by Julia James
The cheque that would set her free.
Free of the one man in the world she could never be free of.
However much money she repaid him.
* * *
Nikos sat in his seat on the jet, curving through the airspace that divided France from England. He stared out over the broken cloudscape beyond the window, his thoughts full. Emotions fuller.
She had been so frail, that woman in the hospital bed. So slender, so petite, it had hardly seemed possible that she had given birth at all—let alone to the two grown sons now standing at the foot of her bed. The son she had chosen over her baby, who had now brought that lost child back to her. And the son who had hated her all his life.
Who could hate her no longer.
Her eyes had filled with tears when they had gone to him. Silent tears that had run down her thin cheeks so that her older son had started forward, only to be held at bay by the veined hand raised to him. Nikos’s half-brother had halted, and she had lifted her other hand with difficulty, lifted it entreatingly, towards the son she had abandoned. Rejected.
‘I am so sorry.’ Her voice had been a husk, a whisper. ‘So very, very sorry.’
For an endless moment Nikos had stood there. So many years of hating. Despising. Cursing. Then slowly he had walked to the side of her bed, reached down, and for the first time in his life—the first time since his body had become separate from hers at his birth—he’d touched her.
He had taken her hand. For a second it had lain lifeless in his. And then, with a convulsion that had seemed to go through her whole frail body, she had clasped his fingers, clutching at him with a desperation that had spoken to him more clearly than words could ever do.
Carefully, he had lowered himself to the chair at her side, cradled her hand with both of his, pressing it between them. Emotion had moved within him, powerful, inchoate. Impossible to bear.
‘Thank you.’
The voice had been weak and the eyes had flickered—dark, long-lashed, sunken in a face where lines of illness had been only too visible—moving between them both.
‘Thank you. My sons. My beloved sons.’
She’d broken off, and Nikos had felt a tightening in his throat that had seemed like a garrotte around his neck. Antoine had come forward on jerky legs, sitting himself on the other side of the bed, taking her other hand, raising it to his lips to kiss.
‘Maman...’
In his brother’s voice Nikos had heard an ocean of love. Had felt, for one unbearable instant, an echo of the word inside himself. An echo that had turned into the word itself. An impossible word...an unbearable word. A word he had never spoken in all his life.
But it had come all the same. The very word his brother had spoken.
Maman.
He heard the word again now, sitting back in his seat as the plane banked to head north. He felt again the emotion that had come with that word. Felt again the spike of another emotion that had stabbed at him—at his half-brother, too—as their heads had turned at the entry of a man in theatre scrubs.
‘Monsieur,’ the cardiologist had said, ‘I regret, but it is time for you to leave. Madame la Comtesse is required in surgery.’
Fear had struck him—a dark, primitive fear. A blinding, urgent fear.
A fear that had one cry in it.
Too late.
In his head the cry had come—primitive, urgent.
Let it not be too late! Let me not have found my mother only to lose her to death.
And now, as the powerful twin engines of the private jet raced him back across the Channel, he heard that cry again. Felt that fear again.
But this time it was not about his mother.
Let it not be too late. Dear God, let it not be too late.
Not too late to learn the lesson that finding his mother had taught him. The lesson that meant he must now take a risk—the essential, imperative risk that was driving him on. Taking him back to England.
To Diana.
But as he opened his laptop, forcing his mind to a distraction it desperately needed, his eyes fell upon the latest round of emails in his inbox, and he realised with a hollowing of his guts that it was, indeed, too late.
The first email was from his lawyers.
His wife was filing for divorce.
And the money he had spent on Greymont—the money that she owed him—had been repaid. Every last penny of it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DIANA STARED AT Gerald across his desk. ‘What do you mean, he says no?’
Memory thrust into her head of how she had sat here in this very chair, in this very office, after her father’s death, refusing to sell her beloved home. Telling Gerald she would find a husband with deep pockets.
Well, she had done that all right. She’d done it and she’d paid for it.
But not with money. She was abjectly grateful that Princess Fatima had insisted on lending her the money—however long it took her to pay it back over the years ahead.
No, she had paid for what she’d wanted with a currency that was costing her far more. That would never be paid off. Try as she might by breaking the legal bonds that bound her to her husband. They were the least of the bonds that tied her to him. That would always tie her to him...
Her lawyer shifted position and looked at her directly. ‘I’m afraid he says he has no wish to agree to a divorce.’
Diana’s expression changed to one of consternation—and a whole lot more.
Gerald shook his head. ‘I did warn you, Diana, about this rash marriage. And as for that disgraceful pre-nup he insisted on—’
She cut across him. ‘This has nothing to do with the pre-nup. I don’t want a penny from him. Just the opposite. That’s why I’ve paid off the sum of every last invoice he settled, direct to his account. He has no reason not to agree to a divorce.’ Her mouth set in a tight line. ‘He has no grounds for refusing me.’
‘Except, my dear Diana,’ Gerald said in his habitually infuriating manner, ‘the law of the land allows him to do so, irrespective of any grounds you might imagine you have. And you don’t have any, do you? He hasn’t been unfaithful. He hasn’t inflicted any cruelty upon you—’
She blenched. Cruelty? What else had it been, these past nightmare months since he’d insisted on having his pound of flesh from her?
