‘I’m here to pay my respects,’ he heard his own voice answer.
He saw her expression change, as if he’d just said something quite unbelievable.
‘Well, not to me!’ There was derision in her voice—but it was not targeted at him, he realised. He frowned, focussing on her face.
He felt his muscles clench. Thee mou, how beautiful she was! The natural loveliness that had so enchanted him, captivated him, that had inspired him so impulsively to take her into his life, had matured into true beauty. Beauty that had a haunting quality. A sorrow—
Does she feel sorrow at my uncle’s death? Can she really feel that?
No, surely there could be only relief that she was now free of a man thirty years her senior—free to enjoy all the money he had left her. Yet again that spike drove into him. He hated what she had become. What he himself had made her.
‘Anatole, I know perfectly well what you think of me, so don’t prate hypocrisies to me! Tell me why you’re here.’ And now he saw her shoulders stiffen, her chin rise defiantly. ‘If it’s merely to heap abuse on my head for having dared to do what I did, then I will simply send you packing. I’m not answerable to you and nor—’ the tenor of her voice changed now, and there was a viciousness in it that was like the edge of a blade ‘—are you answerable to me, either. As you have already had occasion to point out!’
She took another sharp intake of breath.
‘Our lives are separate—you made sure of that. And I... I accepted it. You gave me no choice. I had no claim on you—and you most certainly have no claim on me now, nor any say in my decisions. Or those your uncle made either. He married me of his own free will—and if you don’t like that...well, get over it!’
If she’d sprouted snakes for hair, like Medusa, Anatole could not have been more shocked by her. Was this the Tia he remembered? This aggressive harpy? Lashing out at him, her eyes hard and angry?
Tia saw the shock in his face and could have laughed savagely—but laughing was far beyond her on this most gruelling of days. She could feel her heart-rate going insane and knew that she was in shock, as well as still feeling the emotional battering of losing Vasilis—however long it had been expected—and burying him that very day.
To have in front of her now the one man in the entire world she had dreaded seeing again was unbearable. It was unbearable to look at the man who had once been so dear to her.
She lifted a hand, as if to ward him off. ‘Anatole, I don’t know why you’ve come here, and I don’t care—we’ve nothing left to say to each other. Nothing!’ She shut her eyes, then opened them again with a heavy breath. ‘I’m sure you grieve for your uncle... I know you were fond of him and he of you. He did not seek this breach with you—’
She felt her throat closing again and could not continue. Wanted him only to go.
‘What will you do with this place?’
Anatole’s voice cut across her aching thoughts.
‘I suppose you’ll sell up and take yourself off to revel in your ill-gotten inheritance?’
She swallowed. How could it hurt that Anatole spoke to her in such a way? She knew what he thought of her marriage to Vasilis.
‘I’ve no intention of selling up,’ she replied coldly, taking protection behind her tone. ‘This is my home, with many good memories.’
Something changed in his eyes. ‘You’ll need to live respectably here...’ there was warning in his voice ‘...in this country house idyll in an English village.’
‘I shall endeavour to do so.’ Christine did not bother to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Why should she? Anatole was making assumptions about her...as he had done before.
A stab went through her, painful and hurtful, but she ignored it.
Again something flashed in his eyes. ‘You’re a young woman still, Tia—and now that you have all my uncle’s wealth to flaunt you can take your pick of men.’ His voice twisted. ‘And this time around they won’t need to be thirty years older than you. You can choose someone young and handsome, even if they’re penniless!’
His tone grew harsher still.
‘I’d prefer it if you took yourself off to some flash resort where you can party all night and keep your married name out of the tabloid rags!’
Christine felt her expression harden. Was there any limit to how he was going to insult her? ‘I’m in mourning, Anatole. I’m not likely to go off and party with hand-picked gigolos.’
She took another heaving breath, turning around to open the double doors.
‘Please leave now, Anatole. We’ve nothing to say to each other. Nothing.’
Pointedly, she waited for him to walk into the wide, parquet-floored hall. There was no sign of Mrs Hughes, and Christine was glad. How much the housekeeper—or anyone else—knew about the Kyrgiakis clan, she didn’t know and didn’t want to think about. Providing everything was kept civil on the surface, that was all that mattered.
Anatole was simply her late husband’s nephew, calling to pay his respects on his uncle’s death. No reason for Mrs Hughes to think anything else.
With his long stride Anatole walked past her, and Christine caught the faint scent of his aftershave. Familiar—so very familiar.
Memory rushed through her and she felt her body sway with emotion. For a second it was so overwhelmingly powerful she wanted to catch his hand, throw herself into his arms, and sob. To feel his arms go about her, feel him hold her, cradle her, feel his strong chest support her, feel his closeness, his protection. Sob out her grief for his uncle—her grief for so much more.
But Anatole was gone from her. Separated from her as by a thousand miles, by ten thousand. Separated from her by what she had done—what he had thought she had done. There was nothing left to bring them together again—not now. Not ever.
This is the last time I shall set eyes on him. It has to be—because I could not bear to see him again.
There was a tearing pain inside her as these words framed in her head—a pain for all that had been, that had not been, that could never be...
He didn’t look at her as he strode past her, as he headed for the large front door. His face was set, closed. She had seen it like that before, that last terrible day in Athens, and she had never wanted to see him look like that again. Like stone, crushing her pathetic hopes.
A silent cry came from her heart.
And then, from the top of the staircase that swept up from the back of the wide hallway to the upper storey of the house, came another cry. Audible this time.
‘Mumma!’
* * *
Anatole froze. Not believing what he had heard. Froze with his hand on the handle of the door that would take him from the house, his heart infused with blackness.
Slowly he turned. Saw, as if in slow motion, a middle-aged woman in a nanny’s uniform descending the stairs, holding by the hand a young child to stop him rushing down too fast. Saw them reach the foot of the staircase and the tiny figure tear across the hall to Tia. Saw her scoop him up, hug him, and set him down again gently.
‘Hello, munchkin. Have you been good for Nanny?’
Tia’s voice was warm, affectionate, and something about it caused a sliver of pain in Anatole’s breast, penetrating his frozen shock.
‘Yes!’ the little boy cried. ‘We’ve done painting. Come and see.’
‘I will, darling, in a little while,’ he heard her answer, with that same softness in