It hadn’t seemed to be. And as the weeks had passed she’d begun to wonder if he had ever really loved her at all. Because not only had it appeared to fail to cross his mind that a life spent isolated and alone, wondering if and when he was going to come home from work, was nothing like the life she’d imagined when she’d married him, but he hadn’t even really talked to her about his job either—hadn’t involved her in the very thing that had determined the course of her days. The same way it had been with her father and Ashworth Motors. Perhaps she could have dealt with that if they’d shared other things, but he’d never seemed to have time for anything else—save for lovemaking, late at night, when he came home. But he’d only ever seemed disappointed in that.
And eventually she’d had to admit to herself that she was disappointed with their marriage too. Yes, in marrying him she’d escaped the physical restrictions her father had placed on her, avoided marrying a suitor of his choosing, but being Mrs Delikaris hadn’t really felt much different from being Miss Ashworth. She’d felt no more in control of her own life than she had before. What had happened to her chance to just be Libby?
It had disappeared, she had finally admitted to herself one day, three months after their wedding. And unless she did something about it, their marriage was going to destroy her.
He had been tying his tie in the bedroom the following morning, when she’d finally plucked up the courage. ‘Rion, before you leave for work again there’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve decided to apply for a job at the language school down the road.’
It wasn’t going to solve all her problems, but it might be a start. She’d wanted to get a job ever since they’d arrived, for herself as well as to help out with paying the bills, but he’d told her it wasn’t necessary. She realised now she should have fought harder.
‘They’re looking for native English-speakers to help with classes,’ she continued, ‘and I thought an extra bit of cash coming in might mean you needn’t spend so much time working.’
He shook his head. ‘I told you before, it’s not necessary for you to get a job.’
She sucked in a frustrated breath. Couldn’t he see that she needed a life of her own? ‘But I want to. I’ll be able to learn Greek whilst I’m there and—’
‘I promised you a private tutor.’ He looked pained. ‘And you will have one—just as soon as I secure an investment.’
‘But I don’t want to wait that long. I can’t even greet the neighbours!’
Rion’s face contorted. ‘I can assure you it won’t be that long.’
She shook her head. ‘Even so, it isn’t just that. I want to go to a class, to meet other people.’ Her shoulders dropped. ‘When you’re at work I just feel so…lonely.’
Rion blinked up at her. ‘I am more than willing to have a child, if that is what you mean.’
Libby’s eyes widened in disbelief. She’d always dreamed of having a family of her own one day, but not before she’d had the chance to really live herself, and certainly not now, when he was only suggesting having a baby as a solution to a problem.
A problem he didn’t even understand. And was it really any wonder? No, she realised, feeling her heart rupture, he couldn’t, because the truth was he didn’t even know her. They’d married so hastily that she’d hadn’t even had the time and space to get to know herself.
And in that instant Libby suddenly saw, as if a bolt of lightning had forked down from the sky and illuminated everything, that as long as she remained here she never would. That even if she stayed and fought and fought she would never really gain control of her own life. No, there was only one way to do that.
She shook her head. ‘No, Rion, a child isn’t what I want. I want—’ She dropped her eyelids and took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know exactly what I want, but I know it isn’t this. I…I don’t want to stay here.’
And that was the moment she discovered for sure that she was just as big a disappointment to him as he had been to her.
Rion grimaced. ‘Then go. I think we both know it’s been on the cards from the start.’
Libby drew in a ragged breath, forcing her eyes open and blinking under the bright artificial lights of the corridor outside his office, remembering the twin feelings of both heartbreak and release as she’d walked away. She couldn’t have gone on living that way. She had needed time to find herself, to take control of her life.
But now she had. And he was implying that he had too.
What was more, though it seemed so much had changed, her physical reaction to him most definitely hadn’t. She breathed out deeply, listening to the sound of her heart, still racing. In a way that shocked her most of all, and to her shame it was undoubtedly the hardest thing to fight. Because she’d been convinced she’d never felt anything like it in the intervening years for the simple reason that she was no longer a young girl in the throes of her first love affair. The reality, it seemed, was that there was just no other man on earth who could make her whole body go into meltdown quite the same way that he did. Just by looking at her.
And, whilst she knew that instructing a solicitor to proceed with the divorce the hard way was the logical thing to do, she couldn’t help it—her body longed for her to say yes. And so did her heart, because, no, they didn’t know each other now, but what if they got to know one another and rediscovered what they’d once had before all that? Then divorcing him would be a huge mistake. So shouldn’t she seize the chance to find out whether they could recapture it, even if the odds were minuscule and—?
Suddenly the ground gave way from under her, and she felt herself stumble backwards into hard, compacted muscle. As her mind played catch-up amongst the shock of lost footing and the treacherous thrill of arousal, she realised that to her enormous embarrassment Rion had just opened his office door. The one she’d been leaning against, with all of her weight. She leapt out of his arms, cheeks burning.
