CHAPTER TEN
she was gone. He couldn't believe it. No, that wasn't true. He believed it; he just didn't want to. The pain was terrifying. The hollowness he felt went almost beyond bearing. -And even telling himself that he'd expected it didn't help at all. Because, no matter how much he'd got the feeling since she'd come back from East Hampton that he was losing her, he'd told himself she wouldn't really go. And when he'd come into Sophia's hospital room and had seen Kate sitting in the chair, holding the baby in her arms, he'd felt they might really have a chance. She'd looked so beautiful, so content. And when Eleni had taken the baby from her, she'd seemed bereft. And he'd imagined giving her a child of her own. Their own. A child who would cement the bonds that had begun to form between them, a child who would give them an excuse for prolonging their marriage, for making it a forever proposition. Even when he'd looked at Eleni holding his nephew, in his mind's eye he'd still seen Kate, had envisaged her cuddling their own child like that, then looking up at him as if he'd made her universe complete. And then she was gone. No warning. No discussion. Nothing but a terse little note. I think we've done this long enough. I can't lie any longer. Regards, Kate. Regards. Regards} As if they were no more than acquaintances, fleeting ones at that. Maybe we are, Damon thought wearily. She'd been gone a week. He hadn't heard a word. She didn't love him. That was obvious. He had been enough for her in bed, taking the place of dear departed Bryce while the lights were low. But in the long run he'd never had a chance. When she'd seen the baby, when she'd realised what she was missing, the physical relationship she'd had with Damon had paled. She hadn't been able to lie about what she really wanted. And a family with Damon wasn't it. He poured himself another drink--one of the many too many he'd had since she'd left. Then he flung himself down on the sofa and stared through blurred eyes at the ceiling. In his hand he held a small calendar he'd found in the drawer of the bedside table. Kate's calendar. With the days marked off one by one since the day she'd married him. How long would she have kept marking? The question was rhetorical. He knew the answer without asking--until at last she was free of him. His throat ached and tightened; his head throbbed. He was supposed to go to a meeting at three with Belliard. The old man had flown down from Montreal to finalise the deal. Damon didn't care. He should have been at the office hours ago. He'd never missed a day in sixteen years. Until now. Now he'd missed a week. Four days, really, but even when he'd gone to work, he hadn't been there. "What's the matter with you?" Arete had demanded more times than he could count. "You aren't listening to a thing I've said." "What do you mean, you don't know where the Belliard file is," Stephanos asked him. "You're the one who had it." "Damon, are you sick?" "Damon, is there something wrong with Kate?" "Damon, you can't go on like this." It had taken four days and considerable harassment from Stephanos and Sophia for him to even admit what was wrong. "What do you mean, she's left you?" Sophia demanded, horrified. "What did you do to her, Damon?" Damon couldn't answer that. He'd simply sat in their parlour, staring at the scotch in his hands and shaken his head. Sophia quickly changed her tack. "She'll be back," she prophesied. "She's probably just having some post- honeymoon jitters." "Post-honeymoon jitters? Never heard of them." Stephanos had said. Sophia shot him a hard glare. "Not surprising." "No," Damon had said in a low voice. He drained the scotch and heaved himself to his feet. "It's not that." He headed towards the door. "Damon?" Sophia's voice stopped him. "Is there anything we can do?" He shook his head. "I did it all myself." Kate had known it would be difficult. She hadn't expected to get over him just like that. But they hadn't been married very long. They hadn't even married for love. Surely those circumstances should dull the pain a bit? The day she left Damon, she left the city, too. She didn't imagine he'd come after her, but if he had, she didn't know if she'd have had the strength to say no to him. So she fled, took herself off to New England. Cape Cod in January seemed an appropriate place to go. A place as cold and bleak as her heart. Deserted, windswept miles of bare sand beach and chilly Atlantic surf were supposed to make her forget. They reminded her of the Bahamas instead. They reminded her of days in the sun, days of warmth, days in Damon's arms. She lasted a week. Barely. Then she went home. Only that didn't work either because her apartment, she discovered very quickly, wasn't home any more. Home was where Damon was. As soon as she'd unpacked her bags, bought herself some groceries and spent a sleepless night remembering what it was like to share a bed with the man she loved, she took herself off to work. Work had saved her from the pain of Bryce's defection and death. It didn't save her from her love of Damon. For three days she buried herself