‘You really think ending this is what’s best for me?’
‘Yes. I want what’s best for you, Bethan. I like you.’
Like. Notlove. It punched. But she didn’t believe him.
‘Yet you made love to me last night.’ Rebellious—resentful—she lifted her chin in the face of his icy demeanour. ‘That is what you did, Ares. And I made love right back to you.’
‘We both knew it was the last time,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s why it felt...’
She waited but he didn’t finish. She could guess the rest anyway—why it feltspecial.
He was wrong. He was grasping for reasons to push her away. The problem was she now hurt too much to be able to think—too confused and flustered to fight effectively.
‘Just go to the lawyer now,’ he ordered harshly. ‘The divorce should be processed in less than a fortnight. I need to go to work.’ He strode past her.
She didn’t try to block him. There was no stopping Ares when he was this determined but her words escaped anyway in a final futile attempt.
‘You’re running away. You’re a coward.’
He paused but didn’t turn to face her. ‘I’m sorry, Bethan. I can’t be what you want.’
Chapter Twelve
Bethan sat bythe garret window and pulled the small trolley nearer her table. There was nothing better than work. Particularly painstaking, fine-detailed, miniature-scale work that took every ounce of her concentration and dexterity. It was the only balm that could soothe her tortured brain. She worked—long hours, late nights. When she got home she worked on other projects. Phoebe was going to have to birth octuplets to utilise all the baby blankets Bethan had knitted for her in this desperate surge of productivity. Despite working until her eyes and arms ached, she couldn’t sleep. Could only overthink. Only yearn. Only grow angrier. Her eyes were tired and sore—from working, not crying. She glanced out of the window yet again to rest them. Not so secretly hoping to see Ares striding along the footpath. She never did.
I chase after no one.
He hadn’t before. He wouldn’t now. She just needed to get over him. She’d arrived back in London to find Phoebe had gone abroad—working on things with the father of her baby—while Elodie also was away. It was actually good to have some time to process it internally before trying to talk to them. As there was a new manager for the escape room, Bethan was free to quietly work on various props plus her personal pieces from the small studio she had on the top floor of the central London building. She would rebuild her life. She was lunching later in the week with Elodie’s sister, Ashleigh—she wouldnotbe wrecked for ever. She’d survived this once and she would survive it again. Only this time she was more furious. This time she understood so much more. The man wasbone-headed. Stubbornly isolating himself when he didn’t have to and denying them botheverything.
Yes,she’dbeen a romantic but that didn’t mean she’d beenallwrong. Love healed. Humans craved company and community and they needed it. She had changed—some—in the years they’d been apart. She’d gone from shy and awkwardly babbling to confidently keeping her counsel.Thinkingbefore speaking. Thinking beforedoing. Though she’d lost all that progress the second she’d faced Ares again. He got to her like no one else. Hematteredlike no one else. And she wanted to love him. But he didn’t want that.
He hadn’t run away from the expectations and the pressure of the Vasiliadis family. He’d fought his way to the top—not to take power and control, not even to get his revenge, but because beneath it all he’d ached for their acceptance. And never gotten it.
She’d offered him more than acceptance. She’d offered him her heart. Unconditionally. Of course it mightn’t be easy because they each had baggage but they could—would—be amazing. But he wasn’t willing to risk whatever heart he had left.
Ares sipped the scalding coffee. There wasn’t a pain in his chest any more. It wasn’t hard to breathe. There wasn’t a constant sense of impending terror. Honestly, there was nothing. He was hollow. And it was good.
Four days had passed since he’d walked out. Theo had driven her to the lawyer, she’d made her declaration, the required paperwork had been filed. She’d boarded the first commercial flight, rejecting the offer of Ares’s private jet. All her things were cleared from his Athens apartment and it shouldn’t be long before he received the divorce decree.
Filled with his restless, boundless energy of old he worked—able to sustain long hours easily as he had before. The source was cold rage. It had served him well for so long and he was on a roll. He would go to the villa at the weekend. Going back there would only confirm that he’d done the right thing. He would reclaim it as he already had the apartment. Exorcise the ghost of her for good.
But when the helicopter landed on Avra a few days later, he had to brace. There were more than memories here, there werethings...
Or there had been. Stunned, Ares walked from the bedroom to the studio to the lounge.Everythingof hers was gone—the things he’d bought her, the things she’d made, the tools and supplies. The only thing that remained was the sculpture he’d bought at the auction. He phoned Theo, who explained that she’d asked for everything—her clothes and supplies—to be boxed up and donated.Donated.
‘You’ve done it so quickly.’ Ares absently rubbed the hollow in his chest as he glanced around the spotless, empty studio.
‘Should we not have?’ Theo sounded worried. ‘I can—’
‘It’s fine. You did as she asked, which was correct. Thank you.’
There was a rubber band on the table, but no knot in the middle of it. No scraps of this or that. No more balls of yarn tucked about the place. In less than a week she’d filled the villa with projects in varying states of completion but now all remnants of them were gone.
He went outside to the bins and lifted the lids. They’d been emptied already. His staff were that efficient. But at the very bottom he saw a couple of threads. Wool the colour of the kind she’d bound him to bed with on the boat.
She’d gotten rid of everything he’d given her. He released a long sigh and leaned against the wall of the house as that endless rage suddenly and completely evaporated. Exhaustion hit. Instant and crippling. He sank to the ground. It wasn’t his chest that hurt, but everything. The inescapable, bone-deep ache intensified. The flu, no?
He dragged himself inside. Fell onto the bed. Spent twenty-four hours wrapped in blankets. But there was no fever, only that ache. The erosion of his control was complete, leaving him facing the endless reality of being utterly alone.
