Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks

‘Tell the Sheikh I’ll call him back later, Dora.’

‘But, Ariston…’

It was rare for his assistant to even attempt to remonstrate with him but Ariston knew the reason for her unusual intervention. Sheikh Azraq Al-Haadi was one of the most powerful leaders of the desert lands and one who would not take kindly to his refusal to accept a phone call which had taken many days of planning to organise. But one thing he knew without a shadow of a doubt was that talking to Keeley was more important. His tapping ceased and Ariston’s hand clenched into a tight fist as satisfaction hardened his lips into a smile. Was she regretting her decision to walk out on him? Finding that life wasn’t quite so straightforward without the protection of her influential husband? Had she realised that he’d been right all along and that his concern about her associates had sprung solely from a need to protect her? He allowed himself a beat of anticipation. He would accept her back, yes, but she must understand that he would accept no similar tantrums or hysteria in the future—for all their sakes.

‘Please tell the Sheikh I will move heaven and earth to arrange another call,’ he said firmly. ‘But for now I have someone else I need to speak to, so don’t disturb me until I say so, Dora.’

He snatched up the mobile phone and clicked the connection, but took care to keep his voice bland and noncommittal. ‘Hello?’

There was a breathless kind of pause. ‘Ariston,’ came the soft English voice which made his heart stab with a strange kind of pain. ‘You took so long to answer that I thought you weren’t going to pick up.’

Something inside him was urging him to make an attempt at conciliation but the anger he’d felt when she had carried through her threat and walked out on him had not left him.

‘Well, I’m here now,’ he said coolly. ‘What is it you want, Keeley?’

The tone of her voice altered immediately and the stumbled apology he had been expecting was not forthcoming.

‘As I’m having private healthcare, my obstetrician has fitted in an extra check-up for me and I’m due for a scan tomorrow,’ she said, her voice now as cool as his. ‘And I thought you might like to come. I realise it’s very short notice and you might not be able to clear your diary in time—’

‘Is that why you left it so late to invite me?’

He heard the unmistakable sound of a frustrated sigh. ‘No, Ariston. But since you haven’t bothered answering any of my emails—’

‘You know I don’t like communicating by email,’ he said moodily.

‘Yes, I realise that.’ There was a pause. ‘I just… I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d want to see me. I thought about sending you a photo once I’d had the scan done, then thought that wouldn’t be fair and so I—’

‘What time,’ he interrupted brutally, ‘is it happening?’

‘Midday. At the Princess Mary hospital. Where we went before—you remember?’

‘I’ll be there,’ he said, before the voice of his conscience forced the next question from his lips. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine. All good.’ He could hear her swallowing. ‘The midwife is very pleased with my progress and I—’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, and terminated the conversation.

He sat staring into space afterwards, angry with himself for being so short with her, but what the hell did she expect—that he would run around after her like some kind of puppy? He stared at the sky, whose dark clouds had now begun to empty slanting rods of rain onto the surrounding skyscrapers. After their blazing row he’d spent the night in a hotel to give her time to cool off, returning the following morning and expecting her to have changed her mind. In fact, he’d been expecting an apology. His mouth hardened. How wrong he had been. There had been no contrition or attempt to make things better. Her mood had been flat yet purposeful as she had repeated her determination to move out.

He’d tried being reasonable. He had not opposed her wishes, giving her free rein to move into her own place, telling himself that, if he gave her the freedom she thought she wanted and the space she thought she needed, it would bring her running right back. But it hadn’t. On the contrary, she had made a cosy little nest out of her rented cottage on Wimbledon Common, as if she was planning to stay there for ever. During his one brief visit, he had stared in disbelief at the sunny yellow room, which she had made into a perfect nursery by adorning the walls with pictures of rabbits and such like. A shiny mobile of silvery fish had twirled above a brand-new crib and in the hallway had stood an old-fashioned pram. He had looked out of the window at the seemingly endless green grass of the Common and his heart had clenched with pain as he acknowledged his exclusion. And yet pride stopped him from showing it. He had given a cool shake of his head when she had offered him tea, citing a meeting in the city as the reason why.