Oh, not in a physical sense—her thoughts shrank away from that; it was forbidden territory and must always remain so—but in requiring her at his side, as the perfect society wife. Beautiful, ornamental, decorative, the envy of all who knew him. The immaculately groomed society wife who could move in any circles he chose to take her, always saying just the right thing, in just the right way, wherever they went.
Outwardly it was a wealthy, gilded life—how could that possibly be considered cruel?
How could anyone have seen how she bled silently, invisibly, day after day, drained of all hope of release in the frozen chill of his obvious anger with her?
Anger because she’d refused to have the kind of marriage that he’d expected, had assumed they would have—taking it for granted that it would be consummated and then refusing to see why it was impossible...impossible!
She dared not think why such a marriage as Nikos had wanted was so impossible! She must not let in those memories that made a lie of all her insistence that she did not want a marriage such as Nikos had wanted.
She couldn’t afford to let those memories surface. Memories that haunted her...memories that were a torment, an agony of loss...of their bodies entwined beneath the burning stars, bringing each other to ecstasy.
Gerald’s dry voice sounded in her ears, making her listen. ‘Well, Diana, if you have no grounds for divorce then you will simply have to wait until you can divorce him without his agreement. That will take five years.’
She stared aghast, disbelieving. ‘Five years?’
‘Unless you can persuade him to consent to end your marriage.’
He shifted position again, leafed through s
ome papers in a fashion that told Diana he was looking for a way to say what he had to say next.
He glanced across his desk at her. ‘You may be able to change his mind, Diana,’ he said. ‘Your husband has indicated that he will discuss the matter with you personally.’
‘I don’t want to see him!’ The cry came from her. ‘I couldn’t bear to see him again.’
‘Then you will have to be prepared to wait five years for the dissolution of your marriage,’ he replied implacably.
She closed her eyes again, emotion tumbling through her. To see him again—it would be torment, absolute torment! But if it was the only way to plead with him to end this nightmarish façade of a marriage—
She looked across at her lawyer. ‘Where and when does Nikos want to meet me?’ she asked dully.
* * *
The uniformed chauffeur who was waiting for her at Charles de Gaulle Airport gave no indication of where he was driving her, but she could see it was not into Paris, but westwards into the lush countryside of Normandy. There was no point asking. Nikos had demanded this meeting and she was in no position to refuse—not if she wanted to be free of the crushing chains of her torturous marriage.
Apprehension filled her, and a clawing dread—knowing she must face him, plead with him for her freedom. She could feel her stomach churning, her breathing heavy, as the car drove onwards.
The journey seemed to last for ever, longer than the flight had, and it was past noon before they arrived at their destination, deep in the heart of the countryside.
She frowned as she got out of the car, taking in the turreted Norman château in creamy Caen stone, grand and gracious, flanked by poplar trees and ornamental gardens, and the little river glinting in the sunshine, winding past.
It was a beautiful house, like something out of a fairytale, but she was in no frame of mind to appreciate it. Its beauty only mocked the tension in her, her pinching and snapping nerves. Why was she here? Did Nikos own it? Was he renting it? Simply staying here? It could be a hotel for all she knew.
A man was emerging from the chateau, tall and dark-haired, and for a moment, with a tremor of shock, Diana thought it was Nikos. Then the rush to her bloodstream that had come just with thinking she was seeing Nikos again subsided.
‘Welcome to the Chateau du Plassis,’ he said. ‘I am Antoine du Plassis. Please come inside.’
Numbly she followed him, having murmured something in French, she knew not what. Inside, the interior was cool, and there was an antiquity about the place that was immediately was familiar to her. It was a magnificent country house like Greymont—but in another country.
‘Is Nikos here?’ Her voice broke the silence as she followed her host.
The tall, dark-haired man, who for that heart-catching moment she had thought was Nikos, glanced back at her.
‘Of course,’ he said.
He threw open a pair of double doors, standing aside to let her enter first. She saw a beautiful salon, much gilded, and a huge fireplace with the characteristic French chimneypiece. But she took in little of it. Nikos was getting to his feet from his place on a silk-upholstered Louis Quinze sofa, and her eyes went to him with a lurch of her stomach.
He said something in French to her host—something too low, too rapid for Diana to catch—and nor could she catch Antoine’s answer.
Her eyes were only for Nikos, and she was wishing with all her heart that her pulse had not leapt on seeing him, that her eyes were not drinking him in like water in a parched desert. He was looking strained, tense, and she found herself wondering at it.
Then, as her eyes went back to her host, Diana’s eyes widened disbelievingly.
The Frenchman was slightly less tall than Nikos, less broad in the shoulder, less powerfully made, with features less distinct, less strongly carved, and there was more of a natural Gallic elegance in his manner. His hair was slightly longer than Nikos’s, less dark, as were his eyes, but the resemblance was immediate, unmistakable.
Her gaze went from one to the other.
‘I don’t understand...’ Her voice was faint.
