by Kate Hewitt
And he still felt the shame and guilt over failing Daphne, but he felt something else too. Hope. Fragile, faint, but there. Definitely there. He glanced at Milly, and saw tears sparkling in her eyes, and with a thrill of longing he wondered if she was as affected as he was. Felt the way he did...
It was all so much...the music, the evening, Milly. His life had broken open along with his heart, and he couldn’t control either any more. He didn’t even want to. He clung to Milly’s hand, or perhaps she clung to his. Either way they remained together, joined by their hands, the music, everything. Tonight he would tell her how he felt...
Then the piece ended, and the room was completely silent for a few taut seconds before the applause broke out, and Anna beamed.
Milly slid her hand from his as she began to clap. ‘I’m so proud of her,’ she murmured. ‘So proud. I never thought to have a moment like this...sorry, I’m turning into an emotional wreck, aren’t I?’ She smiled wryly as she dashed the tears from her cheeks, and Alex came back to reality with an almighty crash.
Milly had been emotional because of Anna, not him. How could he have dreamed otherwise even for a moment? She didn’t feel what he did, not even a little bit, and he felt biting disappointment along with an awful relief that he hadn’t got to the point of declaring, and embarrassing, himself. ‘Shall we go say congratulations?’ he enquired, and Milly nodded.
As soon as Anna saw them, she pushed her way through the crowds, throwing her arms around Milly and then, to Alex’s surprise, around him.
‘I’m so glad you came!’
‘Anna, you were amazing.’
‘Oh, no, I flubbed a note in the second movement—’
‘Truly you were,’ Alex said. ‘I was very touched by the music.’ That was all it had been—an emotional reaction to such a sad and evocative piece.
‘Yes.’ Anna studied him with bright eyes, and then glanced at Milly. ‘You seem happy,’ she said, sounding both satisfied and hopeful.
‘We’re happy to be here, and to see you,’ Milly said quickly. ‘Of course we are.’
‘Yes, we are,’ Alex added swiftly. Yet another reminder. Milly seemed intent on showing him that they were there for Anna, and Anna only. ‘We must take you out for some celebratory cake and champagne.’
Anna’s cheeks pinked. ‘I’d love that!’
‘Then it’s decided.’
They celebrated in the private dining room of a nearby exclusive restaurant, with Alex ordering tiramisu and a bottle of the best champagne.
‘No champagne for me,’ Milly said with a little smile. ‘I’ve had enough to drink already. But Anna can have a sip.’
Alex frowned, because as far as he recalled Milly had stuck to sparkling water at the gala, but perhaps she was remembering the last time they’d had champagne—when she’d been sick on their wedding night. A reminder he hardly wanted now. In any case, he didn’t press the point, but poured Anna a small glass.
‘To Anna and her stunning performance,’ he said, and everyone raised their glasses. It was, Alex reflected broodingly, a reminder to him as well as a toast. Tonight had been about Anna...only Anna.
Both he and Milly were quiet on the way back to the hotel, having dropped Anna off at her school’s boarding house. Neither of them spoke as they entered their suite, and then Milly put a hand on Alex’s shoulder. He stilled.
‘Alex.’ She spoke his name softly.
‘What is it?’ His voice came out harshly; he felt too raw, after all the emotions of the evening, the impossible-to-ignore realisation that he felt something for Milly. How much, he couldn’t bear to think about. Whatever it was, he could quash it down. He would have to.
‘Thank you,’ Milly said softly. ‘Thank you for going out with me tonight. Thank you for standing by my side.’ She gazed at him trustingly, her eyes wide and guileless, her expression full of sincerity and empathy.
‘I should say the same,’ Alex said gruffly. ‘You had the harder role, undoubtedly.’
‘I did not,’ Milly asserted.
‘Being seen with me—’
‘Alex.’ She pressed her finger against his lips, a whisper of skin. ‘Don’t say such a thing. Don’t even think it. You were the handsomest man there tonight, as far as I was concerned.’
