CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

E LIANA WAS DREAMING . It was the sweetest dream she had ever had. She was warm and safe and tucked under a strong, protective arm, her body nestled back against another body, fitting into the curve of it as if it were the only place in all the world for her to be. She felt herself smile in her dream...a contented, happy smile...knowing with a certainty that was permeating through her, sure and blessed, that this was the only place she ever wanted to be.

Had ever wanted to be...

A happy, contented sigh breathed from her and she snuggled back more still against the warm, protective body cradling her, the strong arm holding her close, holding her safe...

Safe from all the sorrows and difficulties of her life...from all the grief and the sacrifice, all the loss and heartache.

From all the guilt.

She went on dreaming. This was the sweetest dream she had ever had...

Light was filtering through the heavy drapes across the windows, slowly rousing Leandros to consciousness. But he did not want to wake. He was fine as he was...where he was. Just fine. His arm was over Eliana, and somehow his own body was cradling hers, separated from him only by the cotton of her nightgown. It felt good. So very, very good.

He hovered a while between sleeping and waking, but slowly the latter gained ground, as daylight played on his closed eyelids. He opened them, seeing first the glorious swathe of pale golden hair across the pillow, exposing the tender curve of Eliana’s neck. He could not resist it. He moved slightly to drop a kiss on her nape, as lightly as a feather.

Would it rouse her? He didn’t know—knew only that her limbs were starting to stretch languorously, her low breathing changing subtly. He stilled. Full consciousness came to him, and the memory of all that the night had brought.

He eased away from her, sliding out of his side of the bed, sitting for a moment, taking in all that had happened. His mind was unsure, uncertain.

He twisted his head, looked back at where Eliana had slipped back into sleep again, lying still. He could not see her face—he had been holding her from behind—only that glorious swathe of hair across the pillow and the tender nape he had just kissed.

For one moment longer he felt that uncertainty, confusion, hold on to his head. Then, with a decision he had not known he had already made, he let it fall away. Oh, it might still be there somewhere, ready to rise again, to pluck at him, disquiet him, but right now...

He got to his feet, walked across to the windows, drew back the drapes. Sunshine flooded in, mild and autumnal, filling the room. He glanced out of the window. The roofs of Paris stretched beyond...the whole city stretched beyond. Inviting and entrancing. He gave a smile. The day looked good.

He padded quietly from the room. Out in the drawing room he phoned through to the butler, ordering breakfast to be served. While he waited he went back into his bedroom, not disturbing Eliana, but whisking away the remains of their midnight milk and coffee, busying himself with the washing up, finishing just as breakfast arrived.

The aroma of fresh coffee filled the air, and of freshly baked croissants, rolls and pastries, along with the crisp tang of freshly squeezed orange juice. He thanked the butler, then dismissed him, wheeling the trolley carefully into his bedroom.

He paused by the bed. ‘Breakfast, madame , is served,’ he announced.

His voice was warm, and his mood, he knew, with a sudden lightening that came as a gift of the morning, of the day ahead, was the best he had known for a long time.

And it stayed good.

And he knew it would stay good all through the leisurely breakfast in bed he would have with Eliana beside him.

She stirred as he made his announcement, and groped herself up into a sitting position, pushing back her long, tangled hair and looking at him. Her expression was uncertain, and he knew that memory was piercing her too, that she didn’t know how she should be now, this morning after the night before.

He made it easy for her. Smiled down at her.

‘Let’s just have breakfast, shall we?’ he said.

And in those words were words unspoken—words that did not need to be spoken yet. He did not even know what they would be—what they should be. So as he didn’t know what those words should be, he set them aside, sticking to words he knew he could say...wanted to say.

‘It’s a glorious morning,’ he said. He paused. ‘Let’s just take things as they come.’

He’d said enough. He could see in her expression that she was glad of his words, for the sudden confusion and tension that had been there a moment earlier had ebbed away. In its place was a new expression, and one that caught at him.

Shyness.

As if finding herself in my bed is something she had not expected.

But then a rueful thought darted in him pointedly. There was a lot about Eliana that he had not expected.

He put it from him—he’d resolved not to go down that complex and confusing path. Not this morning...not this day.

He pulled the breakfast trolley against his side of the bed as he slid back in under the quilt, propping himself comfortably on his piled-up pillows.

‘OJ to start with?’ he asked, turning back to Eliana.

‘Oh, yes—thank you,’ she said.