It was Nikos who answered. ‘Antoine is my half-brother,’ he said. ‘The Comte du Plassis.’
A faint frown formed between Diana’s brows as she tried to make sense of what she did not understand—that Nikos had a half-brother she had not known existed. It was the Count who spoke next, his voice with a similar timbre to Nikos’s, but his accent decidedly French, lighter than Nikos’s clipped baritone.
‘I will leave you to your discussion.’
Antoine gave a little bow of his head and strode from the room. As he closed the double doors behind him the large room suddenly felt very small. A great weariness washed over Diana and she folded herself down in an armchair, overwhelmed by tension, by all the emotions washing through her, swirling up with her being here.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said again.
The three words encompassed more than just the discovery that he had a half-brother. Why had she been summoned here? To what purpose?
She gazed at Nikos. It hurt to see him.
It will always hurt to see him.
That was the truth she could not escape. She could escape their marriage—however long it took her to do so—but it would always hurt to see him. Always hurt to think about him. Always hurt to remember him.
For a moment he was silent, but beneath the mask that was his face a powerful emotion moved. He stood by the fireplace, one hand resting on the mantel, and his gaze targeted Diana.
‘I have to talk to you,’ he said. He took a ragged breath. ‘About things I have never talked about. Because I need you to understand why I have been as I have been towards you these last difficult months. Why I have been so harsh towards you.’
She stared at him, her insides churning. She was here to beg him to end their marriage, beg him to release her from the misery of it all. She did not need to hear anything from him other than agreement to that.
‘You don’t need to explain, Nikos,’ she bit out bleakly. ‘It was because I didn’t want sex with you. And since you’d assumed right from the off that, contrary to what I’d been assuming, sex was going to be on the menu, my refusal didn’t go down well.’
There was a brusqueness in her voice, but she didn’t care.
Dark fire flashed in his eyes—anger flaring. Her jaw tightened. So he didn’t like her spelling it out that bluntly? Well, tough—because it was true, however much it might offend him.
But his hand was slashing through the empty air, repudiating her crude analysis. ‘That is not why. Or not as you state it like that! Hear me out.’ His expression changed suddenly, all the anger gone. Instead, a bleakness that echoed her own filled his face. ‘Hear me out, Diana—please.’
His voice was low and his eyes dropped from hers. His shoulders seemed to hunch, and it struck her that she had never seen him like that before. Nikos had always been so sure of himself, so obviously in command of every situation, never at a loss. Self-confident and self-assured. And in the last unbearable months of their marriage he’d steeled into his stony, unrelenting determination to keep her at bay, yet chained inescapably to his side.
Was the change in him now because she had finally broken free of him?
No, far more had shaken him than the repayment of her debt to him, her demand for a divorce. And as she let her gaze rest on him she felt emotion go through her—one that she had never in all her time with him associated with him.
She tried to think when she had ever felt such an emotion before, and what it might be. Then, with a shiver, she realised—and remembered.
It was for my father—when my mother left him.
Pity.
Shock jagged through her as she looked across at Nikos, at the visible strain in his face. Was she feeling sorry for him? After all his harshness to her?
She couldn’t bear to feel pity! Couldn’t bear to see such painful emotion in his eyes. Why was it there? There was no need for it—
no cause.
He was speaking again and she made herself listen, fighting down the emotion she did not want to feel for him. She was here to end her misery of a marriage, that was all. Nothing he could say or do would alter that.
‘It was because, Diana, your reaction after we came back from the desert showed me that I had never realised just what kind of a person you truly are.’
He paused and she felt his gaze pressing on her, like a weight she could not bear.
‘A woman like my mother.’
She stared and saw his gaze leave her, sweep around the room.
She frowned—felt confusion in her mind, cutting through her tortured emotions at his accusation. Why was Nikos here, in the home of a half-brother she hadn’t known he possessed?
Her confusion deepened as she remembered how Nikos, when he’d proposed their stark marriage of convenience, had told her that he wanted to marry her for her social background, in order to give him an entrée into her upper-class world of landed estates and stately homes.
But he has that already, here with his brother the Comte. So why—?
His sweeping gaze came back to her. Unreadable. Masked. He moved suddenly, restlessly, breaking eye contact with her. Looking instead somewhere else. Into a place she knew nothing about.
His past.
She heard him start to speak. Slowly. As if the words were being dragged from him by pitiless steel-tipped hooks...
‘My mother, Comtesse du Plassis. Wife of Antoine’s father.’ He paused. His eyes were on her now. ‘Who was not my father.’
He shifted again restlessly, his hand moving on the mantel, lifting away from it now as if he had no right to rest it there.
‘The man who fathered me,’ he said, and Diana could hear a chill in his vioce that made her quail, ‘was a Greek shipping magnate—you would know his name if I told you. He was notorious for his affairs with married women. He liked them married, you see.’ Something moved in his eyes, something savage, and her chill increased. ‘Because it meant that if there were any unfortunate repercussions there would be a handy husband on the scene to sort them out.’ He paused again, then, ‘As Antoine’s father duly did.’