The emergence of the conductor—a famous name, she knew—heralded the start of the performance.

Setting aside her programme, she held the champagne glass instead, finding some comfort in sipping from it as the music sprang into life and the curtain rose on the first act, where the hapless lover, des Grieux, would meet the woman who would destroy his life.

Despite the innocuous opening scene, with its cheerful crowd and carefree students, how could she possibly enjoy so sad and sordid a story? Only when the tenor singing des Grieux—another famous name—launched into the celebrated aria, one of the best known of the opera, did she feel unwilling emotion welling up in her as the familiar cadences caught at her, caught her up in des Grieux’s headlong plunge into total, overwhelming love at first sight, swept away by so fatal an indulgence.

Yet it wasn’t des Grieux that she was thinking of.

I’m thinking of myself—falling for Leandros the very first time I set eyes on him.

The memory was in her head...instant—indelible.

‘Donna non vidi mai...’

Never did I see such a woman... sang the tenor, and the joy and wonder and passionate yearning in his voice soared above the orchestra, out over the audience, reaching up towards her.

Echoing within her.

For, just like des Grieux, never before had she seen someone who made it impossible to turn her head away. At that party in Glyfada, where they’d met, she’d fallen so totally in love in that very moment.

She felt her head turn now, powerless to stop it. Felt her gaze go to Leandros’s profile, carved as if from stone. Felt, as Puccini’s music soared around her in passionate voice and swelling orchestra, filling her head, her heart, something call from her out of nowhere, it seemed to her. And she was unprepared, unwarned...with emotion rising up in her—an emotion she had thought long extinguished, smothered and lifeless, for six long, bitter, painful, endless years.

But it had not been banished, not extinguished. It was still there, hidden deep inside her—and it was summoned now, against all reason, by the passion of the music. It powered up inside her, all the emotion that had once filled her and which she had thought could be no more, thought impossible. And she could not stop it—could not force it back, force it down, force it back into the oblivion where it needed to be—where it must be. For how else could she go on living?

For a moment she was blind as it swept over her, possessing her entirely. Repossessing her.

And then suddenly, unstoppably, it was sweeping from her, sweeping away all the tangled, tormenting, confusing and conflicting emotions that had plagued her since the moment she had set eyes on Leandros again, made the fateful decision to come here to Paris with him. And they had plagued her every hour since. Now they were simply gone—as if they had never been. Swept away to leave uncovered, unhidden, one emotion—only one—that had been there all along. That always would be...

She tore her gaze away, forced it back to the stage below as the aria ended. And yet she was shaken to the core, to the very core of her being, as she realised, saw and knew the truth that had been there all along, concealed in the heart of that tangled confusion of emotions.

Six years might have passed—she might have walked away from Leandros and she might have been wed and widowed since, might have buried the man she had married, with tears for his sad, sad fate—but nothing could now conceal from her what she knew, what blazed within her.

What she still felt—would always feel, could never not feel for Leandros, whatever happened, whatever life did to her...

I am here with him now, here with him again after so, so long. And though all he wants of me is what he has declared, that cannot, will not, and does not change what I now know—the truth I now know. About myself.

Unconsciously, she started to sip at her refilled glass again, letting her eyes rest on the stage below, watching the events unfolding that would eventually lead the lovers to their doom. Unconsciously, she let the music take over, flowing over her even as what was happening to her inside was flowing through her.

She knew they were the same—that they shared the same name, the same truth.

That however flawed, however doomed, however one-sided, love always survives somehow —impossible though it must seem.

And now she knew, with a certainty that filled her, that it was still true.

Leandros gave his polite social smile.

‘Permit me to introduce Madame Makris. A fellow Hellene, like myself.’

It was the interval, and they were mingling in the spectacular Grand Foyer. Eliana was at his side, drawing admiring glances all around. But how should that not be? Her beauty was radiant—breathtaking. Turning every head. Turning his...

He was glad of the obligation to make small talk with the couple to whom he was now introducing Eliana. The man was a business associate, the woman his wife—ultra-chic as only a Parisienne could be. Did the couple wonder why he was with a woman he had introduced as married? He gave a mental shrug. The French took such things in stride.

The couple smiled at Eliana, and Eliana murmured something in halting French, then stayed silent. Conversation focussed on the performance, and Eliana was asked what she thought of it. She made a polite comment about the soprano and the tenor, and then made an equally polite comment in careful French about the magnificence of their surroundings.

It felt strange to be in company with her. The last time had been six years ago—another lifetime. He pulled his memory away. There was no reason for it...no purpose. The woman at his side now was not the woman he had once thought her.

She never had been.

She had stripped his illusions from him—and the process had been painful. Perhaps it was retaliation, therefore, that made him say to her, as they headed back to their loge at the end of the interval, ‘The ice-blue of the gown suits you.’ His eyes rested on her now, half lidded. He gave a smile. One without humour. ‘As icy as your heart?’