She sounded a touch awkward, but he glossed it over. He didn’t want her feeling awkward, or shy, or feeling anything other than that it was good to be sitting with him, side by side, on this glorious morning, with all of Paris awaiting them for the day.

He poured her a glass and handed it to her. Her fingers, he noticed, were careful not to touch his. He did not mind. It was not rejection, he knew, only self-conscious shyness.

A thought came to him, flickering in his mind.

That was the way she’d have been after our first night together, on our honeymoon...

Another thought, a realisation, came hard on its heels.

But this was our first night together...

It hung in his head for a moment—but there were too many other currents, too much confusion, too much shock circling around that truth and he would not deal with it. Not now. Not when he’d resolved, as he had just said to her, to take the day as it came. And right now it was coming with breakfast in bed, to be consumed enjoyably and leisurely.

Companionably.

That was what he felt, sitting back again with his own glass of orange juice. He let her be...let her get used to being here, like this, with him.

OJ consumed, he asked her what she might like to eat, then handed her a personal tray with croissants, butter pats and apricot jam, and a cup of coffee with hot milk. She placed it on her bedside table.

He got stuck in to his own breakfast—a more robust, seeded roll, with butter and a dollop of blackcurrant jam. He was hungry, and it went down quickly, and he reached for another.

At his side, Eliana was neatly getting through her croissant.

‘You can’t beat the French for breakfast in bed,’ he said, helping himself to yet another roll. ‘Though for a really substantial experience I’d always vote for a—what’s that expression?—a full English. Bacon and eggs, smoked kippers, devilled kidneys—the works!’ he said humorously.

He glanced at Eliana. She was more at ease now, he could tell, as if she was getting used to sitting here beside him. He wanted her to be at ease.

We’re starting afresh.

The words were in his head and he knew them to be true. Knew it with that same lightening of his spirit that had come as he had got out of bed, welcomed the new day, the new start.

What had gone before in their lives was still there—how could it not be? But last night had changed things. Though just how he still did not quite know for sure...

But he wasn’t going to work that out now.

For now, he was going to do just what he’d said—take the day as it came.

For now, that was all he wanted.

Eliana sat back on the padded seat on the deck of the river cruiser. They were heading down the Seine to Giverny, to see Monet’s famous gardens. The sun was warm on her, the breeze off the river as the cruiser gently made its way downstream pleasant on her face.

Outwardly, she and Leandros were spending the day much as they had the previous afternoon—sightseeing. And yet it felt fundamentally different. It was fundamentally different, she knew.

And it was not just because of what she had realised so undeniably the evening before, feeling Puccini’s heartrending music pierce her own blind heart, piercing so much repression and denial, declaring to her the truth about herself and about why she had agreed to come here with Leandros.

Yes, that had changed her completely—she knew it and accepted it.

But it isn’t just me who is changed.

Last night—as she had yielded willingly, wantonly, discovering in herself a passion and a sensuality to which she had given herself completely, knowing the truth about herself and accepting it, acknowledging it, instead of denying it and suppressing it—the revelation of her virginity had shocked Leandros to the core.

She bit her lip now, still troubled at how it had happened.

I didn’t think he’d find out—I didn’t realise just how...obvious...it would be!

Her marriage to Damian and the constrictions under which she had made it had no relevance to the truth she had faced up to as she’d sat in that loge at the opera and watched the two ill-fated lovers on the stage below, tormented and tormenting, destroying their own lives by the decisions they made. And yet, for all that, love had survived—even if the lovers themselves had not.

So it is with me.

She had given up on what she had once felt for Leandros six long years ago—buried it deep under the guilt she felt for what she had done. Yet it had survived despite what she’d done, despite the fateful decision she’d made all those years ago to abandon him, reject him.

Her eyes went to him now. He was standing a little way from her, but not far, leaning on the railing, looking out over the river at the passing scenery as Paris gave way to the countryside of Normandy. He looked relaxed, at ease, and she was glad—and grateful.

With feminine instinct and a little pang, she knew that his discovery that her marriage to Damian had been celibate had come as welcome news. That it had lessened, in some way, his sense of rejection by her when she had married Damian and not him.

Does he think it part of the retribution I deserved? To be denied a normal marriage with the husband I had chosen over him?

No—there had been no sense of that in him. And that knowledge, that certainty that came from somewhere she knew not where, warmed her.

