Название: The Marakaios Marriage
Автор: Кейт Хьюит
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Modern
isbn: 9781472098634
isbn:
Not, of course, that they would truly resume their marriage. It would be a sham only, for the sake of his mother. Antonios had no intention of inviting Lindsay into his bed again. Not after she’d left him in such a cold-hearted and cowardly way. No, he’d take her back to Greece for a few days for his mother’s sake, and then he’d never see her again...which was what she obviously wanted. And he wanted it, too.
‘A few days?’ she repeated numbly. ‘And that will be enough...’
‘It’s my mother’s name day next week,’ Antonios told her.
‘Name day...’
‘In Greece we celebrate name days rather than birthdays. My family wishes to celebrate it especially, considering.’ Grief constricted his throat and burned in his chest. He could not imagine Villa Marakaios without his mother. Losing his father had been hard enough. His father had built the vineyard from nothing; he’d been the brains behind the operation, for better and definitely for worse, but his mother had always been its heart. And when the heart was gone...
But perhaps his own heart had already gone, crushed to nothing when his wife had left him. He’d thought Lindsay had loved him. He’d believed they were happy together.
What a joke. What a lie. But Antonios knew he should be used to people not being what they seemed. Not saying what they meant. He’d had hard lessons in that already.
‘We are having a celebration,’ he continued, just managing to keep his voice even. ‘Family and friends, all our neighbours. You will be there. Afterwards you can return here if you wish. I will explain to my mother that you needed to finish your research.’ He knew Lindsay had been pursuing her doctorate in Pure Mathematics, and when she’d left him she’d told him she needed to tie a few things up back in New York. He’d said goodbye in good faith, thinking she’d only be gone a few days. She’d already told him that her research could be done anywhere; she’d said there was nothing for her back in New York. But apparently that, like everything else, had been a lie.
Lindsay’s face had gone even paler and she lifted one hand to her throat, swallowing convulsively. ‘A party? Antonios, please. I can’t.’
Fury beat through his blood. ‘What did I ever do to you,’ he demanded in a low, savage voice, ‘to make you treat me this way? Treat my family this way? We welcomed you into our home, into our lives.’ His insides twisted as emotion gripped him—emotion he couldn’t bear Lindsay to see. He’d told her he didn’t care about her any more, and he’d meant it. He had to mean it. ‘My mother,’ he said after a moment, when he’d regained his composure and his voice was as flat and toneless as he needed it to be, ‘loved you. She treated you like her own daughter. Is this how you intend to repay her?’
Tears sparkled on Lindsay’s lashes and she blinked them back, shaking her head in such obvious misery that Antonios almost felt sorry for her again. Almost.
‘No, of course not,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I...I was very grateful to your mother, and her kindness to me.’
‘You have a funny way of showing it.’
Her eyes flashed fire at that, and Antonios wondered what on earth she had to be angry about. She’d left him.
‘Even so,’ she said quietly, one hand still fluttering at her throat, ‘it is very difficult for me to return to Greece.’
‘And why is that? Do you have a lover waiting for you here in New York?’
Her mouth dropped open in shock. ‘A lover—’
Antonios shrugged, as if it were a matter of no consequence, even though the thought of Lindsay with another man, violating their marriage vows, their marriage bed, made him want to punch something. ‘I do not know what else would take you so abruptly from Greece.’ From me, he almost said, but thankfully didn’t.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes wide, although with what emotion Antonios couldn’t tell. ‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I don’t have a lover. There’s only been you, Antonios. Ever.’
And yet he obviously hadn’t been enough. Antonios didn’t even know whether to believe her; he told himself it didn’t matter. ‘Then there is no reason for you not to come to Greece.’
‘My research—’
‘Cannot wait a week?’ Impatience flared inside him, along with the familiar fury. Didn’t she realize how thoughtless, how selfish and cruel she was being?
Even now, after six months of coming to accept and learning to live with her abandonment, he was stunned by how completely she’d deceived him. He had believed in her love for him utterly. But, Antonios reminded himself, they’d only known each other a week when they had married. It had been impulsive, reckless even, but he’d been so sure. Sure of his love for Lindsay, and of her love for him.
What a fool he’d been.
Lindsay was staring at him, her face still pale and miserable. ‘One week,’ Antonios ground out. ‘Seven days. And then I intend never to see you again.’ She flinched, as if his words hurt her, and he let out a hard laugh. ‘Doesn’t that notion please you?’
She glanced away, pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling. ‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘It doesn’t.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘I know.’ She let out a shuddering breath. ‘You never did.’
‘And that is my fault?’
She shook her head wearily. ‘It’s too late to apportion blame, Antonios. It simply is. Was. Our marriage was a mistake, as I told you in my email and on the telephone.’
‘Yet you never said why.’
‘You never asked,’ Lindsay answered, her voice sharpening, and Antonios frowned at her.
‘I asked you on the phone—’
‘No,’ Lindsay told him quietly, ‘you didn’t. You asked me if I were serious, and I said yes. And then you hung up.’
Antonios stared at her, his jaw bunched so tight it ached. ‘You’re the one who left, Lindsay.’
‘I know—’
‘Yet now you are attempting to imply that our marriage failed because I didn’t ask the right questions when I called you after you’d left me. Theos! It is hard to take.’
‘I’m not implying anything of the sort, Antonios. I was simply reminding you of the facts.’
‘Then let me remind you of a fact. I’m not interested in your explanations. The time for those has passed. What I am interested in, Lindsay—the only thing I am interested in—is your agreement. A plane leaves for Athens tonight. If we are to be on it, we need to leave here in the next hour.’
‘What?’ Her gaze flew back to his, her mouth gaping open. ‘I haven’t even agreed.’
‘Don’t СКАЧАТЬ