‘They thought we were crazy.’ He smiled too.
We were hung in the air. But neither of them said it.
Suddenly the lift made that pinging sound again and the doors opened.
But Libby barely even registered it, because she was looking at him with tears in her eyes and she couldn’t look away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WE’RE here.’
His words broke the spell. Libby blinked hard, forced the tears back behind her eyes, and looked down at her feet. To her astonishment she realised they were still firmly planted inside the lift. Even though the doors were wide open. How was that even possible?
‘Are you okay to walk?’
She nodded, not entirely sure that she was.
Rion looped his arm through hers and encouraged her out onto the landing, but she couldn’t focus forward. She kept looking back over her shoulder, trying to work out what the hell had just happened. How could she have felt less restricted in a small space with another person than she would have done alone?
‘You’re okay,’ he whispered, mistaking her backward glance for a look of trepidation. ‘I promise we’ll take the stairs from now on.’
Oh, she was scared, all right, but she didn’t think the kind of fear she was feeling now could be eradicated by avoiding enclosed spaces.
He delved into his jacket pocket for the key as they reached a large wooden door. ‘At least our room is bound to be spacious.’
Her vision was still a little blurry, but when he unlocked the door there was no mistaking that it was. Nor was there any mistaking that, despite its gargantuan dimensions, there was only the one bed. An enormous four-poster bed, bedecked with crisp cream sheets and decadent aubergine drapes. It stood in the middle of the room, staring back at them like an enormous question mark. Or at least that was how it seemed to Libby.
‘You should sit down,’ he said, his voice raspy. She had a feeling the bed seemed that way to him too.
He strode across to the windows, which stretched the length of the opposite wall, and opened a couple to let in the cool evening breeze. Then he disappeared through a doorway at the far end of the room.
Libby was still standing dazedly in the same spot when he returned, carrying a glass of water.
‘Here.’ He swapped the glass for the handbag she was still clutching in her right hand, and dipped his head in the direction of the bed, his voice more insistent this time. ‘Sit.’
Libby did as he commanded whilst he pulled up a chair, shrugged off his jacket and sat down facing her.
‘When did it start?’
She tried to sound breezy, raising the glass to her lips to take a sip of water. ‘Oh, you know—when do all these things start? When I was a kid.’
‘When you were a child?’ She felt him strain not to raise his voice. ‘How did I not know about this?’ He shook his head as if her answer wouldn’t compute. ‘We lived on the fourth floor!’
‘We didn’t exactly enter or leave the apartment together very frequently,’ she said quietly. ‘Besides, the lift was usually out of order.’
Rion smarted, but let it go. ‘Do you know what started it in the first place?’
Libby drew in a short, sharp breath, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. Especially now that she knew it was nothing compared to what he’d gone through in his childhood. ‘I think being locked in the cupboard below the stairs for hours at a time if I displeased my father had something to do with it.’
Rion balled his hand into a fist and fought the urge to take out his anger on an inanimate object in the absence of Thomas Ashworth himself. Gamoto! Ever since he’d learned that her father had kept her cut off, even after their separation, he’d known he was more than just a bigot. But this was something else. ‘You should have told me.’
She exhaled deeply. ‘I did try—in my own way.’
But maybe she should have tried harder, Libby thought for the first time as she registered the look of shock on his face. Because she’d never sat him down and made him understand what was at the root of her need to feel free and in control, any more than he’d told her about where his drive to provide for them really came from. They’d just both thought the other should understand instinctively, and she’d bolted when they hadn’t.
She shook her head, the tragedy of it piercing her heart as she realised how different things might have been if they’d known. But then again, maybe not. Because how could they have fought each other’s demons when they hadn’t been done fighting their own?
‘When did you try and tell me?’ he demanded.
He knew there was no way he’d forget a detail like that. She’d never once mentioned any fear of— Libby looked up at him with wide eyes, and suddenly the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Her expression took him right back to the day she’d walked away. No, she hadn’t mentioned a fear of enclosed spaces specifically, but she had always been desperate not to be left alone in that apartment, to go out and get a job and—
Rion squeezed his eyes tightly shut. But that had been because she couldn’t bear living in that hovel, hadn’t it? Suddenly the memory mixed with what Georgios had said downstairs, about his wife wanting to get a job. Libby had only ever spoken of working with pleasure. And, come to think of it, she’d never complained about the apartment itself. So had he been wrong? And, if he had been, what the hell else had he got wrong about her?
Nothing, a voice in the back of his mind ground out, refusing to let him go any further down that path and lay himself open to that level of pain all over again. Yes, maybe he had been wrong about the reason why she’d wanted to get a job, why she hadn’t wanted to be alone in the apartment, but it didn’t change the underlying reason why she’d gone. Why she was here now, demanding a divorce. That night after they’d been to the theatre she’d admitted it—she found being his wife humiliating. Because in her eyes he’d never, ever be good enough.
He forced his eyes open and stood up. ‘I’ll get you some more water.’