Her expression softened as her gaze fixed on him, the breeze ruffling his sable hair, the sleeves of his jumper pushed up to show his strong, tanned forearms as he leant against the railing. And the way he was being with her now warmed her too.

He’d been different from the moment she’d woken. Woken from that dream—the sweetest dream in all the world. A dream that had, as she’d woken, suddenly been no dream. Leandros truly had held her close, protected her, all night long...

Emotion welled in her, but there was sadness too. Sadness for all that might have been in her life. It pierced her now, the knowledge that however last evening and last night had changed things between them, it could never make right all that had gone wrong.

But for now, in this moment, this day, during this time with him, given to her as a blessing that she had never thought could be hers, what she had was enough.

‘You can see why Monet loved his gardens so much,’ Leandros said. ‘Immortalising them in so many paintings.’

After the tour of Monet’s house and gardens, he had repaired with Eliana for a late lunch in a nearby restaurant with a vine-covered terrace, busy with other visitors. The day was still warm enough to sit out, though he was glad of his lightweight sweater. Eliana wore a short-sleeved top with a matching bolero-style cardigan around her shoulders, paired with a flared skirt—all part of the wardrobe he’d supplied her with the previous day.

His gaze lingered—and yet it was not the gaze of the previous day, veiled and assessing, holding at bay the part of his mind that was deploring the rashness of his decision to have anything to do with Eliana ever again, presenting her with an outward civility that masked the turbid, bitter emotions that warred with the driving desire for all that he sought only to sate and quench. To be free of for ever by indulging it. To taste and take the beauty that tormented him...

No, now it was less her beauty that held him—more her expression. He wanted to read it—be reassured by it.

‘It was a good place to live out his life,’ she answered now, her tone ruminative. ‘There is always peace to be found in a garden.’

There was a softness in her eyes, as if she were thinking of more than Monet’s garden.

‘The garden at your father’s villa was beautiful, as I remember,’ he heard himself saying.

‘Yes, it was always a comfort to him—as was the villa itself. He loved them dearly. I was always glad—’

She broke off, busying herself with breaking open her bread roll as they waited for their food to arrive.

‘Glad?’ he prompted.

She lifted her eyes and looked across at him. ‘Glad he was able to end his days there.’

‘Were you able to be with him?’

‘Yes—Jonas granted me that, and I was grateful. After his stroke, my father...lingered...for two months. I stayed there for the duration.’

Leandros’s eyes rested on her. There was a sadness in her face now, and he felt it pull at him.

‘I...I heard that the villa will now pass to Damian’s cousin.’ He felt uncomfortable saying it, but he did not mean it cruelly. Just the reverse.

Her marriage had not been easy. For whatever venal reason she’d made it, she had paid a high price for the rich living that was so important to her that she could not do without it.

She could not face poverty—even with me to share it with. She wanted what she was born to, and the threat of losing it made her reject me.

‘Yes. Vassily will get it now—unless Jonas sells it, or pulls it down and replaces it with something modern, then sells that at a greater profit still. It’s his business, after all, and how he made his money. Construction.’

‘Or destruction,’ Leandros riposted tightly. ‘I only visited once, but it deserves keeping—whoever owns it.’

Leandros frowned again. Her father-in-law had driven a hard bargain when Eliana had married his son.

But it gave her what she wanted—she lived the high life with Damian.

Even if a celibate one...

A childless one.

He looked at her. ‘Did you never think to give Jonas the grandchild he was set on? Even if Damian was gay, there was always the choice of conceiving through IVF and so on.’

She shook her head. ‘Damian didn’t want that,’ she said.

She spoke calmly enough, but her expression was evasive. Leandros studied it.

‘And you didn’t want a child either?’ he asked. ‘A child would have ensured that you would still be part of Jonas’s family now—he would not have cast you off as he has. Reduced you to the poverty I found you in.’

She didn’t answer. The waitress came up with their dishes, placing them down in front of them, then heading off again. The moment passed, and Leandros let it. What point was there in probing Eliana’s marriage? He would not disturb the day. There had been revelations enough last night—confusion and complexities. Today he wanted only ease and peace and Eliana at his side.

To pass the day as they were doing.

Companionably.

That word came again, just as it had come to him over breakfast, and then as they’d headed down river to take their leisurely, easy, peaceful cruise to Giverny, to explore the magical gardens of Monet’s water lilies away from the cares and troubles of life, whether past or present.

