‘The arguments—’
She sighed. ‘Arguments are just a way of communicating.’
He shook his head. ‘I never listened.’
‘You listened. You just didn’t agree.’
‘She told me what she needed.’
Genevieve compressed her lips, ignoring, for now, the glaring rejoinder: but what aboutyourneeds?
‘I still don’t know why you blame yourself,’ she said, quietly. Wishing she could fix this for him, with the click of her fingers.
‘She was driving to my office,’ Nikos said, after such a long silence Genevieve wasn’t sure if he’d return to the subject. ‘She missed a stop sign. A car was coming through the intersection and to avoid hitting them, she swerved. Her car wrapped around a pole. Isabella died instantly.’
‘Oh, Nikos,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes.
‘There was no investigation. She’d run a stop sign and died.’
Genevieve nodded, knowing he wasn’t finished yet.
‘When I got home, much later that night, I saw the whisky bottle, on the kitchen counter, with a single glass beside it. Her lipstick on the rim.’ His eyes were boring into Genevieve’s and, in their depths, she saw the plea he wouldn’t voice.Forgive me.‘I drove her to drink, and then she was coming to the office, undoubtedly to finish the argument I’d refused to have. She used to hate that I wouldn’t fight back. That I wouldn’t lose my temper.’ His face contorted into a mask of sheer pain. ‘You can have no idea how much that has tormented me. How often I have reflected on my choices, the way I treated her.’
Genevieve’s tears fell unashamedly now. She shook her head a little, unsure what to say. ‘Nothing good can come from hating yourself. You can’t change the past.’
‘I’m aware of that. And I’m not looking for anything good. In fact, that is the exact opposite of what I want.’
‘You want to be miserable and alone.’
‘As she was.’
Genevieve sighed heavily. ‘It sounds to me as though she loved you a great deal, Nikos. She stayed with you, when she could have left. You need to stop torturing yourself.’
But she could see by his reaction that he had no intention of doing any such thing. ‘Let’s go to dinner,agape. It’s time to let the world see you’ve moved on from your ex-husband.’
She didn’t dare ask if he would ever move on from his late wife. Besides, she had the answer, and it sat in her gut like an oversized lead balloon.
Chapter Eleven
EVERYTHING ABOUT THEnight had been scripted to perfection. From the limousine that had whisked them through the streets of Athens to one of the most prestigious restaurants in the city, with striking views of the Parthenon, and the golden glowing city beyond. Whether by request or happenstance, they had been placed on an intimate table on a private balcony, with overhead heating to keep them toasty warm. It hadn’t been necessary. Just the way Nikos’s legs had brushed hers had lit a fire in Genevieve’s soul that only he could extinguish—later, in his own, sweet time.
Though their table had been private, their entry to the restaurant had taken them past a dozen paparazzi, and once inside, she’d been aware of several patrons surreptitiously lifting their phones to snatch photos of the reclusive Greek billionaire and the woman on his arm. Genevieve realised later that the way she’d held his forearm would have displayed her engagement ring—without her intending to—to perfection, leaving no one in any doubt as to what their relationship was. There was also the possessive way Nikos had kept an arm around her waist as they’d left the restaurant, and Genevieve had leaned into his warm side, not caring about the photographers so much as being near him.
The same car had returned them to the marina, to her surprise, where they’d boarded the yacht using the side-facing gangplank. Once they were onboard, it had been retracted, giving them total privacy and security.
‘Is this where you stay, when you come to Athens?’ she asked as he brewed a pot of dark coffee and came to sit on the sofa beside her. He poured two small cups of the sticky, dark liquid, then sat back in the seat, casually draping his arm along the back so his fingers brushed her shoulder and she tingled.
She hesitated for only the briefest moment before curling her legs up beside her and leaning close to him, her eyes fanning shut as she listened to the solid beating of his heart.
‘No. In fact, I’ve never stayed here before.’
She opened her eyes and glanced up at him. ‘Oh. Why not?’
He held her gaze a long moment, then reached for his coffee, taking a sip. He placed the cup on his knee, before returning his eyes to her face. ‘I bought the yacht a month before the accident.’ His voice had a hoarse quality to it. ‘It was intended as a gift, for Isabella.’ He closed his eyes then. ‘A guilt gift. I knew she wasn’t happy, that she liked nice things. I thought—’
Genevieve nodded. She understood. His guilt and grief, the knowledge that he had made the wrong choices then.
‘I was trying to keep the peace.’