‘Milly...’ It came out as a warning. He did not want her pity, the useless stroking of his ego for sympathy’s sake. Not now, when he’d been on the verge of feeling so much more for her.
‘I mean it...’ She took a step closer to him, so her hips brushed his and need, as ever, flared inside him, white-hot. ‘What will it take for you to believe me?’ She searched his face, looking for an answer he couldn’t give because the truth was he didn’t know. Then she lifted her hand and traced the deep ridges of his scars with her fingers. Alex sucked in a hard gasp, the damaged skin oversensitive, her touch achingly tender. In all the times they’d made love, she’d never touched his scars before. It felt as if she were touching his soul.
‘These scars are part of who you are,’ she said softly. ‘They tell the story of you, and I only know part of it, but I know this: I know they show you are a survivor, and that you are strong.’
‘You don’t know...’
‘Tell me, Alex.’ She cupped his scarred cheek with her hand, and he closed his eyes, both savouring and reviling her touch. ‘Tell me about the fire.’
He didn’t speak for a long moment. He couldn’t. Yet he felt the memories rising like a tide within him, and he knew he would speak. He would tell her about that terrible night. And maybe it would make her walk away from him, or at least stop trying so much, making him care whether she wanted him to or not. Perhaps telling her was the answer, the way to keep them both safe—and separate.
‘It was at my house,’ he finally said, the words seeming to come from far away. ‘Here in Athens. I had a villa in Kolonaki.’ Milly simply waited, her hand still on his cheek, touching him so tenderly. ‘My sister, Daphne,’ he said, knowing it was all disjointed, fragments of memory lodged in his throat—in his heart—like broken shards of glass. ‘And...and her son, Talos.’
Milly’s breath came out in a soft gasp of sorrow. ‘Oh, Alex...’
‘They both died.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have been able to save them.’
‘How?’
Could he really tell her all of it? The terrible truth? Yes. He had to. For both of their sakes.
He took a ragged breath and opened his eyes. ‘Let me start at the beginning,’ he said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MILLY WATCHED AS Alex walked away from her, loosening his bow tie and shedding his jacket and cummerbund. Even now, especially now, he looked devastatingly attractive—his body one of leashed power and innate authority, his face drawn in stark lines of remembered pain. She wanted to put her arms around him. She wanted to tell him she loved him.
But she didn’t dare, and she knew now was not the time anyway. Now was the time for Alex’s story, at last. And perhaps it would draw them closer together. She prayed it would.
‘The beginning,’ Alex stated flatly, ‘is that my father was a terrible man. Abusive to my mother as well as to my sister Daphne and me.’ Milly opened her mouth to express her horror and sorrow, but Alex cut across her before she could frame a word. ‘He was clever about it, so no one knew outside the family. He always made it feel as if it were our fault—we’d done something to provoke him.’ A pause as Alex stared out of the window, lost in memory. ‘He would fly into terrible rages.’
‘I’m sorry...’
‘On the outside, we looked like the perfect family. My father was successful, my mother beautiful, Daphne and I were model children. We were too scared to be anything else. As a family we were private, because we had to be. We didn’t make friends, we kept everyone as an acquaintance. It was easier that way.’
Which explained so mu
ch about Alex’s need for privacy and distance now, Milly thought with an ache. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets as he stared out at the night.
‘But then my father went too far. He broke my mother’s arm, and that was something she couldn’t hide.’ Another pause, and Milly wished he’d turn and look at her. ‘I confronted him. I was fifteen by then, practically a man. And I beat him within an inch of his life. Broken nose, broken jaw, broken wrist. Internal bleeding. He was in the hospital for weeks, thanks to my fists.’
Milly couldn’t keep from gasping at the awful image. She suspected he’d meant to shock her, and he had. But she still wanted to hear the rest of it.
‘What happened then?’ she asked softly.