‘No—’ She reached out her hand and placed it on his forearm. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’
Rion clenched his teeth, just the feel of her fingertips on his skin causing a tightening in his groin. ‘Nevertheless, you should get some rest.’
He walked round to the opposite side of the room and Libby heard him turn on the bedside lamp. Her eyes remained fixed on the chair where he’d been sitting. She recognised that last look on his face. It was the one he’d worn that afternoon. He wanted her. He actually wanted her. And it wasn’t about control or defiance or the election. She knew it wasn’t. It was about those memories. Her heart blossomed. He wanted her, but he was fighting it because he thought she was still unwell, that it wasn’t what she wanted.
She drew in a deep breath, his thoughtfulness seeping into her heart, mixing with everything else that she’d discovered about him tonight. And even if she hadn’t left all her defences in the lift, then the remainder slid off the bed and slunk out of sight at that moment.
‘Rion, I don’t want…’ She heard him go still behind her, heard the nervous quiver in her own voice. ‘I don’t want you to fight this. I know I can’t. Not tonight.’
The tightness in Rion’s groin instantly intensified, but he didn’t move, simply carried on staring at the back of her head. Had that moment in the lift weakened her faculties and taken her defences with them, then? Or had thinking about her father simply reawakened her desire to rebel by having it off with the boy from nowhere?
It was the admission he’d been waiting for—another chance to wear her down, remind her that they were driven by just the same urges. But tonight he had to wonder whether the only thing he was really wearing down was his self-respect.
‘And what about tomorrow, Libby? Your defences will return with the sunrise?’
She turned to face him, her voice barely a whisper. ‘No, I doubt I’ll be able to fight it then either. Or the next day.’
Triumph flooded through Rion’s chest as he realis
ed the depth of her capitulation. She was saying she wouldn’t ever be able to fight it.
Instantly, what was left of his plot to take revenge went up in smoke. It would never have been satisfying enough anyway. The only thing that could satisfy him was her, returning as his wife, for good. ‘Then you’ll stay?’ he growled. ‘After tomorrow?’
Libby stared at him and felt her heart swell to double its normal size.
He was asking her to stay. After the election. When the reason he needed her here would be gone. And the only reason remaining would be because he wanted her to.
Hours ago she’d been sure that leaving was the only sane thing to do. That he would never love her… Now she still had no guarantees, knew they had a mountain to climb, but he had just given her every reason to hope that it was possible.
She stood up and walked towards him, emotions washing over her. ‘Yes, Rion, I’ll stay.’
Rion stared at her in amazement. He’d done it. He’d actually broken her, made her realise that their desire for one another did transcend all else. And he didn’t hesitate. Suddenly, definitively, he dropped his head and found her mouth.
Libby revelled in it, roving her hands up his back, hungrily raking her fingers through his hair, then sliding his tie from beneath his collar. She tossed it to the floor while Rion’s hands stroked up her arms and then straight back down again, taking the straps of her dress with him and exposing her to the waist.
He let out a growl of pleasure at the discovery that she was not wearing a bra, and stilled for just a moment to watch as her nipples peaked under his gaze. God, she wanted him to look at her like that for ever.
She let out a moan as he lowered his head and began to slick his tongue over her nipples, nuzzling her, caressing her. But the aching need between her thighs made her impatient for more. She ran her hand up his leg, towards the waistband of his trousers, feeling his arousal jump as she skimmed over it, and then encouraged him back towards the bed.
‘Wait,’ he said, placing his hands on hers and returning them to her. ‘Just a second.’
He moved quickly to their bags, which had been neatly placed in the corner of the room, and swiftly unzipped a pocket to extract a condom.
The second Libby realised what he was doing she knew she had to stop him this time. Yes, it might result in a few moments of awkward explanation, but she understood now that honesty was essential if their marriage was ever going to work. ‘No.’ She shook her head, gnawing on her lower lip and praying that it wouldn’t destroy the moment completely. ‘That’s not necessary.’
Rion stared down at the foil packet between his fingers, then looked up at her face in astonishment. No, he thought, as the full extent of her capitulation truly sank in. Now she’d agreed to return as his wife permanently, he supposed it wasn’t necessary, was it?
But the soaring triumph that accompanied the realisation that she’d just suggested the one thing he’d always wanted was curtailed by the look of resignation on her face. Because it was perfectly clear that she didn’t deem him any more worthy to be the father of her children now than she had done then. The only difference was that now she understood she was never going to want another man the way she wanted him, and that, unless she was prepared to live without desire like that, his lack of breeding was something she was just going to have to try and forget.
And, whilst his instinct was to pull down the remainder of her dress, spill his seed inside her, and prove that class was irrelevant to Mother Nature, the thought of doing so in such a way that would remind her of his uncivilised roots, of the concession she was having to make, was utterly repugnant to him.
Instead he dropped the condom, inwardly vowed to keep his philistine urges on a tightly coiled leash, and slowly stalked back to the bed to focus on her pleasure.
‘Lie down.’