She had told him she would be fair and that he could have paternal visiting rights as often as he liked and he believed her, but the idea of living without his son made his heart clench with pain. And yet the thought of an ugly legal battle for their baby had suddenly seemed all wrong.

Why?

Why?

He slept badly—something which was becoming a habit—and he was already waiting when Keeley arrived at the hospital, failing to hide the shock on her face when she saw him.

‘Ariston!’ Her cheeks went pink. ‘You’re early!’

‘And?’

She looked as if she wanted to say something more but smiled instead, except that, as smiles went, it didn’t look terribly convincing. Her mouth seemed strained but he thought he’d never seen her looking more beautiful, in a green velvet coat which matched her eyes and her fair hair hanging over one shoulder in a thick plait.

‘Shall we go up to the scanning room?’ she said.

‘As you wish,’ he growled.

The appointment couldn’t have gone better. The radiographer smiled and pointed out things which didn’t really need pointing out—even to Ariston’s untutored eye. The rapidly beating little heart and the thumb which was jammed into a monochrome mouth. He could feel the salt taste of unwanted tears in the back of his throat and was glad that Keeley was busy wiping jelly from her stomach, giving him enough time to compose himself.

And when they emerged into the quiet London street it felt as if he had stepped into another world.

‘Would you like lunch?’ he questioned formally.

‘I…no, thank you.’

‘Coffee, then?’

She looked as if she wanted to say something important but although she had opened her lips, she quickly closed them again and shook her head. ‘No, thanks. It’s very kind of you but I’m off coffee at the moment and I’m…tired. I’d rather get home if it’s all the same with you.’

‘I’ll have my driver drop you off.’

‘No, honestly, Ariston. I’ll get the bus or the Tube. It’s no bother.’

‘I’m not having you struggling across London on public transport in your condition. I will have my driver drop you off,’ he repeated in a flat tone which didn’t quite disguise his growing irritation. ‘Don’t worry, Keeley. I’ll take a cab. I wouldn’t dream of subjecting you to any more of my company since you clearly find the prospect so unappealing. Here. Get in.’

He pulled open the door of the limousine which Keeley hadn’t even noticed and which had drawn to a smooth and noiseless halt beside them. He was watching her as she slid onto the back seat, the scent of leather and luxury seeming poignantly familiar as she stared into Ariston’s blue eyes—those beautiful blue eyes which she had missed so much. Her mouth dried. Should she tell him to come round some time? Would that send out the wrong message—or maybe the real message—that it wasn’t just his eyes she had missed?

‘Ariston,’ she began, but he had closed the car door and given an almost imperceptible nod to his driver as the powerful machine pulled away.

And Keeley turned round, slightly ungainly with her baby bump, wanting to catch a glimpse of his face as the car pulled away. Was she hoping for one of those movie endings, where she would surprise a look of longing on his face and she could yell at the driver to stop the car, and…

But he was walking away, striding purposefully towards a black cab which had just switched off its yellow light, and Keeley turned away, biting her lip as the limousine took her southwest, towards Wimbledon.

She was doing the right thing. She was. She kept telling herself that over and over. Why sit through a torturous lunch or even a cup of coffee when Ariston had a face like dark granite? He didn’t love her and he never could. He was an unreasonably jealous and controlling man. He might have the power to turn her to jelly whenever he so much as looked at her but he was all the things she despised.

So how come she still wanted him with a longing which sometimes left her breathless with regret for what could never be?

And she was doing this for their baby, she reminded herself. Building respect between them and forging a relationship which would demonstrate what two adults could achieve if they only put their minds to it.

The journey to her cottage took for ever and in truth it would have been quicker getting the train, but the moment she walked up the path to her little house she could feel a slight lifting of her mood. Wimbledon Common had been one of those places she’d always drooled about when she’d lived in New Malden. She used to take the bus there on her day off. It had a villagey feel and a pond, plus lots of lovely little shops and restaurants. She’d seen other pregnant mothers giving her cautious smiles when she was out and about and she wanted to reach out and make friends, but something was holding her back. She shut the front door with a bang. She didn’t want to let anyone close because then she would have to explain her circumstances and tell them that her brief marriage was over. Because if she admitted it to someone else, then she would have to accept it was true.