‘He pressed charges. My father thought he was above the law, but he wanted to make sure I wasn’t.’ Alex let out a rush of breath as he shrugged. ‘I ended up spending a few months in juvenile detention. Not the high point of my life. But by the time I came out, my father was long gone—he’d taken a corporate job in the Middle East. And my mother was married to my stepfather, Christos.’
Milly waited, knowing there had to be more. Much more. After a long moment, Alex resumed his story. ‘I was angry and impossible, but Christos took me under his wing. Treated me like his own. And I learned self-control.’ He paused. ‘Christos was tough on me, but in a good way. But we all had scars from my father’s treatment, and that showed itself in different ways.’ He paused, and Milly waited, her heart in her mouth. How much more could there be to this awful story? And yet she knew there was worse to come. He hadn’t even spoken about his sister yet, not really.
‘Daphne married an abusive man when she was just twenty,’ Alex resumed. ‘Nikolaos Aganos. We didn’t realise what was going on at first. She hid it well, but we’d all become experts at hiding. And perhaps we didn’t want to realise. Perhaps we closed our eyes, because we were experts at that too. But then it got worse—it always does. And two years ago, she finally left him, running to me, bringing her four-year-old son Talos with her.’ He fell silent, his expression bleak, his body taut. ‘I’ll never forget how she looked, coming to my door. A black eye. Bruises...bruises on her throat.’ His voice caught, and Milly reached out a hand, desperate to comfort him even as a sense of dread seeped into her stomach. She knew Daphne was dead, and that there had been a fire...
‘Oh, Alex...’
‘And Talos was so terrified, he had become mute. He wouldn’t say a word, just clung to her and hid his face.’
‘That must have been so terrible,’ Milly said quietly. Any words felt utterly inadequate. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
‘You know what my reaction was?’ Alex asked in that flat tone she had come to hate, except now she knew how much pain that toneless delivery could hide. ‘Anger. Just like before, with my father, I felt rage—a consuming, overwhelming fury, one I could not control. And I let that guide me. I let it drive me. I never learn, do I?’
Milly stared at him uncertainly. ‘What...what do you mean?’
‘I left them there, Daphne and Talos. I left them alone in my house even though I knew they were hurting and terrified. And I went in search of Aganos. I think if I’d found him, I might have killed him.’ He gave her a cold smile, the coldest she’d ever seen. ‘In fact, I’m quite sure I would have.’
Milly’s heart lurched as that persistent dread swirled inside her, the most corrosive of acids. ‘But you didn’t find him...’
‘No, because while I was out in the city baying for his blood, he’d gone to my house...and set fire to it.’
Milly’s hand covered her mouth. ‘No...’
‘Yes. Daphne and Talos were sleeping. The doors were locked. When I came back, the whole place was in flames.’
So why was he the one with the scars? Milly studied him, the clenched fists, the heaving chest, the eyes full of pain. ‘You went in,’ she said softly. ‘Didn’t you? To rescue them?’
‘I didn’t do much good, did I? I found them, curled up together, unconscious from the smoke. I carried them both outside, and a burning beam fell across my face as I came out of the door. But none of it mattered. They both died from smoke inhalation within the hour.’
‘Oh, Alex...’
‘If I’d been there—’
‘But how could you have known?’ Milly burst out. Realisation crashed through her, at what Alex had endured, what he had blamed himself for, for so many years. ‘That fire was not your fault.’
‘I might not have lit the match,’ Alex returned staunchly, ‘but I’m still to blame. I chose anger over empathy. I chose to seek personal revenge rather than to be there for my sister and her son, and as a result they both died.’
‘They might have died anyway,’ Milly argued, and Alex let out a harsh laugh.
‘You don’t really believe that.’
‘You might have died as well—’
‘No. The only reason Aganos came to my house was because he knew I wasn’t there. He said as much in court, when he was on trial. He’d been watching the house, watching me.’
‘Even so,’ Milly began shakily, but then stopped. She knew whatever she said right now was crucial; she felt their relationship might turn on the words that came out of her mouth, and that thought was terrifying, because the truth was she had no idea what to say, or even what to feel.
