‘No, I didn’t think about that,’ she said. ‘Even though I did find life hard without you. For quite a long time, actually. You’re a big enough personality for the world to feel quite empty without you—and it did. But our marriage wasn’t working, Xenon. You know it wasn’t.’
He stared at her and his next words seemed to come from some dark and unknown place deep inside him. ‘Because of the baby.’ There. He’d said it. He’d confronted something which had been too unbearable to confront at the time. Two long years had passed since it had happened and he had thought that time would have blunted the impact—but he was unprepared for the wave of pain which hit him with the force of a tsunami.
Lexi saw him flinch and she felt distress clawing away inside her as the hairbrush slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers and clattered onto the dressing table. That old and familiar feeling of powerlessness swept over her and became all tangled up with her grief. She still felt guilty for the pain she had caused him by her inability to carry a child to term.
Thanks to her chronic insecurity and Xenon’s demanding work schedule, communication between them had broken down. The first miscarriage had left an emptiness deep inside her and the second seemed to have brought everything to a head. She would never forget the bleakness etched on his face when he’d finally arrived at the hospital, once it was all over. The way he’d found it difficult to look her in the eye as he’d sat stiff and unmoving beside her bed.
But why hurt him more than he was already hurting by reminding him of that bitter time? It wouldn’t change anything, would it?
Interlocking her fingers, she stared down at them and thought about all the games of cat’s cradle she would never play with her child. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Why not?’ He realised that his voice was shaking. ‘Lex, look at me. Please.’
She lifted her head and it was almost unbearable to have to meet that bleak gaze of his. Why was he doing this now? Now when it was much too late. It was like picking at a scar and making the cut so deep that it would never heal. And how could she possibly heal if she started to fool herself that he wanted to understand? Because she knew better than anyone that Xenon didn’t do understanding.
‘Because it’s too late,’ she said, her fingers gripping at the shiny surface of the dressing table, as if she needed that small piece of leverage to prevent herself from sliding to the floor.
Stubbornly he shook his head as he stared at her, with a sense of determination he rarely felt outside the boardroom. After two years of having this fester away inside him like something dark and unmentionable, didn’t it come as something of a relief to finally expunge it? ‘Don’t you think it’s time we said all this? Stuff we couldn’t bear to say at the time? Because you couldn’t bear me to touch you after the second miscarriage, could you, Lex? You couldn’t bear to let me near you.’
She got up from the dressing table and walked over to the window, wanting to put distance between them. Wanting to stop the pain which was twisting remorselessly inside her. She stared out as the first shadows of the evening began to deepen the summer night and they seemed to echo the darkness in her heart. ‘Because I saw that look in your eyes!’
‘What look?’
‘What look? What look? You know damned well what look! The look that said I’d failed you—only this time I’d done it in spectacular style. I mean, I was already aware of the shortfall in my attempts to be the perfect wife, but this was one thing I really couldn’t afford to get wrong, wasn’t it?’ She sucked in a ragged breath. ‘And I did. You’d married me essentially to be your brood mare and you realised too late that you’d chosen a weak and flighty filly who was never going to meet your requirements.’
‘Will you stop putting words in my mouth?’
She shook her head, resting her forehead against the coolness of the glass as her breath made it grow misty. ‘Don’t tell me that you haven’t thought all these things, Xenon, because I won’t believe you. Maybe in a way I don’t blame you. I can even understand why you would think that.’
‘Can you?’ he questioned. ‘You’ve added mind-reading to your sizeable list of accomplishments, have you?’
‘Think about it,’ she said, ignoring his sarcasm. ‘You’ve devoted your entire adult life to growing the Kanellis corporation. And you need a son and heir to take over from you, as once you took over from your father and he from his father before him. You’ve always put having a family of your own at the top of your list of requirements.’ She took a deep breath. ‘We both know that.’
Her words were met with silence. She hadn’t really expected a denial, but the lack of one hurt her more than she had expected. For the first time in a long time, she wanted to cry. But she never cried in front of anyone, because tears got you nowhere and they made you look weak. They took you back to that scary place—the one which made you look into the future, and think about everything you were missing.
Outside the window the shadows in the park were lengthening. She saw a street-light flicker on, and then another. A young couple, arm in arm and laughing, walked past. It was as if the world were conspiring to remind her of everything she no longer had. It could be a cruel old world sometimes.
But she was doing this for Jason—that was the thought she needed to hang onto. She was giving her little brother a last chance to get his mixed-up life back on track. And if she and Xenon could manage to close the door on some of their issues, then wouldn’t that be an added bonus? They might never become one of those divorced couples who were amicable enough to have dinner together—but mightn’t they aim for some kind of civilised parting which didn’t resemble a dark night of the soul?
Just so long as she realised that it wasn’t going anywhere.
‘I think you need dinner,’ he said, his voice breaking into her thoughts.
She turned around to find him watching her closely. Too closely. ‘I don’t know that I’m very hungry.’
‘Oh, no.’ His voice was grim. ‘I’m not having you fainting on me when we fly to Rhodes tomorrow. You are going to eat, Lex—even if I have to find a spoon and feed you myself.’
She wanted to fight him but she knew he was right. Hunger made your thinking go haywire and that was the last thing she needed. She sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll eat. But I don’t want to go and sit in some fancy restaurant. I can’t face the thought of dressing up and having to sit with other people watching us. Or rather, watching you.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘I don’t tend to attract unwanted attention these days.’
He glanced at her hair with curious eyes. ‘Is that why you lost the red?’
‘Partly. And I could no longer face going to the hairdressers’ every six weeks to have my roots touched up.’
‘That often?’
She smiled. ‘Didn’t you realise? That kind of glossy hair doesn’t just happen by magic, no matter what the ads might promise.’
‘And the glasses? Do you wear them because they make you look so different and reduce your chances of being recognised?’
‘Actually, no. I wear them because they’re good for all the detailed work I do with my jewellery design.’ She found herself wondering whether he liked them or not, but Xenon’s opinion of her trendy spectacles didn’t count. She liked them and that was what mattered. She didn’t add that she felt safer behind them. That their slightly geeky look fitted her new image of herself. ‘And I was always losing my contact lenses.’
‘Tell me about it,’ he said. ‘I seemed to spend half my time on my hands and knees looking for the damned things.’ He gave a lazy smile. ‘But I rather enjoyed being on the floor with you for what you might call legitimate purposes.’
Their eyes met.
‘Xenon,