The rain thundered overhead.
‘I had another name once. Another identity, another life. In Greece.’
He swallowed down the frisson of fear. ‘Another name?’
She nodded.
Of all the things he could focus on, he chose her name. It seemed to symbolise all the unknowns. ‘So your name isn’t Augustini?’
‘It’s my second name. But only recently has anyone called me by it. Everyone but you calls me Augi. Or, in your case, Augustini.’ She paused, as if wanting to explain further but not wanting to give too much away. Still secretive. ‘No one in Greece called me Augi or Augustini. They call me — or used to call me,’ she corrected herself, ‘by my first name of Eleni.’
‘Eleni,’ he repeated, trying to fix it on her. But it didn’t work. ‘I can’t think of you as Eleni. You’re Augustini.’
‘You can’t think of me as anything, Daniel.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because my real name is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not the woman you think I am. And I can’t be with you while I hold those secrets.’
‘Then tell me them.’
‘I will never tell you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s none of your business. Only mine. Only mine and people who were dear to me in Greece.’
He didn’t know what kind of secrets she was talking about. Had she done something she was ashamed of? Been someone who she was ashamed of? Knew things which would endanger anyone who knew them? What exactly were these secrets?
But he could voice none of these things. Instead he shook his head in frustration. She was everything he feared. A woman who mattered and a woman who had a life she refused to share with him.
Dan stepped away from her, heart pounding, the rain suddenly too loud, the shelter too small. This — this — was exactly what he’d sworn never to walk into again.
And somehow, impossibly, he’d ridden straight toward it.
* * *
Augi didn’t think she’d ever seen such a dramatic change in anyone’s expression. One moment Dan had been warm, attentive and his eyes full of appreciation and interest. The next they were wary, hurt even. And she’d done that. But she’d had no choice, had she?
She turned away from him, not able to look at the effect of her words a moment longer. She walked over to the entrance of the shed and looked out at the rain. It had intensified if anything and was coming down in sheets, turning the park to a world of watery grey. She closed her eyes and for a moment imagined the men who’d have only had canvas above their heads, seventy years earlier.
The image softened her thoughts, diluting her pain.
‘We should leave,’ she said to Dan.
When he replied his voice came from directly behind her. She could imagine him staring at her, trying to crack the code of who she was through the way she stood, the set of her shoulders, the way she held her hands. But he wouldn’t find any clues there. She was a past-master at hiding in plain sight.
‘It’s still raining. We’ll get soaked.’
She noticed he didn’t argue. She drew in a deep breath and turned to face him, confident that her features wouldn’t betray her. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘You wait until the rain stops.’
Ever the gentleman. Except now he was a gentleman she’d pushed away so effectively that he couldn’t wait to leave. His eyes were wide with a kind of desperate longing. It made her want to rage against him to tell him that he didn’t know how lucky he was to be born into his life, to be cushioned by love and care and to never want for either. It made her want to grab him and demand that he love her despite her secrets, or even because of them. But instead she resorted to chilly words.
‘OK. Go then. I can see you can’t wait.’
‘You’re angry,’ he said.
