Now, as her words replayed in her head, she knew, with a flush of shame, that she should have said more.
That I had given him every reason to think he could make an offer like that to me. Why shouldn’t he think that? He swept me up into his luxury lifestyle. Wined and dined me at expensive restaurants and picked up the tab for everything. Paid for all those couture clothes he bought for me to wear, that diamondpendant and all the jewellery he said he wanted to buy for me.
Buy me with—
Her face contorted. Oh, she had told herself she was only letting him make her look so expensively glamorous to show how far he’d come from being that abused, neglected, impoverished boy from the backstreets of Athens, but she’d worn them all the same, hadn’t she? She’d let him lavish his wealth on her and she’d gone along with all of it. No wonder he’d thought he could offer to give her themas.
Buy her with that.
Anguish stabbed her, piercing through the flush of shame. Filling her with a longing so great, a sense of loss so deep, that she could not bear it.
I could have had Lycos. And my home back.
Her nails dug into the palms of her hands and she welcomed the pain. Deserved it.
Because he offered me exactly what I had dreamt of! That stupid, dangerous dream that he and I could make our home at themas.That I would lose neither him, nor my home.
Yet the offer he’d made her had been poison.
Her cruel denunciation of him rang in her ears.
‘You’ve tried to buy me, Lycos! And I’m appalled by it! I’ve never thought you capable of that! Just like I never thought you capable of behaving the way you did last night, demolishing that wretched boy! You should have refused to play with him! You’re hard and callous and ruthless and I’ve seen a side of you I don’t like, and I don’t want to be with!’
He’d made no reply, no defence. Only watched her, his face closed, as she’d snatched up her clothes—her own clothes, not the couture outfits that his money had purchased—stuffing them into her suitcase. At the door she’d turned. He hadn’t moved. Her eyes had rested on him, stony and implacable, as she’d toldhim,‘I’m sorry. Sorry it’s come to this. Sorry it’s ended like this. Just…sorry.’
She’d been unable to say more and what more had there been to say? Except one last thing. Her voice broken.
‘I didn’t know you, Lycos. I thought I did, but I didn’t. Now I do.’
She’d walked out and he’d made no attempt to stop her.
And that, she knew as she felt tears sting like acid beneath her tightly closed eyelids and as the Eurostar bore her relentlessly away from him, had been the worst of all…
Chapter Twelve
Lycos nosed hiscar forward along the stony driveway. It had rained recently and the sky was overcast. Getting out of the car he felt the chill of the mistral on his back—the cold north-westerly wind that plagued Provence in the autumn and winter. He looked about him.
Themaslooked drear and deserted. The faded blue shutters were closed on all the windows and the stone walls un-warmed by any sunshine.
He felt the hollow inside him gape wider.
It had been there for a long, long time now. It had started as he’d watched Arielle walking out of the hotel bedroom, not believing that she was doing so. The shock of it knifing through him, hollowing him out.
He hadn’t known what to do.
Nor did he still.
He stood staring at themas,trying to work out what he felt, but it was impossible. The hollow inside him seemed to make him numb. He went into the courtyard, the cobbles wet from rain, his footsteps ringing damply on the stone.
It was very quiet and deserted. The livestock was all gone, having been transported to the neighbouring farm. He walked through into the gardens. The rain and autumn had bleached the colour from it. The lavender was full of brown deadheads. The geraniums were limp and drooping. The leaves from the trees remained un-swept and unraked. The pool had been coveredover, the sun loungers packed away. Water dripped off the roses, which were bereft of any blooms.
He stood awhile, the hollow widening within him.
Becoming wide enough to swallow him up completely.
What am I to do?
The words took physical shape in his head. Hanging there as if heavy weights.