in interviews, home checks, the business of matchmaking families and nannies to help them. Nothing on earth helped her. "You really ought to get some rest," Greta, her office helper, told her late Thursday afternoon. "That was supposed to be a vacation you took, but you look worse now than when you left." "I have a cold," Kate lied. "Then you should go home and drink orange juice and go to bed." But Kate shook her head. "I have work to do." Greta reached over and plucked the file out of her hand. "Then you'd better let me help you. You're putting the Barlowes under the Ms." She didn't fall apart while Greta was there. She waited until Greta caught the bus at five o'clock, then she stopped trying to pretend. Her occasional sniffles turned into honest sobs. She felt her heart rend. There was a knock on the door. Kate wiped her eyes, blew her nose, cleared her throat. "We're closed. Come back tomorrow," she said and her voice wobbled precariously. "Kate? Is that you? Open up!" She bolted up, wiping at her eyes even more furiously, hesitating, wondering if she should deny it, then going to the door. "Stephanos?" She opened it, still unsure. But, yes, it was. He looked frantic. "Thank God!" He strode in, grabbing her by the arm. "What's wrong? Is something wrong with Sophia? With the baby? Didn't Mrs Partridge ?" "Sophia's fine. The baby's fine. Mrs Partridge is a blessed saint." "Then what?" He glowered at her. "It's Damon." Kate's heart lurched. "Damon? What's wrong with Damon?" "You tell me." Stephanos dropped his hold on her arm, but he didn't stop looking at her. She shook her head, perplexed. "He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. He doesn't shave. He doesn't work. Imagine, if you can, Damon not working! He does, however, drink. He drinks too damned much! And he looks like hell. And why? Because you left him, that's why! " "I Kate faltered, stunned. "Why, Kate? Why did you leave him?" She wet suddenly parched lips. "Damon knows," she said tonelessly after a moment. She looked away out the window into the darkness, unable to face her brother-in-law. "That's what he said," Stephanos admitted. "But it doesn't make sense. You love each other!" Kate didn't say anything. She couldn't deny it--not the part about her loving him. And the other part? Wishful thinking, she told herself. "You know, Kate," Stephanos said carefully, 'marriages are tricky. They aren't long, smooth runs to perfect bliss. Seeing the hash I was about to make of mine should have showed you that. But you two had something real--the same as Sophia and I did. " "We didn't!" Kate protested. Stephanos just looked at her. "Then why were you crying?" He nodded at the tissue still wadded in her hand. "Why is Damon drinking himself sick?" He gave her a gentle smile. "Take another look, Kate. Risk it. Go home. It worked for me. " It wasn't the same. She hadn't been playing around. And, despite what he'd said about fidelity during their brief marriage, she doubted that Damon would have cared if she had been. At least that was what she tried to tell herself after Stephanos left her in the quiet of her office. It didn't work. Damon had proposed fidelity. He would have cared. He'd been honest about that. But he'd never said he loved her. And she'd never said she loved him. She could--and did--argue both sides of the issue back and forth. And when she finished, she was no closer to resolution that when she'd begun. She needed to talk to Damon to do that. Could she? Did she dare? Wouldn't she be in danger of making an even bigger fool of herself than she had over Bryce? She locked up the office and letlierself out the main door onto the street. A brisk winter wind knifed through her, chilling her to the bone. She hurried to the corner and flagged a cab, eager to get home where it was warm. But even in h
er apartment, she shivered. She forced down a bowl of soup, but it didn't thaw the cold. Damon wasn't working. Damon wasn't eating. Damon wasn't sleeping. Was he, she wondered, also cold? She didn't know if she dared to hope. She suspected she might only be making her life worse. But in one way at least, she was her father's daughter: she was willing to take a risk. She put her coat back on, knotted a scarf around her neck, and went back out into the cold. There were no lights on in Damon'sapartment that she could see from the street. Probably he was gone. Probably Stephanos had exaggerated. Probably she'd come in vain. But she was here now. So she rode up in the lift, padded along the carpeted hallway, and let herself in. The apartment was dark. Deserted. Damon must have given Mrs Vincent the night off. Kate stood just inside the door and wondered what to do now. Actually she knew what she should do: leave. Damon wasn't here. Stephanos had been wrong. She swallowed, turned, started to open the door to go out, then paused, drawn back by a need to touch one last time the place that had brought her closest to her heart's desire. When she'd left him, she'd been in a hurry. Cold, but still desperate, needing only to get away. And now--now she needed, if only in the silence of an