He got stuck into his steak frites—simple, traditional French food—and washed it down with table wine, robust and drinkable. Eliana was eating fish, nothing delicate or sauced, but a grilled fillet of white fish, served with pommes parmentier and green beans.

He turned the conversation back to Monet, and to what they had seen.

‘Though the water garden is extraordinary, and of course the famous Japanese-style bridge, and all the even more famous waterlilies, I don’t like that it’s separated from the house and the immediate garden of the house. Going through that linking tunnel was a disappointment.’

‘Yes, I agree. It would be much better to have a house whose gardens encircled it—but then Monet had to buy what became the water garden from a neighbour, so I suppose that limited him.’

Leandros looked across at her. ‘What kind of house and garden would you ideally like?’

The moment he spoke he regretted it. She would answer and say it was her father’s villa, and that was lost to her.

Unless her next husband bought it back for her.

Next husband?

He had taunted her with being on the lookout for another rich husband to ensure she never had to face the poverty she’d always been determined not to experience—had bribed her, if it came to that, into agreeing to coming to Paris with him by saying he’d kit her out with a wardrobe suitable for ensnaring another rich husband—or even merely a rich lover.

And I’d move on once I had done with her.

He felt his jaw clench. Had he really thought that? Said that? Taunted her with it?

And I taunted her last evening, calling her Manon for betraying and rejecting a poor lover for a rich protector.

No—he would not go down that path again. Not now—not today.

Things had changed between them. Just how he did not know, and he did not want to. Not right now. Not today.

Nor the next day either. Or the one after that.

For now...

Just take the day as it comes.

And he knew—as he had known that morning, and knew now as he sat here with her, companionably, over lunch at this simple restaurant, eating a simple meal, having wandered in the gardens at Monet’s house, with the afternoon and the rest of the day before them—that it was enough.

Eliana set her knife and fork down on the plate, feeling replete, reaching for her glass of wine. Dappled sunshine shone through the vines shading the terraced seating area and played on her face. Her mood was strange—yet peaceful. Despite Leandros asking her those questions.

Had she wanted to answer them?

All but one.

And that she had avoided. Must avoid. He would not be interested anyway, so what did it matter?

That he was asking questions at all was...was what? Curious? Surprising? Unexpected? Perhaps predictable. The revelation last night of how her marriage to Damian had not been what he’d assumed invited questions.

Not that her answers to any of them mattered—any more than why she and Damian had never tried to have a child.

None of it matters, because no answer I give can ever justify what I did to Leandros.

That was all there was to it—all the truth that it was necessary for her to face.

And the truth she had discovered last evening.

Her eyes went to him now, softening as they did so, and emotion flowed within her, strong and irrefutable. That was all that mattered to her now as she sat here with him, in this time she had.

It would not last. How could it? He had brought her here to free himself of her, purge himself of her, to take from her all that was left of what he’d once wanted.

And I will give it to him—freely and willingly. Even if it is all he wants of me, it is his...

Last night—and the debacle that had ended it—had merely been a...a delay...that was all. Now, tonight, she would be different—fulfilled.

All that he wants—and all that I want to give.

She felt that precious emotion flow again within her, warming her and comforting her. She would pay a price for it—as she had six years ago—but for now, this now, it would be her joy and her gift to him. And now she knew, with that certainty that had filled her since the discovery of the truth about why she had come to Paris with Leandros, that it was a gift to herself too.

‘Shall we eat in tonight?’

Leandros’s enquiry was tentative as they made their way back into their hotel. She might prefer to go out—see and be seen. If so, he would oblige. He was being...considerate. That was the word that came to him. Going easy on her, as he had all day, because—

Well, because. That was all. Still taking the day as it came.

And it’s been good today.

The river cruise, the gentle ambling around Monet’s gardens, a leisurely lunch, some more ambling around the village of Giverny itself, then back to the river to glide serenely back upstream to Paris, looking out over the riverbanks that another painter, Seurat, had made equally as famous as Monet’s waterlilies, with his river-bathing youths and his bourgeois promenaders along La Grande Jatte, immortalised in his trademark pointilliste style.

They had discussed it amiably, agreeing to differ—Eliana preferring the beauty of Monet, he the technical brilliance of Seurat.

We used to agree to differ all the time...

Even with her sheltered upbringing—or was it because of it, perhaps?—Eliana had been happy to disagree with him. It had been a novelty for him—the females he’d favoured had tended to agree with him. Too eagerly.

