Butthiswas temporary. This fling, or whatever it could be called, was like quicksand. Not real, not permanent, just a very temporary state of affairs. He wished he didn’t know her last name, in a way, because he wanted the insurance policy against reaching out to her again. He wanted to know that when she left the island, that would be the end of it.
Because she made him feel good, and warm. In some brief moments, she even made him feel whole, and he knew he didn’t deserve that.
But he hadn’t expected her reaction to his statement about owning the island. He hadn’t foreseen that she would be angry with him, that she would withdraw.
He’d known Isabella for a long time—years—before they’d begun to date. He’d got a low-level job for her father, organised by a church charity that he’d gone to for food after his mother’s death. He and Isabella had been thrown together at certain company functions and events. Them being a couple had grown slowly and dependably. Like building this cabin, he supposed, it had been brick by brick, bit by bit, until suddenly they were engaged and planning a wedding. For Nikos, it had made sense. He hadn’t really thought about love. It had seemed an abstract concept—perhaps his childhood and adolescence had made it so.
He had already been committed to his then future father-in-law, indebted to him for the faith the older man had put in Nikos when he was starting out in his career. While it had been Nikos’s innate intelligence and skill, grit and determination that had taken his career from strength to strength, it was Isabella’s father who’d opened the door, giving him the opportunity to prove himself. In the end, he hadn’t been able to lose sight of his goal. Each victory professionally had been the shifting of the goalposts, to work harder, achieve more. His need for success had been insatiable, born out of the flipside of that: poverty and pain.
The freezer on the island was always packed. Constant hunger still bred a sort of food insecurity for Nikos. It was strange that even now, as a grown man worth hundreds of billions of dollars, he liked knowing he had plenty of food available. Then again, on the island, it was a wise precaution.
‘Do you eat everything?’
‘I mean, not everything,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in a way he tried not to find adorable. Sexy, beautiful and alluring were fine. Adorable was a shade of grey he didn’t want to approach. ‘But most things.’
‘Lamb?’
‘Love it.’
‘Good answer.’
He ignored the warmth in his chest. She was leaving. Asap. This was no big deal.
If anything, having Genevieve here and then letting her go would be an excellent kick in the guts—a refresher course in loneliness. Because, for this short window of time, he was becoming used to company again, to the presence of someone else—a beautiful woman, no less.
While the lamb grilled, he cut up some salad, serving it on the two plates the cabin boasted, and placing it at the small table. He’d built it with Theo and himself in mind—they’d needed space to put two laptops, so they could work, on the days Theo came to the island. It was fine for a couple to share a meal but, he had to admit, he’d never been aware of the intimacy of the space before now.
Everything Genevieve did was dainty, right down to the way she ate. He watched as she delicately sliced into the meat, lifting a piece to her mouth, tasting it thoughtfully before letting out a soft, sensual moan of appreciation that made his cock hard against his pants.
Christo, but she was stunning. A vixen, sent to tempt him. And he’d fallen at the first chance. Guilt slashed him and he let it. Heshouldfeel guilty, for the rest of his life.
‘You’re a good cook,’ she said, after a few mouthfuls.
‘It’s easy to make lamb.’
A smile quirked her lips. ‘I’m impressed, anyway.’
‘Do you cook?’
‘I used to. I used to love it. Another thing my father taught me,’ she said softly. ‘We would make the most elaborate dinners. Mom had little patience for cooking, or anything domestic, so, after Dad died, I took over most of our meals, grocery shopping, that kind of thing.’ She hesitated a moment, and he found himself leaning forward a little. ‘But when I married James, we had someone who did all that. He…thought it was beneath his wife to cook.’
Disapproval tightened in his gut. ‘Even though you enjoyed it?’
Her lips pulled to the side. ‘I don’t think James really cared what I enjoyed.’
He made a dark sound. How he despised that man. His cruel, thoughtless treatment of Genevieve. But was he any better? He had never wanted to hurt Isabella. He would have given her anything she asked, except his time.
‘Do you have a cook?’ Genevieve asked, sliding the question into the conversation in a relaxed tone. But he knew what she was doing. Trying to sound him out about his life away from the cabin. She had no idea what a nightmare it had become—how he did almost anything to avoid returning to the home he’d shared with Isabella.
He didn’t sell the place, though. Nor did he change it, in any way. Like pressing his finger into a bruise, he forced himself to go back there for certain days of the year. Her birthday, their wedding anniversary. Days when he really felt he deserved to marinate in his failings as a husband—and the consequences of them.
Isabella was everywhere in their home. Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe, her shoes were neatly arranged in the shelves she’d had built to showcase them, like some kind of store. Even her toothbrush was there, in their shared bathroom.
He knew it wasn’t healthy, but that was a choice he’d made. To live for ever in a state of purgatory, so that even if he came close to forgetting, to feeling like himself again, he would have physical talismans to remind him of what he’d done wrong. Of how he’d messed up.
‘I’m guessing yes, given you own an island.’
He refocused his attention on her. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, after a beat. ‘I had a housekeeper, who also did most of the cooking.’
