Knowing that his need not to hurt her was born of love, he’d thought it was noble. Self-sacrifice in the name of what was right. But the truth was, he was not the same man who’d married Isabella. Looking back, he wouldn’t have made that mistake now. He had valued her friendship, and been grateful to her father for the opportunities, and he’d wanted, more than anything, to make her happy. But it hadn’t been love in the sense he understood it to be now. Or it had been a childlike version of it, easy to ignore, to focus instead on his work. The mistake hadn’t just been neglecting her, it had been taking those vows when they’d meant so much less to him than they had her. He’d been wrong to marry Isabella, wrong not to make her a priority in his life, and he would always regret his actions.
But he was not that man any longer.
Those mistakes had shaped him. From the embers of that regret, out of his guilt and grief, something new had formed, someone different, and it was that person Genevieve had seen and drawn out. It was that person she’d fallen in love with.
As the days came and the days went, a certainty grew inside him that he had made perhaps the worst mistake of his life. He had pushed away a woman who saw him, understood him, knew his imperfections and his whole self, and still wanted him. A woman who was prepared to be patient with him, because she believed he was worth it. He had pushed away the love of his life, after everything she had been willing to offer him—her beautiful, bruised heart.
And suddenly, with a clarity that was both desperate and blinding, he saw that more than anything on this earth, certainly more even than his need for self-flagellation, was his need for Genevieve. Imperfect and terrifying, risks and all, if she was willing to be brave after everything she’d been through, then surely, he could be, too.
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER FOUR MONTHS, she stopped counting his absence in days. Not because she didn’t feel each day stretching like a chasm of grief, but because it was a step towards acceptance. And acceptance, surely, was vital.
Accepting that it really was over.
That she’d been strong enough to walk away from a situation that wasn’t right for her. Even when so much of it had been perfectly right—sublimely, utterly, indescribably right—it had been missing the one part she considered non-negotiable. Love. Real, freely given, unconditional, no-holds-barred love.
There was no way she could be with another man who didn’t love her as she knew she deserved.
But every day—every single day—she felt that ache of regret when she thought of him. It took all of her energy to get through her workday—as a junior reporter for a respected national paper—without giving away to colleagues her deep, abiding heartbreak. In the same way she’d worn a mask during her marriage, holding it together when she felt miserable inside, she was now playing a part. Going through the motions and hoping no one would notice that she’d left her heart and soul in Greece, and knew she’d never be able to retrieve either.
It was exhausting. Draining, demoralising and completely sapping, so that every day, when she came home to her tiny apartment, she only had enough energy to make a piece of toast, shower and change into pyjamas, before going to bed. She slept fitfully, at best, despite the exhaustion, and woke every morning with a start, as if unable to believe the reality she’d found herself in.
She missed Nikos as a fish would miss water. She missed him with all of herself, and it didn’t seem as though it would ever get better. She just had to learn to walk alongside her grief, or it would eat her alive.
The one concession she allowed herself was to continue wearing the engagement ring. Everyone believed her to be engaged to the reclusive billionaire—it would have raised more questions than not, if she’d suddenly stopped wearing it. And having heard the thought he’d put into buying it for her, how could she not? It was a talisman that connected her to him, and she found her eyes drifting to it often as she remembered fractured details of their time together, so her breath would gasp from her on a fresh wave of longing and need.
Of desperate, all-consuming desolation.
It was wrenching. The worst of times.
But she continued to work, knowing that she needed that. She deserved it. Having put her promising career prospects on hold to become the perfect political wife James had wanted, she knew that doing well in her role was a part of reclaiming the person she’d once been. It had mattered deeply to her once, she knew it would again.
Generally, she stayed away from covering political stories. There was too much of a threat of overlap with James, and, despite the true sense of liberation she now felt from that man, she had no interest in stirring up the hornets’ nest anew. Her editor had agreed that the potential conflict of interest made it wise for her to stick to other stories.
And yet, on a warm Friday evening, just as she’d walked in the door, her phone started to ring and she saw a colleague’s name come up on screen. She contemplated ignoring it, but a phone call out of hours was odd, and Genevieve’s curiosity got the better of her.
‘Genevieve,’ she said, phone tucked under her ear as she hung up her handbag.
‘Gen, hey, it’s Gary.’ Genevieve felt a particular disdain for people who shortened her name when they barely knew her, but she couldn’t raise even a hint of that then. She was too tired. Too utterly exhausted. She flopped on the couch. ‘I need to call in a favour.’
She arched a brow, wracking her brain for why Gary would think he was owed a favour by her. ‘Yeah?’
‘This event tonight, I can’t cover it. Something’s come up. Don’t suppose you’d go for me? It’s simple. The president will make a speech, a couple of VIPs will talk. You just need to go, get a couple of quotes, an impression of the room, that kind of thing. You up for it?’
No,she wanted to scream. She wasn’t up for anything. She wanted to curl up into a ball and cry until she had no tears left. But brittle determination had her nodding. Covering anything presidential was a coup, particularly for a junior journalist. ‘Yeah,’ she said after a beat. ‘I can do that. Text me the details. Will my credentials do?’
‘I’ll have Tiffany make sure your name is given to the event. You’ll be fine.’
‘Okay,’ she exhaled. ‘Good.’
Genevieve had been at events with the president a handful of times, while married to James, so she wasn’t as intimidated as she might otherwise have been. She also had the added advantage of knowing how to dress, and do her hair, to look as though she belonged. This, though, was attending in a professional capacity, so, rather than a cocktail dress, she opted for more of a corporate navy trouser suit with a silky oyster camisole underneath. She teamed it with a string of her mother’s pearls, and styled her hair in a high ponytail. She hated heels but they were part and parcel of this sort of thing, so she slipped her feet into a pair before regarding herself in the full-length mirror.
Make-up.
She looked like a zombie. Working quickly, she dabbed concealer beneath her eyes, a little bronzer to her cheeks and gloss to her lips, so the next time she checked the mirror, she seemed passably human. Not like someone who’d spent the last four months wishing the world would open up and swallow them whole.
The event was in a five-star hotel on the other side of the city, and, in the interest of living well within her means, she took the bus. Even allowing for public-transport delays, she made it with a couple of minutes to spare.