empty apartment--to say goodbye. She loosened the scarf, unbuttoned her coat, and slipped off her shoes, leaving them by the door. Then, with only the lights from the other buildings beyond the windows to guide her, she moved into the living room She walked slowly, trailing her hand along the back of the sofa, remembering when she and Damon had curled there together. She touched the bookcases, recalling titles she wished she'd read. She moved on to the kitchen. There was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. No sign at all that Mrs Vincent had been around. Had Damon fired her? It didn't seem likely. Still, from the look of things, for quite a while now he'd been on his own. Kate picked up a coffee-mug from the counter, cupping it with her palms. She touched her lips to the rim where not long ago Damon's lips had been. Hastily she set the mug back down. She paused at the door to the master bedroom. In the darkness she could see that the spread on the bed looked slightly rumpled. Otherwise the room lay untouched. Slowly Kate entered. She walked around the bed, seeing in her memory the two of them lying there. Her throat tightened. Her eyes stung. Mindlessly she reached down and picked up a pillow, Damon's pillow, hugging it against her, pressing her face in the cool cotton, breathing in the scent of him. Oh, God, it hurt! She rubbed her face against it, furiously scrubbing away her tears and stalked out into the hall again. "Who's there?" The voice was hoarse. Ragged. Damon's. Kate stopped dead. She heard noises now, coming from the back bed E room. Then a silhouette appeared in the darkened doorway. A hand fumbled for the light switch then flicked it on. "Damn it, Stephanos! Leave me alone. I--you!" Kate's astonishment was just as great. Stephanos was right after all. Damon hadn't been shaving. Or eating, if the gauntness of his fqime proved anything. Or sleeping, as the dark circles under his eyes pointed out. "Damon," she said quietly. "What in hell do you want?" He glared at her through bloodshot eyes. He wore only a pair of undershorts and he braced himself by holding on to the doorjamb. He looked as if he might fall over. "I -- have you been sick?" "I'm fine. I asked you a question. What're you doing here?" "Stephanos said-' Damon said something in Greek about Stephanos. Kate didn't need a translator to know it wasn't complimentary. Then, right before her eyes, what little colour there was in his face seemed to wash right away. He turned and bolted for the bathroom. She could hear him being sick. She wanted to go to him. She didn't dare. If she had any sense, she told herself, she'd leave. Damon certainly hadn't been happy to see her. Still she stayed right where she was, waited outside the door while she heard the toilet flush, the tap turn on and, minutes later, off again. She took a step back only when the door opened once more. Damon, still ashen and with damp dishevelled hair, stared at her. "You're still here?" "You are sick," Kate said. "You should be in bed." "I'll go to bed." Damon's voice was a mixture of weariness and irritation. "Just get out of here." He turned and headed back towards the small bedroom. Kate followed him. "Why aren't you sleeping in our?" ---- She stopped. Our room, she'd been going to say. She couldn't. Damon shot her a malevolent look. "Because I don't want to, all right?" He sagged onto the crumpled bedclothes and sat staring at his fingers which were laced together between his knees. He looked worse than she'd ever seen him. Defeated almost. She had halted in the doorway. Now she ventured further in, only stopping when he lifted his eyes and scowled at her. "Why don't you want to, Damon?" His dark eyes glittered. "What do you want, a pound of flesh? Christ, what did I ever do to you?" He jerked his head towards the door. "Get out of here, Kate. Leave me alone." "You can't be left alone. You're sick. You need someone to take care of you." "Not you." The words slapped her across the face. She stepped back. "All right," she said. "Not me. But what about your mother or one of your sisters?" Damon snorted. "No, thanks." "Eleni, then," Kate snapped, goaded. "Who?" "Who?" She couldn't believe he'd said that. But he was looking at her, perplexed. "Pandora's friend. The one who came to see the baby with her. You remember." He nodded, then rubbed a hand across his face. "Why would I want her?" "Maybe you wouldn't, I don't know," Kate said, exasperated. "But she's perfect for you. Lovely, talented, charming, maternal. Not to mention Greek." "So I should want her?" He still looked confused. Then his gaze dropped and he bent his head so that once more he was staring at his hands. "No." No? Kate, watching him, felt equally confused. Was Stephanos right then? He had been about Damon's drinking, about his lack of sleep and food, about Damon's not working, about his looking like hell. Was he right about him loving her, too? Her fingers clenched. Her heart gave a tiny leap. Damon glanced up at her, his lips thinning when he saw her still Standing there. "You don't have to hang around. I don't know what Stephanos told you, but ' " He told me that you love me. " It was as if the world had suddenly gone still. Damon didn't move, didn't even breathe. Neither did Kate. She waited. She prayed. She hoped. At last Damon sighed, shut his eyes and fell back against the pillows. She saw his throat work. