His smile was mesmerising. ‘I grew up about thirty miles to the south. I spent time there, as a child. It’s very beautiful. Why Katanos? It’s not really on the tourist track.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s where my parents went on their honeymoon. We had a photograph of the harbour, in our lounge room, when I was a girl. I used to look at it and imagine I was a mermaid, diving deep into the ocean, losing myself in that crystal-clear turquoise water. I’m not sure when I consciously decided to come here, but after the divorce, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I wanted to be. Strange, right?’
‘Are you close to your mother?’
Genevieve’s heart twisted. She shook her head once. ‘She passed away a while ago.’ She cleared her throat. ‘She had a series of strokes,’ Genevieve said. ‘She was hospitalised for a long time, and then, one night…’
Nikos pushed up onto his elbow, so they were like bookends in bed, facing one another. ‘I’m sorry.’
He frowned, eyes roaming her face thoughtfully. ‘Did she like your husband?’
‘James,’ she said, slanting a glance at him, figuring it made sense for him to know her husband’s name, seeing as they were speaking of him so often. ‘My ex-husband’s name is James J. Wilson the third. As you can guess from that mouthful, he’s from old money. The prevailing opinion was that I was very lucky to have snagged him.’ She rolled her eyes.
Nikos made a sound of disapproval.
‘And yes, my mother adored him. Once upon a time, my parents had money, too. My father came from one of those political families, so, on paper, we were a good match. But in reality, I hated that life and lifestyle. It wasn’t for me.’
‘Your father was a politician?’
She nodded, opening her mouth to speak, then slamming it shut. She’d told James about her father, and he’d held that over her almost from that night, threatening to expose her father, to ruin his legacy. But somehow, she just knew she could trust Nikos. That he’d never, ever do something so unscrupulous. ‘He was a politician, yes, with a serious penchant for gambling, which wasn’t apparent until after his death. We were left with a heap of debt.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’
He made a sound, querying that.
‘I never talk about it.’ Except for one time, and she’d lived to regret that. But with Nikos, it just felt…different.
He reached out, pressing a finger to her shoulder and shifting it downwards. ‘You worship him.’
Her smile was soft. ‘I suppose I do, yes. He was a kind man. I wish… His gambling, the fact he hid it all from Mom, was obviously wrong. I know he must have carried a lot of shame, and regret, but I wish he’d been honest with her. Not least because she might have been able to help him,’ Genevieve added. ‘So when a rich, handsome senator came into my life and started pursuing me as though his life depended on it, Mom was all too keen to buy into the whole thing. A fairy tale, she called it. I think she had a fantasy of James being able to turn us back into what we once were. Instead, it turned into a horror show.’
Nikos moved forward, so their naked bodies were connected, touching leg to leg, chest to chest. His eyes bore into hers with an intensity that took her breath away. ‘Did he hurt you, Genevieve?’
‘No,’ she said, then frowned, because that wasn’t strictly true. ‘I mean, he never hit me or anything.’
‘That is not the only way to hurt someone.’
And there was something about this room, this man, the flickering fire, the heavenly sensations in her body, that made her open herself completely to him. ‘He was cold and cruel,’ she admitted. ‘Nothing I did was ever good enough for him. I was expected to be the perfect political asset and yet I constantly fell short of his expectations. Things between us…’ she flushed to the roots of her hair ‘…in bed, I mean, were…lacklustre, and he made it clear that was my fault.’
The scoffing sound Nikos made should have warmed her, but Genevieve was back in the past, the ice spreading through her veins, so she barely heard him.
‘He cheated, and blamed me. If I’d been a better wife, a better lover, more satisfying, he wouldn’t have needed to stray.’ She said the words with disdain, showing how little she believed them now. But at the time, when she’d been under his spell, and captive in his home, dependent on him completely, she’d taken each and every sledge to the heart, letting it shape her entire world view.
‘Bastard,’ Nikos ground out, his indignation bringing a small smile to her face.
‘Yes.’ How could she argue with that? ‘At first, he was careful to keep the affairs secret, and I pretended I didn’t know. That I didn’t see.’ Her skin felt cold and clammy. ‘Then one of his mistresses went to the press. The story broke, and that’s when things got really bad. Somehow, that was my fault too,’ she murmured. ‘I tried to leave him then, but he made it obvious he would make my life very, very difficult if I walked out.’
‘Difficult how?’ There was a darkness to his tone that set her pulse racing. A protectiveness that she’d never known from anyone. It wasn’t until that moment that Genevieve realised how long she’d been doing this on her own, fighting all her own battles, bearing her own scars.
‘Let’s just say he’s not someone I want to get on the bad side of.’
Nikos frowned.
‘I feel so stupid,’ she admitted. ‘I really wanted to believe him. To believe that he loved me, that we’d live happily ever after. I bought into the fairy tale, but he was a monster.’
Nikos made another noise, and then his mouth was claiming hers, kissing her until she tasted the salt of her tears.
‘You deserved so much better,’ he said, with so much darkness she felt it pierce something deep in her soul, conversely letting light in for the first time in years. It didn’t occur to her—how could it have?—that he wasn’t really speaking to her, so much as a figment of his past. It didn’t matter, anyway. The warming effect was the same.
Chapter Six
