He nodded. ‘I think so.’
‘I didn’t want to make you any promises I couldn’t keep,’ she rushed on. ‘And marriage was an institution I didn’t trust.’
But it had been more than that. On an instinctive level she had recognised that Loukas was a man who had been in short supply of love, who needed to be loved properly. And hadn’t she thought herself incapable of that?
‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘Something you’re not telling me.’
It hurt that he could be so perceptive. She didn’t want him to be perceptive—she wanted him to be brash and uncaring. She wanted him to reinforce that she’d done the right thing, not leave her wondering how she could have been so stupid.
‘Jess?’ he prompted.
‘I thought you would leave me,’ she said slowly.
‘Like your father left your mother?’
‘I was so young,’ she whispered. ‘You know I was.’
He looked at her and started speaking slowly, as if he was voicing his thoughts out loud. ‘I’d like to tell you that my feelings haven’t changed, but that would be strange, as well as a fabrication—because of course I feel differently eight years down the line.’
Her lips had started trembling and no amount of biting would seem to stop them. ‘You do?’
He nodded. ‘I still care about you, koukla mou. You’re still the one woman who makes my heart beat faster than anyone else. Still the one who can tie me up in knots so tight I can’t escape, and I don’t think you even realise you’re doing it.’
‘So what are you saying?’ she whispered.
Loukas opened his lips to speak, but an inbuilt self-protection forced him to temper his words with caution. Just like when you were negotiating a big takeover—you didn’t lay all your cards on the table at once, did you? You always kept something back.
‘I’m saying that it still feels...unfinished. That maybe we should give it another go. What’s stopping us?’
She put her mug down and pulled the scrunchy from her hair, shaking her head so that a tumble of hair fell loosely around her cheeks.
‘Loads of things. We live in different worlds, for a start,’ she said. ‘We always did, but it’s even more defined now. I’m a country girl with a simple life. The annual photo shoot in London was just something I did to finance this life. The rest of the time, I forget all about it.’
‘I’m not forcing you to become the global face of Lulu if you don’t want to be,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s not what this is all about.’
‘You’re missing my point, Loukas,’ she said, and now she was gesturing to something he hadn’t noticed before, which lay on a small table in the corner of the room. A piece of cloth covered with exquisite sewing. He narrowed his eyes. It looked like a cosmic sky, with bright planets and stars sparking across an indigo background.
‘Yours?’ he questioned.
She nodded. ‘Mine.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ he said automatically.
‘Thank you. It’s something that’s become more than a hobby and I’ve sold several pieces through a shop in Padstow. I’m into embroidery and gardening and now that Hannah’s gone away, I was even thinking of getting a cat—that’s how sad I am. You, on the other hand, live permanently in a hotel and drive around in a chauffeur-driven car. You occupy a luxury suite in the centre of London and you get other people to run your life for you. We’re polar opposites, Loukas. You don’t have a real home. You don’t seem to want one and I do. That’s what I want more than anything.’ Her voice trembled, as if it hurt her to say the words. ‘A real home.’
LOUKAS DIDN’T ANSWER straight away. It was easier to watch the Atlantic crashing on the rocks in the distance and to listen to the crackle of the fire, rather than having to face up to what Jess had just told him. He’d never heard her be so frank and realised it must have taken a lot for her to put her feelings on the line like that. And even though he was determined to hold something back, that didn’t mean he couldn’t proceed with caution, did it?
‘What if I told you that the reason I don’t have a home is because I don’t know how it works?’ he said. ‘And that I’ve never been sufficiently interested in the concept to find out?’
‘Well, there you go. You’ve answered your own question.’
‘But you could show me,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t interrupted.
She stared at him and there was a mutinous look in her eyes as if she didn’t believe him. As if she was waiting for him to pull out the punchline and start laughing. But he wasn’t laughing, he was deadly serious and maybe she picked up on that. ‘Because I don’t feel this thing we have between us has run its course,’ he said.
‘This thing?’
‘Don’t get hung up on words, Jess.’ His voice deepened. ‘I’m Greek, remember?’
‘As if I’m likely to forget.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘And I don’t really understand what you’re suggesting.’
He shrugged. ‘That I move in here with you and see whether I’m compatible with home life.’
She laughed. ‘But you’re an international playboy.’
He gave her a slow smile. ‘That could be negotiable.’
‘And you have a job.’
‘I also have a computer and a phone—and the ability to pull back and delegate.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘And it’s been a very long time since I had a vacation.’
Jessica stared down at her fingernails, her initial disbelief at his suggestion morphing into a feeling of confusion. She suspected he was motivated more by ambition than any real emotion. He’d said himself this thing felt unfinished and maybe that was bugging him—because he was the kind of man who didn’t like to leave things unfinished. Maybe this was all about great sex and the fact that they were still so attracted to one another. Was he banking on that attraction burning itself out, so that he could walk away? Just using the lure of home as a legitimate way to get his foot in the door?
Yet if he left now, what then? Would she spend the rest of her life regretting it and wondering what if? Too scared to face up to something which had lain beneath the surface of her life for so long, something which subconsciously might have been holding her back. There had been many times she’d wished she had the chance to do it all over again and now the opportunity was presenting itself. By allowing him access to her life, mightn’t the pedestal she’d placed him on begin to crumble, freeing her from his power over her?
‘If I said yes,’ she said slowly, ‘it could end at any time.’
‘I can’t guarantee—’
‘No, Loukas.’ She cut him off with a shake of her head, embarrassed that he thought she was trying to back him into a corner. ‘I’m not asking you to pledge anything or promise anything. I’m trying to be practical because I’m a practical person.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘If either of us wants out, at any time—any time at all—then we have to be able to say so. No questions. No post-mortems. Just a shrug and a smile, and a simple goodbye.’
His dark eyes gleamed. ‘This is beginning to sound like my dream scenario.’
‘I