Libby felt her desire rocket at his husky command and stepped back, slid off the remainder of her dress, and stretched out on the bed in answer. She was surprised that he asked no questions, levelled no accusation of infidelity, but she was glad. She took it as proof that his feelings mirrored hers, that he saw whatever had happened in the intervening years—not that anything had happened on her part—as history.
He quickly came to join her on the bed, and Libby felt him run his eyes downwards, over her breasts, across her scrap of underwear and down her legs. But as she looked up into his face to savour his appreciation she was surprised to see that his expression wasn’t the one of urgent need she’d expected, instead he looked—detached. The way he did when your marriage was on its last legs, a voice taunted in the back of her mind.
But as his mouth homed in on hers once more, she told herself she’d imagined it. He’d just asked her to stay, for goodness’ sake, admitted he couldn’t fight this any more than she could. Determined to prove it, she rolled over on to her side, splayed her hand across his chest and began butterflying kisses down towards his belly button. But just as she was about to curl her fingers around his length he caught her wrist and shook his head.
She felt an arrow of disappointment fire up inside her chest, but it never got the chance to land. For Rion instantly took his tongue on a sensuous journey of its own, lower and lower, to the point of aching need, until he was tasting her, filling her with such delicious heat that she could do nothing but throw her head back helplessly against the pillows and surrender to a pleasure so agonisingly intense that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream for it to stop or for it never to end.
But if she’d supposed she had time to do either, she was mistaken. Because, as she gripped the back of his head in one hand and the sheets with the other, she was already there.
Dizzy with pleasure, but desperate to bring him the same, Libby threw her arm across his middle and encouraged him to move on top of her. Rion’s body jolted eagerly, but instead of following her lead he placed his hands around her waist and moved her on top of him.
Libby didn’t complain, convinced his way would be equally effective. She straddled his body and sank down onto him, angling herself forward so that she could move up and down on just the tip of him.
Rion let out an anguished moan and she smiled, taking the whole length of him inside her. He closed his eyes and let his head roll to one side momentarily, but seconds later he snapped his eyes open again, smoothed his hands up her sides, and grazed her nipples with his thumbs. Combined with the feel of their bodies moving together, it created a pleasure so intense that she didn’t have the strength to lower her mouth and kiss the sensitive hollow beneath his ear, or to tease him by slowing down the rhythm as she’d planned to, because her body was already tightening again.
And, before she could help herself, suddenly she was drenched in another flood of sensation.
Only when she had finished, and cried out for a second time, did she feel Rion give one final upward thrust and hear a primitive growl tear from his lips. But just as she was revelling in the sound of it he cut it short.
Libby lay down by his side, the arrow of disappointment finally landing in her heart. She tried to stop it, but she couldn’t. Because until then she’d been sure that lovemaking was the one area of their marriage which needed no further work. She told herself it still didn’t, that he’d just climaxed for heaven’s sake, but she knew his passion had been nowhere near as unchecked as it had been that day in the hallway.
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down into his face, praying for the courage to ask him what the problem was—or, more to the point, the courage to stick around for the answer. But his eyes were closed, and she could hear his breathing growing slower and deeper, verging on the edge of sleep.
And no wonder. Suddenly she felt racked with guilt for being so self-absorbed—especially after an evening in which she’d realised how important it was for them to really try and support and understand one another. Of course he was going to be a little detached tonight. If he wasn’t completely exhausted after two tireless weeks of campaigning, then
he was probably worrying about the election tomorrow.
After that, everything would be different. She looked over at the bedside clock, realising the polls would be opening in a few hours. Yes, she thought, as the reality of what she had agreed to began to sink in, after that everything would be very different indeed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LIBBY had never seen a man look so calm and collected. Or a man so impossibly handsome, either, but that went without saying. Everyone else in the main hall seemed unable to keep still: Stephanos had almost worn a hole in the polished wood floor with his pacing; Georgios must have gone to check that everything was still running smoothly in the counting room at least a dozen times; and Spyros—despite his proclamation of confidence in the passageway last night—seemed to have developed a sudden predilection for hand-wringing. Even she didn’t seem to be able to stop fiddling with one earring, glancing behind her as the main hall of the mayoral residence filled up with more and more people.
But not Rion. He was perfectly still, hands pressed together, forefingers resting just under his chin. Waiting with the same supreme composure that he’d exhibited from the minute he’d woken up and gone to cast his own vote to the moment he’d returned here to assemble his team for the result. It wasn’t the stillness of lethargy—she could see every muscle in his body was pumped with anticipation—instead he seemed to possess the unique ability of being able to keep his body’s natural responses under control. A week ago she wouldn’t have been particularly surprised about that—nobody got to be the owner of a billion-dollar company without the ability to remain cool at the operative moment—but now that she knew how much this result meant to him personally, she found it incredible.
Almost as incredible as the fact that she would still be here tomorrow, she thought, looking at the dashing figure he cut in his suit, impatient to prove to herself how good the lovemaking would be between them again once the stress of this election was over.
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