And she didn’t want it to be true, she realised. She wanted…

She bit her lip as she batted the dark thoughts away. She didn’t dare express what she wanted, not even to herself. All she knew was that she couldn’t go back to that old way of living. Of feeling like a pampered doll in someone else’s life. A decorative asset to be brought out whenever the situation merited it. She wanted to connect with the real world—not sit in her gilded penthouse and look down on it. And most of all she wanted a man who wouldn’t make out that feelings were like poison—and you should avoid them whenever possible.

She lit a fire in the grate and had just made a pot of tea when there was a ring on the bell. She peered through the peephole, shocked to see Ariston standing on her doorstep, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his trousers, his face a dark glower. She pulled open the door and there he was, his black hair ruffled by the October wind and his jaw all shadowed.

Her heart missed a beat. ‘Ariston,’ she said, wondering if he could hear the slight quaver in her voice. ‘What…what are you doing here?’

His shuttered features looked forbidding. ‘Can I come in?’

She hesitated for only a moment before stepping aside to let him pass. ‘Of course.’

She wasn’t going to do that thing of offering him tea—of pretending this was some kind of social call. There wasn’t going to be any of that fake stuff which just wasted time and meant nothing. She would hear him out and then he would go. But a shiver of apprehension whispered over her because an impromptu visit like this didn’t bode well—not when his expression was so serious and so brooding. Had he decided he was being too soft with her and now that she was showing no signs of moving back, he was going to retaliate? Maybe instruct his lawyers to reduce the generous amount of income she was receiving—to shock her into seeing sense. Was he going to starve her out to make her come back to him? It was an unpalatable thought until she thought of one which was even worse.

That he didn’t want her back.

Pain and panic rushed through her like a hot, fierce tide. What if he’d decided that life was easier without a wife who was constantly nagging him because he stayed late at the office? If he’d decided he’d had enough of domesticity and wanted to get back on the party scene. That she had been right all along and the marriage simply wasn’t working.

‘What do you want, Ariston?’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Why are you here?’

Ariston stared at her and the trilingual fluency of a lifetime suddenly deserted him. On the way here he’d worked out exactly what he was going to say to her but all the words seemed to have flown straight out of his head. But he knew what he wanted, didn’t he? He was a man who was skilled in the art of negotiation. So wasn’t it time to go all out and get it?

‘I’m going to reduce my hours,’ he said.

She looked taken aback, but she nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Because I realise that you’re right.’ He rubbed his fingers over the faint stubble of his chin as if only just realising he’d forgotten to shave that morning. ‘I’ve been working too hard.’

He looked at her expectantly, waiting for the praise which such a magnanimous gesture surely merited and for her to fling herself into his arms to thank him. But she didn’t. She didn’t move. She just stood there with her green eyes wary and her pale hair glowing in the thin autumn light which was streaming through the window.

‘And your point is, what?’ she questioned.

‘That we’ll spend more time together. Obviously.’

She gave an odd smile. ‘So what has brought about this sudden revelation?’

He frowned, because her reaction was not what he had imagined it would be. ‘I allowed myself to accept that the Kavakos company is in the black and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future,’ he said slowly.

She screwed up her nose. ‘And hasn’t it always been?’

Raking his fingers back through his hair, he shook his head. ‘No. I think I told you that when my father died, I discovered he’d blown most of the family fortune. For a while it was touch and go whether or not we’d make it. Suddenly I was looking into a big black hole where the future used to be and I had so many people relying on me. Not just Pavlos but all the staff we employed. People on Lasia whose livelihood depended on our success. People in cities all over the world.’ He sucked in a deep breath. ‘That’s why I put the time in—long hours, every day, way past midnight. It took everything I possessed to turn things around and get the company back on an even keel.’

‘But that was then, and this is now—and Kavakos is arguably the biggest shipping company in the world.’

