He reached out quickly, put a hand on her wrist, holding her where she was. Her eyes flooded with tears and, God help him, the sight of her about to cry brought back so many memories of Isabella, he felt the bottom fall out of his world.
‘She’s dead,’ he said, the words catching in his throat. He hated to acknowledge that reality, let alone admit it to someone else. ‘My wife died, Genevieve.’
A single tear slid down her cheek as she stared at him, so close her leg brushed his thigh. ‘I—she died?’
He dropped her wrist and stared straight ahead. ‘A little over three years ago.’
He heard her move seconds before she took the seat opposite him again. But she reached out and covered his hand with hers, all soft compassion in the lines of her eyes. ‘And you moved to the island.’
‘I didn’t move to the island,’ he muttered, figuring he might as well give her the whole, ugly truth now. ‘I bought it fully intending that it would kill me.’
She gasped.
‘I deserved to die, Genevieve. I deserved to know the same pain and loneliness she had known. You and my late wife have something in common, you see.’
Genevieve was silent, staring across at him.
‘You were both married to bastards.’
She shook her head, instantly rejecting his statement. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘I ruined her life,’ he said, the words pouring out of him now, so he barely noticed when the waiter appeared, depositing bread and dips. ‘I took someone beautiful, something beautiful, and destroyed it. And she told me. She told me again and again how miserable she was, how unhappy. I could have changed; I just chose not to.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Genevieve said, shaking her head. ‘You’re not cruel, Nikos. How can you blame yourself for this? What did you do to make her miserable?’
‘I married her, knowing she loved me with her dying breath. Knowing I was the sun and moon of her existence. I married her knowing that I would probably never feel that about her. And then I ignored her, focusing instead on my work. All I cared about was financial success. Proving myself to the world, her father, my father, may he rest in peace, to the men who took advantage of my mother, to anyone who’d ever doubted me. Isabella was left married to a man who loved her as an abstract concept, an object, rather than through his actions. She deserved so much better.’
Genevieve closed her eyes and he was glad. He couldn’t bear the sympathy he’d seen in their depths. It was everything he’d hidden away from, that he knew he didn’t deserve.
‘Nikos,’ she whispered, when she blinked and looked across at him again. ‘You cannot carry this burden.’
He stiffened, pulling his hand away from her. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted sympathy. Nor because I wanted you to make me feel better. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I want. I intend to spend the rest of my life deep in this regret.’
‘Hiding away on your island?’ she asked, sipping her wine, her voice neutral and yet still, somehow, scathing.
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘Well, what good does it do anyone?’
‘I’m not seeking to do anyone anything.’
‘You’re seeking to punish yourself.’
He stared back at her, unable and unwilling to dispute that.
‘To what end?’
‘I’m sorry?’
She compressed her lips. ‘What does it achieve?’
‘It is less about what it achieves, and more about what I deserve.’
‘Fine. You say Isabella loved you with her whole heart. Do you thinkshewould want this for you?’
He felt a muscle tic in his jaw at the sensible question. It wasn’t the first time it had been said to him. His father-in-law had implored him not to throw his life away in Isabella’s name. But it was what Nikos deserved.
‘Honestly, I think you’re doing her a huge injustice.’
