Page 57

He waved aimlessly at the office around him, then flopped onto the middle of the sofa, not sure why this company had always seemed so damned important. It felt very empty and superficial now.

Julian scratched into his beard, then sat down across from him. “I really thought this marriage would stay on paper. I didn’t expect you would get involved with her.”

“Why not? She’s irresistible on every level,” Spiro said with annoyance.

“I don’t really see her that way, but I take your point,” Julian said dryly, then sobered. “Are you in love with her, then? Because I’m sure she loves you. Where is the problem?”

Spiro winced, looking toward the windows and his view of the Acropolis.

Julian swore and his head tilted back with understanding. “Of course.”

“What?”

“Do you know how long it took your brother to say those words to me?” The look Julian sent him bordered on pity, but it held affection, too. “For him to believe me when I said them? Don’t do that to her. She means it, Spiro.”

“Then why did she tell me to leave?”

“Because she doesn’t know that you love her. Because she thinks that’s what people do, me included.” He grimaced as he tapped his chest.

Spiro drew a breath that made his chest ache, then emptied his glass in one hot, searing gulp so painful his eyes stung. The pain of it couldn’t match the anguish inside him, though. The sense of having fallen short. Failing. Not being enough.

“She won’t make you keep her, Spiro. But she’s been waiting her whole life for someone who loves her to come get her and keep her. If you don’t do it, I will.”

* * *

Alia was seated in the shade of a tree, trying to read, but all she could think was that she had made a horrible mistake.

She knew why Spiro thought the word love was an empty one. She had seen his relationship with his mother firsthand. Then she had showed him he was right by ending their marriage.

It wasn’t as though striking out on her own had brought her any great epiphanies, either. No, she was still the person she had been on Karpathos or at the villa: She was mostly cheerful, she liked to read and cook, she hated shoes. When a man had tried to budge in front of her at the grocery checkout, she had said a stern, “Maybe you didn’t see me because I’m short, but I was here first.”

All she had really learned from this exercise was that there was a new type of loneliness—a kind of deprivation from being apart from the one who owned her heart.

With a heavy sigh, she lifted her gaze and went very still as pure joy electrified her.

Was she hallucinating? Had she conjured him?

Spiro was walking up the graveled path toward her. He wore pale gray trousers and a collared shirt that hugged the musculature of his shoulders and chest. His jaw was freshly shaved, his hair trimmed, his eyes hidden by his mirrored sunglasses. His tall frame was backlit by the glint of sunlight through the leafy branches of the cypress trees above them.

“Alia.” He stopped before her. His voice was like brandy, causing a sting in her throat before heat settled into her blood and seeped into her bones.

“How did you find me?” She closed her book in her lap.

“Were you hiding?” He lifted away his sunglasses.

“No. I guess I just didn’t expect you to look.”

He flinched. “I was trying to give you the space you asked for. How are you?”

“Good. I’ve enrolled in an astronomy course.” She held up the book. It was introductory level and she was auditing because she hadn’t yet met the full entrance requirements.

“Space,” he noted with irony.

She choked on sad laughter.

“How are you managing with sleeping alone?” he asked.

“Oh.” She set the book on the bench beside her. “Not great. I’ve been cheating.”