He nodded. ‘I know that. But hard work got to be such a habit that I let it take me over. And I’m not going to do that any more. I’m going to spend less time at the office and more time at home. With you.’ He looked at her. ‘That’s all.’

The silence which followed seemed to go on and on and when she spoke her voice was trembling.

‘But that’s not all, Ariston,’ she said. ‘The reason you work so hard isn’t because you’ve developed some kind of habit you can’t break or because secretly you live in fear that all your profits are going to disappear overnight. It’s because at work you’re the one in charge and what you say goes. And you like to be in control, don’t you? Work has always provided you with an escape route. It’s there for the taking when your wife wants to get too close or tries to talk about stuff you don’t want to talk about.’

‘Are you listening to a word I’ve just said?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve told you I’ll reduce my hours, if that’s what it takes to get you back.’

‘But don’t you realise?’ she whispered. ‘That’s not enough.’

‘Not enough?’ he echoed, his blue eyes laced with confusion. ‘What else do you want from me, Keeley?’

And here it was, the question she’d wanted him to ask ever since he had carried her to their bedroom on their wedding night. A no-holds-barred question which would make her vulnerable to so much potential pain if she answered it honestly.

Did she dare?

Could she dare not to?

She’d once vowed never to put herself in a position where she could be rejected again, but that was a vow she’d made when she’d been hurt and humbled. All these years later she was a grown woman who would soon have a baby of her own. And it all boiled down to whether she had the courage to put her pride and her fears aside and to reach out for the one thing she wanted.

‘I want your trust,’ she said simply. ‘I want you to believe me when I tell you things and to stop imagining the worst. I want you to stop trying to control me and let me have the freedom to be myself. I want to stop feeling as if I’m swimming against the tide whenever I try to get close to you. I want ours to be a marriage which works—but only if we’re both prepared to work at it. I want us to be equals, Ariston. True equals.’

His eyes narrowed as he nodded his head. ‘You sound like you’ve given this some thought.’

‘Oh, I’ve given it plenty,’ she said truthfully. ‘Only I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get the chance to say it.’

There was another silence and the haunted expression on his face tore at Keeley’s heartstrings for she saw her own fears and insecurities reflected there. It made her want to go to him and hug him tightly—to offer him her strength and to feel his. But she said nothing. Nothing which would break the spell or the hope that he might just reveal what was hidden in his heart, instead of trying to blot it out and hide it away, the way he normally did. Because that was the only way they could go forward, she realised. If they both were honest enough to let the truth shine through.

‘I didn’t want to let you close because I sensed danger—the kind of danger I didn’t know how to handle,’ he said at last. ‘I’d spent years perfecting an emotional control which enabled me to pick up the pieces and care for Pavlos when our mother left. A control which kept the world at a safe distance. A control which enabled me to keep all the balls spinning in the air. I was so busy protecting my brother and safeguarding his future, that I didn’t have time for anything else. I didn’t want anything else. And then I met you and suddenly everything changed. You started to get close. You drew me in, no matter how hard I tried to fight against it, and I recognised that you had the power to hurt me, Keeley.’

‘But I don’t want to hurt you, Ariston,’ she said. ‘I am not your mother and you can’t judge all women by her standards. I want to be there for you—in every way. Won’t you let me do that?’

‘I don’t think I have a choice,’ he admitted huskily. ‘Because my life has been hell without you. My apartment and my life are empty when you aren’t in them, Keeley. Because you speak the truth to me in a way which is sometimes painful to hear—but out of that pain has grown the certainty that I love you. That perhaps I’ve always loved you—and I want to go on loving you for the rest of my life.’

And suddenly she could hold out no longer and crossed the room as quickly as her pregnant shape would allow. She went straight into his arms and at last he was holding her tightly and she closed her eyes against the sudden prick of tears.