Perhaps Alex was right, and his sister and her son wouldn’t have died if he’d been there. Perhaps he’d let anger get the better of him more than once, but it had been a righteous anger, an anger fuelled by love and pain and the desire for justice. ‘You can’t torture yourself over this, Alex,’ she said finally. ‘Don’t live your life in the past...’
‘My sister and her son are dead.’ The words came out savagely as he turned to face her. ‘Because of me. And you say I should let it go? Give myself a break? Do you really think that, Milly? Or are you finally realising that I’m not the man you thought I was, have been hoping I was? Because that’s what’s been going on, isn’t it?’ His mouth twisted in a sneer, his scars pulling tight, his face a mask of derision. You’ve been starting to care for me, haven’t you, no matter what you’ve told yourself? You’ve been painting rainbows in your head and now you know that you shouldn’t have.’ Milly blinked, his words like hammer blows to her heart, shattering it like the fragile thing she knew it had always been.
‘You can’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he continued. ‘All I wanted out of this marriage was an heir, but perhaps it’s better that I don’t reproduce.’ He lifted his chin, his eyes glittering fiercely. ‘I’m not the man you’ve been wishing I was, Milly. Well, at least now you know. Before it’s too late.’
‘Too late for what?’ Milly asked, her voice and body trembling. He was pushing her away on purpose, she knew it, and it hurt more than she thought possible. Her illusions were shattered...not by what Alex had admitted to, but why he was admitting it. Because he didn’t want her to care for him. ‘Do you want me to walk away from you?’ she asked, her voice wobbling on the words. ‘Is that what this is about, Alex?’
He shrugged a shoulder, coldly indifferent to her plea. ‘You can do what you like.’
Milly swallowed hard, trying not to feel hurt. He wanted to hurt her, she knew that much, and that was painful enough, never mind the words he said. She was tempted to do just what he said—walk away. Save herself from any further pain. Except she knew she couldn’t make that choice. Wouldn’t. And yet she was so very afraid that what had been hoped to be a beginning was going to be an awful end.
‘I can’t walk away from you, Alex,’ she said, one hand pressed to her still-flat stomach. ‘Whether I want to or not.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Bound by our vows?’ he stated sardonically. ‘How quaint, Milly—’
‘No,’ Milly said, and now she really was shaking, both inside and out. How had it descended to this, so quickly? She pressed her hand flat against
her belly, imagining the flutter of life she knew was inside her. ‘I can’t, because I’m pregnant.’
* * *
Alex stared at her for a full minute, the words taking that long to penetrate his dazed mind. He took in her terrified expression, her trembling hand on her belly.
‘Pregnant,’ he repeated tonelessly. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Very.’
He continued to study her, noticing how her lips trembled along with her hand; her gaze slid away from his. She couldn’t even look him in the eye. ‘How far along are you?’ he asked, suspicion creeping down his spine with cold fingers. ‘How long have you known?’
‘A...a little while.’ She still wouldn’t look at him.
‘Milly.’ His eyes narrowed as he took in other details of her appearance he hadn’t realised until now: her fuller face and breasts, the slight roundness of her belly. ‘How long?’ he demanded harshly.
‘A...a few weeks. I think we conceived on our wedding night.’ She spoke softly and Alex swung around, stalking to the window as he fought a sweeping sense of betrayal—and hurt. That had been nearly two months ago. Why had she kept it from him? Why had she lied?
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ he asked, his voice low and furious. ‘Or were you just going to hope for the best?’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Milly sounded near tears. ‘Alex, I was going to tell you. Of course I was. It’s just... I was scared.’
He swung back around. ‘Scared?’
‘Yes. Scared.’ She nibbled her lip, reminding him of her fear on their wedding night. The fear, it seemed, she’d always had of him, and now he’d given her even greater reason to be afraid. How could he have ever thought this would have worked? That a man like him, scarred inside and out, could love someone—and more importantly, more laughably, be loved himself?
‘We can still divorce,’ he heard himself saying.