‘I was just…’ Libby exhaled, her mind completely blank. But then what excuse was there for being so utterly stupid as to remain leaning up against his door?
‘Oh, no need to explain,’ he said, his mouth quirking into a smile as he walked past her, his hands briefly brushing her sides as if to steady her. ‘Happens all the time.’
He hit the button for the lift and the doors opened immediately. He gestured for her to join him, but she shook her head frantically.
‘Until tomorrow, then,’ he said with a grin.
And before Libby had time to protest that she still had twenty-four hours in which to decide, and that taking a breather before going downstairs didn’t mean anything, the doors of the lift had already closed.
Which wouldn’t have been half so frustrating if they hadn’t both known he was right.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE’D had a whole sleepless night and the clarity of a morning in which to talk herself out if of it, but at three-thirty the following afternoon Libby found herself and her well-worn suitcase in a taxi on her way to the airstrip.
And she even seemed to be managing to sit still. For, although there was a part of her that was tempted to tell the driver to turn around and go as fast as he could in the opposite direction—the part which believed Rion had been far too cold in his office for this to end in anything other than heartache—over the course of the last twenty-four hours the rest of her had decided that going with Rion wasn’t just following her heart and her hormones, it was logical.
Because unless she went with him she’d never fully be able to move on, and that had been half the point of her seeking to finalise their separation in the first place. The logic was the same as if she’d been handed a lottery ticket. She’d know the chances of it containing the winning numbers were tiny, but until she checked she’d never know, and every day she’d wake up with a voice whispering what if? in her ear.
Not that if they had an actual lottery ticket it would matter to Rion whether it bore t
he lucky numbers or not, Libby thought ruefully as they drove alongside a hangar and a sparkling white plane bearing the striking Delikaris Experiences logo taxied round in a semi-circle and stopped in front of them. Because she was fast coming to realise that in their years apart his obsession with personal success had taken on gargantuan proportions.
Which suggested that the more she got to know him, the more she’d discover that they were incompatible. It was obvious that he cared about nothing other than money if he had earned so much in five years, and, what was more, he’d clearly chosen to spend it on flashy possessions like his own private jet. If she had that volume of cash she’d head straight back out to Africa and do some good with it. She shook her head as she stepped out onto the tarmac. She’d once thought Rion was the antithesis of her father, but now she had to wonder if they’d been two sides of the same coin all along.
But it seemed owning a plane was not enough for Rion, Libby acknowledged ruefully as she looked up and saw that he was also piloting it. She watched with a dry mouth as he disappeared from the cockpit and reappeared at the top of the steps, looking devastatingly sexy in a pair of dark aviator glasses and a casual white shirt with the cuffs rolled back, revealing his tanned forearms. Instinctively she reached up to undo the top button of her cotton blouse, feeling constricted.
‘The thought of being back in my company making you hot under the collar already, gineka mou?’ he asked dryly as he descended the steps to the satisfying sight of her waiting for him.
For a second inside his office—when she’d implied she had a titled lover waiting in the wings to marry her—there had been a small part of him which had wondered whether the combination of her desire for him, the promise of a private jet and the threat of lengthy court proceedings was enough to persuade her. But then he’d found her lingering outside, had felt her whole body ignite when she’d fallen against him, and he’d known for sure.
‘I’m glad,’ he added, ‘but I’m afraid you will have to hold that thought. Although my autopilot mode is exceptionally sophisticated, I’m not sure it would be wise to join you in the cabin for the length of time I intend to spend making love to you.’
A shiver of pleasure rippled through her, but as soon as Libby clocked her automatic response she stopped it in its tracks, suddenly afraid. Daring to hope that he was serious about giving their marriage a second chance was one thing, but starting to believe he felt anything other than lukewarm in her presence was a different delusion altogether—a dangerous one. And suddenly she foresaw how easily he could trample all over her heart if she went into this with rose-tinted glasses on.
No, she was safest going into this from the standpoint that remaining married was irrational and that he was no more excited by her now than he had been during the months of their marriage. If he presented her with actual evidence to the contrary—well, that would be the time to re-evaluate her views.
‘What’s wrong with the cockpit?’ she challenged audaciously.
Rion’s eyes flared in shock. So, the innocent young girl he’d married was long gone, and in her place was an experienced adulteress, who only yesterday had been claiming she needed the divorce to move on with another man, and was now suggesting they make love at the earliest opportunity. To his infinite frustration his disgust was accompanied by the overwhelming urge to take her right here on the tarmac, and an erection so hard it was painful.
And it made him furious—because it seemed that no matter how she behaved, she still reminded him of his lack of refinement. She always had. He drew in a ragged breath. But at least he’d feel no shame taking her back to his house in Metameikos, no shame in flying her there on his plane. Unlike five years ago, after their pitiful wedding, when he’d been forced to take her on the bus back to that shabby rented apartment. He smarted in distaste. From the second he’d opened the front door of that place—the only one in Athens he’d been able to afford—all the self-belief that maybe he could be good enough for her had evaporated. He’d never felt more ashamed of who he was in his life.
