The Marakaios Marriage. Кейт Хьюит
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a glance at Antonios—the dark slashes of his eyebrows drawn together, his mouth turned downwards in a forbidding frown—and she had a sudden, absurd urge to say something silly, to make him smile.
The truth was, she didn’t know what she felt for him any more. Sadness for what she’d thought they had, and anger for the way he’d shown her it was false. Yet she’d been so in love with him during their time in New York. It was hard to dismiss those feelings as mere fantasy, and yet she knew she had to.
And in a few hours she’d have to pretend they were real, that she still felt them. Her breath hitched at the thought.
‘Does anyone know?’ she asked and Antonios snapped his gaze to hers.
‘Know what?’
‘That we’re...that we’re separated.’
His mouth thinned. ‘We’re not, in actuality, legally separated, but no, no one knows.’
‘Not any of your sisters?’ she pressed. She thought of his three sisters: bossy Parthenope, with a husband and young son, social butterfly Xanthe, and Ava, her own age yet utterly different from her. She hadn’t bonded with any of them during her time in Greece; his sisters had been possessive of Antonios, and had regarded his unexpected American bride with wary suspicion. They’d also, at Antonios’s command, backed off from all the social responsibilities they’d fulfilled for him when he’d been a bachelor. A sign of respect, Antonios had told her, but Lindsay had seen the disdain in their covert glances. What they’d done so effortlessly, maintaining and even organizing the endless social whirl, had been nearly impossible for her. They’d realized that, even if Antonios hadn’t.
And now she would have to face them again, suffer them giving her guarded looks, asking her questions, demanding answers...
She couldn’t do this.
‘Is the thought of my family so abhorrent to you?’ Antonios demanded, and Lindsay stiffened.
‘No—’
‘Because,’ he told her bluntly, ‘you look like you’re going to be sick.’
‘I’m not going to be sick.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But the thought of seeing your family again does make me nervous, Antonios—’
‘They did nothing but welcome you.’ He cut her off with a shrug of his powerful shoulders.
She took a measured breath. ‘Only at your command.’
He arched an eyebrow. ‘Does that matter?’
Of course it does. She bit back the words, knowing they would only lead to pointless argument. ‘I don’t think they were pleased that you came home with such an unexpected bride,’ she said after a moment. ‘I think they would have preferred you to marry someone of your own background.’ A good Greek wife...the kind of wife she hadn’t, and never could have, been.
‘Perhaps,’ Antonios allowed, his tone still dismissive, ‘but they still accepted you because they knew I loved you.’
Lindsay didn’t answer. It was clear Antonios hadn’t seen how suspicious his sisters had been of her. And while they had accepted her on the surface, there had still been plenty of sideways glances, speculative looks, even a few veiled comments. Lindsay had felt every single one, to the core.
Yet she wasn’t about to explain that to Antonios now, not when he looked so fierce—fiercely determined to be in the right.
‘You have nothing to say to that?’ Antonios asked, and Lindsay shrugged, taking a sip of champagne. It tasted sour in her mouth.
‘No, I don’t.’ Nothing he would be willing to hear, anyway.
His mouth tightened and he turned to stare out of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the runway. Lindsay watched him covertly, despair and longing coursing through her in equal measures.
She told herself she shouldn’t feel this much emotion. It had been her choice to leave, and really they’d known so little of each other. Three months together, that was all. Not enough time to fall in love, much less stay there.
She was a mathematician; she believed in reason, in fact, in logic. Love at almost first sight didn’t figure in her world view. Her research had shown the almost mystical relationships between numbers, but she and Antonios weren’t numbers, and even though her heart had once cried out differently her head insisted they couldn’t have actually loved each other.
‘Maybe you never really loved me, Antonios,’ she said quietly, and he jerked back in both shock and affront.
‘Is that why you left? Because you didn’t think I loved you?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘I’m trying to explain how I felt,’ Lindsay answered evenly. ‘Since you seem determined to draw an explanation from me, even if you say you don’t want one.’
‘So you’ve convinced yourself I didn’t love you.’ He folded his arms, his face settling into implacable lines.
‘I don’t think either of us had enough time to truly love or even know each other,’ Lindsay answered. ‘We only knew each other a week—’
‘Three months, Lindsay.’
‘A week before we married,’ she amended. ‘And it was a week out of time, out of reality...’ Which was what had made it so sweet and so precious. A week away from the little life she’d made for herself in New York—a life that had been both prison and haven. A week away from being Lindsay Douglas, brilliant mathematician and complete recluse. A week of being seen in an entirely new way—as someone who was interesting and beautiful and normal.
‘It may have only been a week,’ Antonios said, ‘but I knew you. At least, I thought I knew you. But perhaps you are right, because the woman I thought I knew wouldn’t have left me the way you did.’
‘Then you didn’t really know me,’ Lindsay answered, and Antonios swung round to stare at her, his eyes narrowed.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘I...’ She drew a deep breath. She could tell him now, explain everything, yet what good would it do? Their marriage was over. Her leaving him had brought about its end. But before she could even think about summoning the courage to confess, he had turned away from her again.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he answered. ‘I don’t care.’
Lindsay sagged back against her seat, relief and disappointment flooding her as she told herself it was better this way. It had to be.
* * *
Antonios sat in his first-class seat, his glass of complimentary champagne untouched, as his mind seethed with questions he’d never thought to ask himself before. And he shouldn’t, he knew, ask them now. It didn’t matter what Lindsay’s reasons had been for leaving, or whether they’d truly known and loved each other or not. Any possibility between them had ended with her two-sentence email.
Dear Antonios,
I’m sorry, but I cannot come back to Greece. Our marriage was a mistake. Lindsay.
When he’d first read the email, he’d thought it was a joke. His brain simply hadn’t been able to process what she was telling him; it had seemed so absurd. Only forty-eight hours before, he’d made love to her half the night long and she’d clung to him until morning, kissed him with passion and gentleness when she’d said goodbye.
And she’d known she was leaving him then?
He hadn’t wanted to believe it, had started jumping to outrageous, nonsensical conclusions. Someone else had written the email. A jealous rival or a desperate relative? He’d cast them both in roles in a melodrama that had no basis in reality.
The reality was his phone call to Lindsay that same day, and her flat voice repeating what she’d told him in the email. Maybe he’d been