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her wryly. "Does it say something about divine retribution, do you suppose, that I would marry you to keep him on the straight and narrow and he should be the one with the last laugh?" "He wasn't laughing," Kate said quietly. "No one was laughing, because he also reminded me that I love you." Damon stared at her. He didn't speak. He levered himself halfway up so he was propped on his elbows as he searched her face. "You love Bryce," he corrected her hoarsely. Kate pressed her lips together. "Once I did," she admitted. "When I married him. He didn't love me." "But ' " He wanted what I had, the family fortune, exactly what my father had predicted. And when Daddy cut me off, Bryce left me. " "He died," Damon protested. "As he was leaving me." He shoved himself up off the bed and crossed the room, pulling her into his arms, holding her close. "Oh, hell, Kate. I'm sorry. So damn sorry." Kate pressed against him, loving the warm strength of his arms around her. She rested her head against his shoulder. "Thank you for caring." "I thought I mean, all the time, when we made love He shook his head slightly as if he were dazed. "You thought I was pretending you were Bryce?" She was astonished at his nod. "Never. I never it was never like that with Bryce." "It wasn't?" His voice was hoarse, his tone disbelieving. She smiled. "Not at all. It was barely tolerable. I. . really didn't like it much. I thought I was frigid. So did Bryce," she admitted shakily. Damon snorted and hugged her tightly. "Hardly frigid." She looked up at him, adoring him. "Then I owe it all to you." "Why didn't you say?" "Because it-would have been changing the rules. We weren't supposed to care, remember?" He pulled back and looked down into her eyes. His own were dark and still held a hint of desperation. "I remember. It was hell. I wanted more. I thought you didn't. And when you took off for East Hampton, that confirmed it. It seemed that what mattered to you was your work." "I thought it was all I was going to have left." "No," Damon said. "Oh, no." He kissed her then. It was a deep kiss, a hungry kiss. "Oh, God, Kate. I've missed you. I almost died when I came home and found your note. What did you mean, then, about not being able to live the lie any
longer? I thought you meant the lie that was our marriage." She touched his lips with her own. "I meant the lie that I didn't care when I did. For a while after we got back from the islands, I thought we might make it. And then. . then it seemed to start falling apart. You went to Montreal, I went to the Hamptons, and things began slipping away. You got more distant. And Stephanos told me about Eleni." "What about her?" "Just that everyone thought she would have been a good wife for you, except you were married to me." "Damn Stephanos," Damon muttered. "It wasn't his fault. He was right." "No one is a better wife for me than you," Damon said fiercely. "You're everything I ever wanted in a wife." "And you didn't even know it when you married me," Kate teased gently. He smiled. "I didn't know you when I married you. But it didn't take long. You got under my skin. You became a part of me. I love you, Kate. When you left I thought I'd die." "I almost did," Kate said, and it wasn't a lie. The essence of her being was so tied to Damon that she'd barely been able to survive without him. "I found your calendar the one where you were marking off the days. . "Kate nodded shakily. "At first it was because I just wanted to get through them, like a kid waiting for summer vacation. And then she ducked her head then I didn't want it to end." She buried her head against the strong wall of his chest. "I love you, Damon," she murmured. She felt his lips touching her hair, her ear, her cheek. "I love you, too," he whispered and found her lips with his. "Thank God for Stephanos," she murmured after a long, long moment. Damon rested his forehead against the top of her head. "I guess we do owe him, don't we?" he said a little grimly. "Yes. You ought to give him a holiday." Damon shook his head. "On the contrary, I think the way to repay him is to give him more work. He's carried the whole business for the past week and a half and right now he's off closing the deal with Belliard. I think I'll have to make him CEO after all." She looked up at him. "But what about you? Won't you miss it?" "I won't have time to miss it. The company presidency is a bit more than a figurehead title." He grinned at her, then gave her a wink. "Besides, I have other plans." Kate cocked her head, smiling at him, loving him with all her heart. "Oh, yes? Such as?" He drew her against him and touched his lips to hers. "Such as showing you over and over and over again how happy I am that you're my wife."
THE ALEXAKIS BRIDE by Anne McAllister Page 11