The Marakaios Marriage. Кейт Хьюит

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      The sudden change in subject jolted her. ‘A divorce...’

      ‘That is why you left me, is it not? Because you no longer wished to continue in our marriage.’ He bared his teeth in a smile and Lindsay suppressed the sudden urge to shiver. She’d never seen Antonios look this way. So cold and hard and predatory.

      ‘I...’ A divorce sounded so final, so terrible, and yet of course that had to be what she wanted. She’d left him, after all.

      In the six months since she’d left Greece, she’d immersed herself in the comforting cocoon of number theory, trying to finish her doctorate in Pure Mathematics. Trying to blunt that awful ache of missing Antonios, or at least the Antonios she’d known for one week, before everything had changed. She’d tried to take steps to put her life back together, to control her anxiety and reach out to the people around her. She’d made progress, and there had been moments, whole days, when she’d felt normal and even happy.

      Yet she’d always missed Antonios. She’d missed the person she’d been with him, when they’d been in New York.

      And neither of those people had been real. Their marriage, their love, hadn’t been real. She knew that absolutely, and yet...

      She still longed for what they’d shared, so very briefly.

      ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. She lifted her chin and met his gaze. ‘I want to end our marriage.’

      ‘A divorce,’ Antonios clarified flatly. Lindsay flinched slightly but kept his gaze, hard and unyielding as it was.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Then, Lindsay,’ he told her in that awful silky voice, ‘you need to do as I ask. Command. Because under Greek marriage law, you can’t get a divorce unless both parties agree.’

      She stared at him, her eyes widening as she considered the implications of what he was saying. ‘There must be other circumstances in which a divorce is permissible.’

      ‘Ah, yes, there are. Two, as a matter of fact.’ His mouth twisted unpleasantly. ‘Adultery and abandonment. But as I have committed neither of those, they do not apply, at least in my case.’

      She flinched again, and Antonios registered her reaction with a curl of his lip. ‘Why do you want me to return to Greece, Antonios?’

      ‘Not, as you seem to fear, to resume our marriage.’ His voice hardened as he raked her with a contemptuous gaze. ‘I have no desire to do that.’

      Of course he didn’t. And that shouldn’t hurt, because she’d chosen it to be that way, and yet it still did. ‘Then...’

      ‘My mother, as you might remember, was fond of you. She doesn’t know why you left, and I have not enlightened her as to the state of our marriage.’

      Guilt twisted sharply inside her. Daphne Marakaios had been kind to her during her time in Greece, but it still hadn’t been enough to stay. To stay sane.

      ‘Why haven’t you told her?’ Lindsay asked. ‘It’s been six months already, and you can’t keep it a secret forever.’

      ‘Why shouldn’t you tell her?’ Antonios countered. ‘Oh, I forgot. Because you’re a coward. You sneak away from my home and my bed and can’t even be bothered to have a single conversation about why you wished to end our marriage.’

      Lindsay drew a deep breath, fighting the impulse to tell him just how many conversations she’d tried to have. There was no point now. ‘I understand that you’re angry—’

      ‘I’m not angry, Lindsay. To be angry I would have to care.’ He stood up, the expression on his face ironing out. ‘And I stopped caring when you sent me that email. When you refused to say anything but that our marriage was a mistake when I called you, wanting to know what had happened. When you showed me how little you thought of me or our marriage.’

      ‘And you showed me how little you thought of our marriage every day I was in Greece,’ Lindsay returned before she could help herself.

      Antonios turned to her slowly, his eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Are you actually going to blame me for the end of our marriage?’ he asked, each syllable iced with disbelief.

      ‘Oh, no, of course not,’ Lindsay fired back. ‘How could I do that? How could you possibly have any responsibility or blame?’

      He stared at her, his eyes narrowing, and Lindsay almost laughed to realize he wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

      Then he shrugged her words aside and answered in a clipped voice, ‘I don’t care, about you or your reasons. But my mother does. Because she has been ill, I have spared her the further grief of knowing how and why you have gone.’

      ‘Ill—’

      ‘Her cancer has returned,’ Antonios informed her with brutal bluntness. ‘She got the results back a month after you left.’

      Lindsay stared at him in shock. She’d known Daphne had been in remission from breast cancer, but the outlook had been good. ‘Antonios, I’m so sorry. Is it...is it treatable?’

      He lifted one powerful shoulder in a shrug, his expression veiled. ‘Not very.’

      Lindsay sank back in her chair, her mind reeling with this new information. She thought of kind Daphne, with her white hair and soft voice, her gentleness apparent in every word and action, and felt a twist of grief for the woman she’d known so briefly. And as for Antonios...he adored his mother. This would have hit him hard and she, his wife, hadn’t been there to comfort and support him through her illness. Yet would she have been able to, if she’d stayed in Greece?

      She’d been so desperately unhappy there, and the thought of returning brought the old fears to the fore.

      ‘Antonios,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m very, very sorry about your mother, but I still can’t go back to Greece.’

      ‘You can and you will,’ Antonios replied flatly, ‘if you want a divorce.’

      She shook her head, her hair flying, desperation digging its claws into her soul. ‘Then I won’t ask for a divorce.’

      ‘Then you are my wife still, and you belong with me.’ His voice had roughened and he turned away from her in one sharp movement. ‘You cannot have it both ways, Lindsay.’

      ‘How will my seeing your mother help her?’ Lindsay protested. ‘It would only hurt her more for me to tell her to her face that we’ve separated—’

      ‘But I have no intention of having you tell her that.’ Antonios turned around, his eyes seeming to burn right through her as he glared at her. ‘It is likely my mother only has a few months to live, perhaps less. I do not intend to distress her with the news of our failed marriage. For a few days, Lindsay, perhaps a week, you can pretend that we are still happily married.’

      ‘What—?’ She stared at him, appalled, as he gave her a grimace of a smile.

      ‘Surely that is not impossible? You have already proven once what a good actress you are, when you pretended СКАЧАТЬ