‘Keeley,’ he whispered, his mouth pressed hard against her cheek. ‘Oh, Keeley. I’ve been dishonest with myself—right from the start. I felt the thunderbolt the first time I set eyes on you and I’d never felt that way about a woman before. I told myself you were too young—way too young—but then I kissed you and you blew my world apart.’ He pulled away and stroked an unsteady finger over her trembling lips. ‘It was easier to convince myself that I despised you. To tell myself you were cut from the same cloth as your mother, and that I only wanted sex with you to extinguish the burning hunger inside of me. But you just kept igniting the flames. When you became pregnant—a part of me was exultant. I couldn’t decide if it was destiny or fate I needed to thank for a reason to stay close to you. But then came the reality. And the way you made me feel was bigger than anything I’ve ever felt before. It felt…’

‘Scary,’ she finished, pulling back a little so that she could gaze deep into his eyes. ‘I know. Scary for me, too. Because love is precious and rare and most of us don’t know how to handle it, especially when we’ve grown up without it. But we’re bright people, Ariston. We both know what we don’t want—broken homes and lost children and bitter wounds which can never be completely healed. I just want to love you and our baby and to create a happy family life. Don’t you want that too?’

Briefly, Ariston closed his eyes and when he opened them she was still there, just as she always would be. Because some things you just knew, if only you would let your defences down long enough for instinct to take over. And instinct told him that Keeley Kavakos would always love him, though maybe not quite as much as he loved her.

He pulled her closer, his breath warm against her skin. ‘Can we please go to bed so we can plan our future?’ he questioned urgently.

‘Oh, Ariston.’ She rose on tiptoe to wind her arms around his neck, and he could hear the relief which tinged her breathless sigh. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

EPILOGUE

‘SO, HOW ARE you feeling, my clever and very beautiful wife?’

Keeley lifted her gaze from the tiny black head which was cradled against her breast, to find the bright blue eyes of her husband trained on her.

How was she feeling? Tough question. How could words possibly convey the million sentiments which had rushed through her during a long labour, and which had ended just an hour ago with the birth of their son? Joy, contentment and disbelief were all there, that was for sure—along with a savage determination that she would love and protect their new baby with every fibre of her being. Baby Timon. Timon Pavlos Kavakos. She smiled as she traced a feather-light fingertip over his perfect, olive-skinned cheek.

‘I feel like the luckiest woman in the world,’ she said simply.

Ariston nodded. He didn’t want to contradict her at such a time, but if luck was being handed out—then surely he was its biggest recipient? Watching Keeley go through labour had been something which had taught him the true meaning of powerlessness and silently he had cursed that he was unable to bear or share her pain with her. Yet hadn’t it been yet another demonstration of his wife’s formidable strength—to watch her cope so beautifully with each increasing contraction? A wife who was planning to join him in the family business, just as soon as the time was right. He remembered her reaction when he’d first put the idea to her and his tender smile in response to her disbelieving joy. But why wouldn’t he want his capable and very able wife working beside him, with hours which would suit her and their son? Why wouldn’t he want to enjoy her company as much as possible, especially since her command of Greek was getting better by the day?

But she’d told him that these days she studied his language with a passion born from wanting to fit in and not because she was terrified of being left out. Because she was determined to speak the same language as their child. And because family was more important than anything else. A fact which had been drummed home by the sudden death of her mother, a death which in truth had filled Keeley with a sad kind of gratitude, because Vivienne Turner was at peace at last. And it had focussed their minds on the things which mattered. They had decided to make their home on Lasia—on that exquisite paradise of a place, with its green mountains and sapphire sea and skies which were endlessly blue.

Ariston thought how beautiful she looked lying there, still a little pale and exhausted after her long labour, her blonde hair lying damply against her cheeks as she smiled up at him trustingly. ‘Would you like to hold your son now?’ she whispered.

A lump instantly constricted his throat. It was what he’d been waiting for. In fact, it felt as if he’d been waiting for this moment all his life. A little gingerly at first, Ariston took the sleeping bundle from her, and as he bent to kiss the baby’s jet-black hair a fierce wave of love rushed over him. He was used to holding babies because he used to hold Pavlos most of the time—but this felt different. Very different. This child was his flesh. And Keeley’s. Timon. The pounding of his heart was almost deafening and the lump in his throat was making speech difficult, but somehow he got the words out as he looked into the tear-filled eyes of his wife.