I called Eliana naive, overprotected by her doting father. But was I, in turn, spoilt by my looks and my wealth? Did I take it for granted that I could always have what I wanted? Feel entitled to it?

It was a disquieting thought. If it were true, then had it only exacerbated the blow of Eliana’s rejection of him? And besides...

I knew my father was only testing her, warning her he would disinherit me if I married her. I knew he only wanted her to prove her love for me—get her to marry me even with the threat of disinheritance and then relent. He would never have gone through with it. Would even have bailed out her father.

But Eliana had not known that. Had only known that if she went through with marrying him there would be no money—no money to keep her in the lifestyle she was used to, which she could not face losing when her father ran out of money.

So she had chosen Damian instead—and lived to see her father die, and all that he possessed pass to her father-in-law. Lived to face the very poverty she had married to avoid.

Come full circle.

Karma? Was that the word for it?

What we flee from we must eventually face?

The door to the elevator was slicing open, cutting off his thoughts. He was glad. He wanted to go back to his mandate for the day—to take things as they came.

And that included Eliana’s preference for dinner.

She glanced at him as they entered the Résidence.

‘That would be good...eating in,’ she said.

‘I think so too,’ he affirmed. ‘How about some coffee now?’

‘I’d prefer tea,’ she answered. ‘But let me make it—and your coffee. Silly to summon the butler.’

She headed for the kitchen and Leandros followed her, discovering that a platter of fresh patisserie had been left for them. It looked good, and lunch had been a while ago now. He lifted a cherry, succulent and inviting, from the top of one of the mouth-watering selections, and realised that Eliana, kettle in hand, was looking at him, her expression strange.

‘You used to pick the nuts off the baklava,’ she said. ‘Even though they were tiny and covered in syrup.’

‘So I did,’ he recalled. He’d forgotten. ‘Then you’d dampen your serviette with water from your glass and hand it to me to wipe my sticky fingers...’

So long ago...so slight a gesture...so slight a memory.

And yet—

He put it from him. It was the present he was dealing with. And one issue in particular.

‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘whether you’d like another bath.’

She looked at him blankly.

He busied himself with the coffee machine, selecting his choice.

‘After last night,’ he said. ‘In case—well, in case...’

He looked up, straight at her. He must say what he wanted to say. Needed to say.

‘Last night...it changes things. So I want you to know—’ He broke off. Then made himself go on. ‘I expect nothing now, Eliana. Not any more.’

Where that had come from he didn’t know. Knew only that he had needed to say it. That, in the end, was that what this day had been about—separating what had been before from what now was.

He was looking at her still. He could not read her face, nor her stillness. He went on speaking.

‘So we’ll just go on taking things as they come, OK? We can be as...as we are now. We can go on with our visit to Paris. Or...’ he took a breath ‘...I can take you back to Thessaloniki, if that is what you prefer. It’s...it’s your call.’ A thought struck him. ‘Everything I bought you yesterday—all the clothes—obviously you will take them with you. That goes without saying. Anyway,’ he carried on, wanting her to understand, ‘for this evening, at least, let’s just do what we agreed—eat in, take it easy...whatever.’

He paused again. She was still looking at him, her expression still unreadable. He needed a way out of there, so he took it, lifting up the platter of patisserie .

‘I’ll take these through,’ he said, and got out.

Not knowing if he felt relief or its very opposite.

Or both.

Or why.

Eliana deposited her tea and Leandros’s coffee on the low table by the sofa. Leandros was at one end, and he switched on the TV to an English language news channel. Her mind was still processing what Leandros had just said to her. She busied herself pouring milk into her tea, and Leandros did likewise for his coffee, then pushed the platter of patisserie towards her.

She selected one of the enticing-looking confections, depositing it on one of the two small plates she’d brought through for that purpose, handing the other plate to Leandros so he could make his selection. A small gesture...an intimate one.

A domestic one.

As if—

No—there was no ‘as if’ about it. She hadn’t married him, she had never been his wife, and she never would be. Whatever was happening now had no domesticity to it at all.

Does he really want me to go back to Thessaloniki? Does he regret bringing me here?

She didn’t know and couldn’t tell. Knew only, with a clutch of emotion that she kept tight within her, what it was that she wanted.

In this sea of past bitterness and present doubt, of that she was sure.

I don’t want to leave him—whatever he might want of me here, and however briefly. While he wants anything of me at all, I don’t want to leave him.

Because this time, she knew, was all she would have—all she could ever have—of the man she had once loved and knew she still did.