‘Are you sure?’
‘Ivan, leave it!’ Grace pleaded, unable to take any more.
The words had barely left her lips when Constantine looked up suddenly, deep-set eyes meeting Grace’s clouded grey ones. For a fleeting, tormenting moment their gazes locked, and she shivered before the cruel indifference in their ebony darkness. Then with a cold travesty of a smile Constantine lifted his glass in a grim mockery of a toast, one that had her biting down hard on her lower lip to keep back an expression of pain.
Swinging round so that she no longer had to see him or his companion, she squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl with a force that made bubbles boil up wildly.
‘Constantine has no thought of any reconciliation on his mind,’ she said through gritted teeth, blinking hard against the burning tears that stung her eyes. ‘Just get that into your head, will you?’
And just who are you trying to convince? her conscience questioned reproachfully, distracting her so that she was barely aware of Ivan leaving her alone again.
Was it true? Was it possible? Had she really been fool enough to harbour even the faintest hope after all this time? Oh Grace, Grace! You fool! You crazy, weak-minded fool!
How could she ever have been so stupid? Hadn’t Constantine made his feelings, or rather his lack of them, brutally clear? Had she spent so many long, lonely nights lying awake with that final callous dismissal still sounding in her thoughts, and yet not been convinced by it? She had to be out of her tiny, crazy mind if that was the case.
We have no future together… The words Constantine had flung at her, the coldly contemptuous voice in which they had been spoken lacerated her soul all over again, making his feelings for her patently clear.
Clear enough even for the most foolish, naively besotted heart, Grace told herself miserably. In spite of being blinded by love, as she had been then, she had heard the conviction in his voice, recognised the finality of the emotional life-sentence he had been handing her. So why should she allow herself to dare to question it now, when surely the two years’ silence, two years’ distance on Constantine’s part, was added evidence of just how much he had meant what he’d said?
‘If you wash that plate any more, you will erase the pattern from it.’
The dryly amused voice, instantly recognisable as Constantine’s, broke into her reverie with such unexpected suddenness that she started violently, dropping the plate into the washing-up water in a plume of spray.
‘Don’t sneak up on me like that!’
‘I did not sneak. You must have a guilty conscience to jump like that. Or perhaps you were daydreaming. Is that it, agape mou? Were you thinking of some man—someone deeply important to you, to judge by the look on your face?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of anyone!’ Grace objected, terrified that he would suspect the true nature of her thoughts. ‘And don’t call me that! I’m not your love any more!’
‘So you remember the Greek I taught you?’
She remembered that particular phrase! How could she ever forget it? Her thoughts skittered away from memories too painful to bear. Memories of tenderly embracing in the warm darkness of a mild early spring evening on Skyros, her head pillowed on the strong frame of his chest, hearing that softly accented voice whispering those words in a way that resonated with barely suppressed desire.
‘Oh, yes, I remember that, and so many other valuable lessons you taught me.’ Grace laced the words with vinegar, deliberately taking them miles away from the sort of lessons he had originally had in mind. ‘And believe me, I don’t ever intend to forget them. I— What are you doing?’
She flinched back as Constantine moved suddenly, one hand coming out towards her face.
Her instinctive panic earned her a sharp-eyed glance of reproof, Constantine’s mouth twisting cynically.
‘You have soap bubbles on your nose…’ A long finger gently flicked the froth away. ‘And on your brow… They might have gone into your eye.’
‘Thank you.’
It was muttered ungraciously because she was struggling with the shock waves of sensation, the recollection of other, very different feelings that this man’s lightest touch had once sparked off inside her. Times when it had seemed that those long, square-tipped fingers might have been made of molten steel, so intense had been the force of her reaction. She had felt as if the path they had taken was scorched deep into her flesh, branding her irrevocably as his.
‘It was no trouble,’ Constantine returned, the elaborate courtesy deliberately mocking at her stilted response. ‘Would you like some help in here?’
It was the last thing she wanted. Standing so close to her, she was sure he must sense the unevenness of her breathing, hear the heavy pounding of her heart. Just when she most wanted to appear unmoved and totally indifferent to his proximity, her traitorous body seemed determined to go into sensual overdrive, responding to the nearness of his with all the hunger of a famine victim suddenly presented with the most tempting banquet.
‘Won’t that rather spoil your plan to behave as if I don’t exist?’ she demanded, hiding her unsettled feelings behind a show of aggression. ‘Anyway there’s no need. There’s nothing left to do.’
To demonstrate the fact she removed the last plate and plonked it down on the drying rack before upending the bowl in the sink so that the soapy water drained away with a faint gurgling sound.
‘Then shall I fetch you a drink?’
Nerves on edge, Grace swung round suddenly to glare into Constantine’s unreadable black eyes.
‘Just what game are you playing now, Constantine? What exactly are you doing here?’
‘No game, I assure you. Perhaps a compromise…’
‘Compromise!’ Grace scoffed. ‘I thought such a word didn’t exist in your vocabulary. You wouldn’t know a compromise if you came face to face with one.’
‘I am trying to be reasonable here.’ Constantine’s careful restraint was obviously slipping slightly, traces of the barely reined in temper escaping his ruthless control. ‘I do not feel comfortable being at a party where the woman who is one of the host’s best friends spends all her time hiding in the kitchen, especially when I suspect that—’
‘Suspect what?’ Grace broke in, definitely rattled. ‘That you’re the reason I’m “hiding” away in here? I always knew your ego was excessively healthy, but…’
‘Grace, this is meant to be a Turn Back the Clock party. Surely it should be possible for two mature, civilised adults to abide by the theme of tonight.’
‘And turn back the clock until when, precisely?’
It was scary to realise how much she wanted to do just that. Frankly terrifying to admit that her heart had leapt in anticipation of the prospect.
If only they could! If only they really could go back to the time when he had been her life and she had believed herself his. The time when they had been so much a couple that they had thought, acted, almost even breathed as one. The time before Paula’s lies and her own fears had ripped them apart, driving a chasm between them that it seemed nothing could bridge.
‘Well, the idea of the party is that everyone comes as they were ten years ago, but I’m afraid I have problems trying to imagine you at fourteen.’
Constantine’s sudden brief flash of a grin was devastating in its impact, winging its way to Grace’s already vulnerable heart like an arrow into the gold at the centre of a target. In spite of herself, she couldn’t hold back a faint sigh of response, regretting it at once as soon as she saw those brilliant black eyes narrow in swift calculation.
‘So what if we settle on half of that time? Five years