She made no answer, but a look passed across her eyes that he did not recognise. Then, with a shock, he did. It was a look he had not expected to see from her.

Sadness.

‘You have reason to think so,’ she said quietly.

‘At least you have the grace to admit that.’ His voice was terse.

She looked at him. There was still that same expression in her eyes.

‘I admit everything, Leandros,’ she said, in that same quiet voice. ‘Everything I did to you.’

They reached their loge and took their seats again. Her words echoed in his head. And the sadness that had been in her voice. Then his mouth tightened. She might admit what she had done to him—but she had not said she regretted it.

And if she did regret it? Would it make a difference? Would I think less ill of her?

Restlessly, he crossed his legs as the curtain rose. He could catch the faint scent of Eliana’s perfume, hear the slight rustle of her gown as she slanted her legs away from his. The sense of her presence at his side in the dim light of the auditorium pressed against him. He focussed, instead, deliberately, on Puccini’s passionate music and the events unfolding on the stage, darkening to their desolate conclusion.

The faithless woman was dragging the hapless lover to his death, and hers. He should feel no pity for her—none. And yet as, in the final scene, Manon’s besotted lover staggered to seek water in the desert in which they were marooned, and Manon lifted her lovely head to cry out, despairing and agonised, against her fate— ‘sola, perduta, abbandonata’— lost, abandoned, alone—he could not help but feel her anguish.

He felt his eyes go to the woman at his side, sitting as motionless as he.

Abandoned and alone. Her husband dead, cast out by his ruthless father, all but destitute, scraping a living, bereft of all hope of anything better...

He felt emotion stab. It could not be pity. How could it be? She deserved none, had earned none. Not from him.

His expression hardened even as the final anguished notes from the dying lovers on stage brought down the curtain on the final act. There would be no second act for Eliana—not if she had hopes of one from him. He had brought her here only to rid himself of her—to exorcise her former power over him and to free himself.

That, and only that, was his purpose.

A purpose he must abide by. Or risk far too much...

‘What might tempt you?’

Leandros’s query made Eliana look up from the menu. After the performance they had removed, as it was popular to do, to the opera’s restaurant. Unlike the ornate Second Empire style of the rest of the building, the restaurant had been created as a startling contrast, with modernist style and lines—and a celebrity chef to entice those in the expensive seats to equally expensive post-performance dining.

‘I’m not quite sure,’ she answered now.

The gourmet menu was full of tempting possibilities, and she would be happy with any of them. Happy just to sit here and have Leandros across the table from her. She seemed, she thought, to be inhabiting a new world—it looked just like the one she had been in before, and yet it had changed. Profoundly, permanently. For there could be no going back now, she knew. She had faced the truth about herself. All that confusion and conflict within herself had gone.

Would it make her happy? No, that was impossible. Leandros’s justified bitterness was indelible—she knew that too, accepted it. Just as she accepted the truth of what Puccini’s heart-rending music had revealed to her. The truth about herself.

She let her gaze rest on Leandros, feeling again that upwelling of emotion that had come over her, accepting that truth—welcoming it. She was happy just to be here with him, discussing their dining options in the busy restaurant, with chatter and conversation all around them, other diners enjoying the gourmet offerings just as she and Leandros were about to do.

‘I’m having the lamb,’ Leandros was saying now. ‘I recommend it.’

‘Then, yes, the lamb,’ she agreed, setting aside the menu and agreeing, too, to his recommendation of a salmon and seafood first course.

He was back to being civil to her—no more cutting remarks likening her to Manon. She was glad of it, but she knew now that the pain it caused her did not matter any longer. His bitterness against her was as justified as ever—how could it not be?—but she knew she could not change that. Accepted that she could not. It was only she who had changed, not him, with her new self-knowledge, her new self-awareness. She was no longer confused, or denying, or conflicted. Only clear and certain.

As they dined, they made conversation, as they had that afternoon. Careful, yes, and civil, about neutral matters—the sights of Paris, what was of interest, history and art. Yet all the time she was aware of his eyes lingering on her as he reached for his wine, as he set aside his plate. He did not make it obvious, but it was there all the time.

She welcomed it.

Welcomed, too, her own answering response, knowing how much she wanted to let her gaze rest on him, glory in him...rejoice in what she knew he wanted of her...

Even though it could never match all that she wanted of him...

A sliver of a needle slid under her skin, but she accepted the pain. Leandros would not—could not—think differently about her. He desired her—and despised her. He had brought her here to Paris for the reason he had told her. That would not change. Only she had changed.

I told myself I owed it to him, that I could assuage my guilt at what I did to him by acceding to what he wants of me. That that was all I wanted. But I deceived myself—that was not all.

But now there was no more self-deception, no more denial. Not any more. Now, as his gaze lingered on her, she knew—with every passing moment, with every lingering glance exchanged between them, with her newfound clarity and certainty and acceptance, with all that was flowing within her, lifting her, changing her, quickening her—what tonight would bring.

For Leandros—and herself.