And despite his intention to delegate, his other life soon began to snap around at his heels, like a puppy demanding to be played with. It started with the odd phone call here and there and the beginning of a mounting pile of emails which needed to be dealt with. Soon there were conference calls, which he told her he had to take.
Jessica usually absented herself for those. She would go out into the garden, hearing his deep voice drifting through the open window—often speaking Greek—while she stared down at the bare soil and wondered when the first daffodils would push through and show that spring was nearly here.
She had just straightened up from plucking a weed from the ground after one such call, when she felt the warm caress of Loukas’s hand splaying over her denim-covered buttock and she gave a little shiver of pleasure.
She threw the weed onto the compost heap. ‘Everything okay?’
‘The conference call was fine. And then my brother rang.’ There was a pause. ‘My twin.’
Jessica turned around, hearing his deliberate emphasis of the word and knowing just why he did that. She guessed it was still weird for him to acknowledge that he actually had a twin—the amazingly successful Alek Sarantos. She knew that contact between the two men had been minimal, but maybe that wasn’t so surprising, since neither had known about the other’s existence until they were grown men.
‘How is he?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s okay. Actually, he’s in London.’
‘Oh.’ Wasn’t it stupid that just the mention of the city sounded vaguely ominous, as if it posed some kind of threat? She felt as if his other world—the one she wasn’t part of—was beginning to inch towards them. Her smile didn’t slip. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Mmm. He wants me to have dinner with him. I thought I’d stay up for a few days. Do a little work while I’m there.’ He narrowed his black eyes. ‘You could always come with me.’
She lifted her hand to his face, her fingertips drifting over the sculptured outline of his unshaven jaw and feeling its rough rasp. Yes, she could. She could accompany him to London, a trip which would require a frantic mental inventory about what to wear. She could gatecrash his meeting with his newfound brother and inhibit their burgeoning relationship. She could hang around the Vinoly while he went into the office, or dutifully kill hours doing cultural things with which to impress him when he got home.
She got a sudden scary glimpse of how the future might look, once the initial wild sexual excitement had started to fade. He would probably start making more trips to London and each time he came back, it would be a little harder for them to reconnect. That was how these things worked, wasn’t it? How long before he told her he was moving back permanently to the city, to the rented hotel suite he called home? Deep-down she knew she didn’t fit into his life in London and that was his base.
So shouldn’t she start getting used to that—with pride and with dignity?
‘You need some time on your own with Alek,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay here.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Right.’
She saw the sudden flinty look in his eyes. Did it matter to him if she accompanied him or not?
So ask him. Just go right ahead and ask him.
But the different ways of phrasing such a question were really only a disguise for the one which could never be asked.
How do you feel about me, Loukas?
A more confident woman might have come right out and said it. A more sexually experienced one almost certainly would have done. But Jessica had been protecting herself from pain for so long that she would sooner have walked barefoot across the rough cliff path than risk getting hurt again.
‘When will you leave?’ she said as they began to walk back towards the house.
‘I’ll leave immediately. Why hang around? There’s just one thing I need to do first.’
She turned her face up to look at him. ‘What’s that?’
‘I’ll show you.’
He linked his fingers with hers and led her inside, taking her straight upstairs and stripping off her clothes with speed rather than finesse. His eyes were still flinty and his mouth hardened into an odd kind of smile just before he drove it down on hers in a punishing kind of kiss.
He entered her urgently and as Jessica clung to his thrusting body she was filled with a terrible sense of sadness—as if she’d just failed a test she hadn’t even known she was taking.
The house was quiet after he’d left. It was the first time she’d been without him for weeks. Long, lazy weeks which now seemed to have passed in a flash. She kept looking up, expecting to see him, telling herself it was crazy how quickly she had become used to having him around.
She kept busy, working hard on her embroidery and selling a small piece privately, before hearing about the possibility of a commission for a much larger piece. She gardened and made bread and went for long cliff-top walks. Then she took a call from an excited Hannah, who told her that she’d met a young Australian vet in Bali.
‘Oh, Jess,’ she sighed. ‘He’s gorgeous. You’d really like him. He wants me to go to Perth next. That’s where his folks live.’
‘That sounds lovely,’ said Jessica, even though inside she wanted to scream, Please don’t fall in love with a man from the other side of the world, so that I probably won’t see you very much.
Because you shouldn’t use your own selfish needs to try to change someone else’s behaviour, should you? Wasn’t that one of the reasons why she never dared bring up the subject of the future with Loukas—because she sensed there could never be any compromise about their different lifestyles? Or because she wasn’t sure if his feelings for her went any deeper than a powerful sexual attraction? She thought about him, miles away in London, and her heart clenched. Did he miss her, she wondered, and did he have any idea how much she missed him?
She spoke to him that evening and the sound of laughter and glasses clinking in the background made her feel very alone. And it was her own stupid fault. She thought that if he’d suggested her joining him, she would have been booking her ticket from Bodmin station quicker than a flash. But he didn’t. Just as he didn’t know exactly when he would be back.
‘Soon,’ he said.
But soon was inconclusive. Soon gave her the chance to dwell on all the things which were nagging away inside her. Maybe his brother was lining him up with a nice Greek girl. Maybe the lure of London had enticed him back and the thought of returning to this quiet little hamlet had filled him with horror.
Or just maybe he was missing her as much as she was missing him. What if that was a possibility? And once she allowed herself to consider that possibility, it altered everything. It scared her. It excited her. It made her feel as if she were floating three inches about the ground. She thought about some of the things he’d told her. About a mother who had always put other men before her son. Didn’t that mean he would be reluctant to trust the love of women—or wary about putting his own feelings on the line? So wasn’t it time to start grabbing at a little emotional courage—to dare show Loukas that she wanted him? To stop worrying about the fear of rejection and tell him she cared.
A text arrived from him in the early hours and she stared at it sleepily.
Back tomorrow. L xxx
She woke, still with that walking-on-air feeling. She cleaned the house from top to bottom and swept the path. At the village store, she bought coffee, bread and wine—and when she got home went out into the garden, snipping off bright stems of foliage to cram into a beautiful blue and white vase. When he arrived she would tell him she’d missed him. Or ask him whether he wanted her to return to London with him.