And he knew she’d never felt more ashamed of him—she’d been so desperate to escape it, her lack of faith in him so unequivocal, that she’d even volunteered to work. But even though he’d done everything he could so that she didn’t have to, even though he’d avoided involving her in the sordid details of his pathetic day job, worked every hour there was to try and save for their own place—a place she could be proud of—it had never been enough.
And it never will be, a voice inside him taunted, even though you fought so hard for all this because you believed if you succeeded she’d come crawling back.
No—that was a lie. That hadn’t been the reason. His determination might have doubled the day she left, but he’d succeeded for himself, and for Jason, his brother.
He turned away from her, his voice terse. ‘You will be travelling in the cabin.’
There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary then, Libby acknowledged with ridiculous disappointment. She really didn’t excite him. And the sooner he admitted it, the sooner she could silence the what ifs? She ducked down, pretending to look for another pair of legs on the opposite side of the plane. ‘Because you have a co-pilot joining you up front?’
‘No. I fly alone.’
She walked towards the steps defiantly. ‘Then there is no reason why I shouldn’t join you, is there?’
It was only when he’d followed her in and sat down beside her that she realised in fighting so hard to prove that he didn’t really want her she’d just inadvertently guaranteed their close proximity for the duration of the flight.
‘How long will it take us to get to Metameikos?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Just under an hour.’
No time at all, she thought, trying to feel relieved as he hit the starter switch and took the controls. But they hadn’t even taken off yet, and she was already transfixed by the sight of his long-fingered hands manoeuvring the complex equipment, unable to prevent herself remembering how they had once felt against her bare skin.
God, why did looking at him keep making her think about sex?
She moved awkwardly in her seat and tried to think of a logical answer. Maybe it was because he’d been the object of her first teenage crush, and somehow that made him the blueprint for the kind of man she found attractive. But, whilst his dark Mediterranean looks had been a novelty to her at fifteen, she’d met plenty of men since who fitted that description. The language teacher at the night classes she’d enrolled in as her first act of freedom once she’d arrived back in England; one or two of the other tour guides that Kate—whom she’d met at those language classes—had introduced her to when she’d expressed her enthusiasm for travel; the multitude of men she’d inevitably met the world over once she’d started filling in. But none of them had made her feel this irrepressible physical hunger.
Or maybe it was just that he was the only man she’d ever made love with, and like Pavlov’s dogs, who had salivated when they heard bells ringing because they had come to associate that sound with food, her body had connected the sight of him and the smell of him with sex. Yes, that was probably it. She just needed to uncondition her response, to associate him with something negative instead—the way he’d become so obsessed with money, perhaps. She took a deep breath, relieved to have alighted on a course of action that would bring about an end to it.
‘So, when did you learn to fly?’ she asked, deciding to lead the conversation down the ‘needless luxury’ route.
‘Years ago, for research. Flying lessons were one of the first gift experiences I decided to market, along with luxury driving days,’ he answered, handing her some headphones as they approached the runway.
It was genius, Libby realised, for the first time contemplating how he’d made his money. He’d recognised other people’s dreams and found a way of offering them neatly packaged in a box. But then that had always been what he did best—it was what had once persuaded her father to promote him from valet to sales
man to showroom manager. He’d always known exactly which element of an Ashworth motor to push, depending on the customer and their body language. Speed and performance for men on the brink of a mid-life crisis; style and sex-appeal for the computer geek who’d just earned his first million; an investment opportunity for the retired banker and safety features for his anxious wife.
But did his customers ever really get everything they’d dreamed of? Or was the reality quite different? Libby thought bleakly, unable to help making a comparison with their marriage as they took off.
Marrying Rion had been her dream from the very first day she’d seen him—when she’d taken her father some papers he’d forgotten and caught Rion looking up at her from the 1964 Ashworth Elite he’d been polishing with those devastating liquid brown eyes. She’d been so infatuated that it hadn’t occurred to her that neither of them were ready for marriage, full-stop.
And it was no wonder she had felt that way really, she thought as they soared above Athens, the Parthenon shrinking to the size of a hotel on a Monopoly board below them. Because not only had he looked so different from the suitors her father had kept forcing her to meet, but when the furtive looks between them had eventually turned to snatched conversation on the days when her father was off-site, she’d discovered he was different. So unpretentious, and so exciting. He hadn’t spent their conversations praising her father or calculating the acreage of the Ashworth estate; he’d talked to her about the travel books she liked to read, about the customs in Greece—which had seemed the most exotic place in the world to Libby, who’d never left Surrey, and whose long, monotonous days had been spent walled up inside Ashworth Manor and its grounds.
Libby felt a tightness around her wrists and her ankles at the memory of how her father had deemed even a walk to the village shops too much autonomy, even in her late teens. How her mother, plagued by the guilt her husband had made her feel for never producing a son, had enforced every rule he created.
Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife Page 3