For a few glorious moments she sank into the heat of his mouth, a small fix like a shot of caffeine to temper all the torrid emotions swirling inside her.
Heat pulsed through her, hard, strong, undeniable. Her aching body taking control, she hooked her arms around his neck, her lips parted...
And then sanity crashed through her harder than the caffeine shot and she wrenched her mouth away and pushed her hands to his chest. ‘No!’
With a muttered curse he stepped back, brow creased in confusion, breathing heavily.
‘I know you want me here,’ she cried, placing her hand on his groin, feeling for the very last time the strength of his desire for her before moving her hand and placing it on his chest. The thuds of his heart were heavy beneath her palm and she could have screamed with the anguish of what she must do.
‘But I want you to want me here too, in your heart. I want you to call me when we’re not together because you need to hear my voice. I want you to miss me when we’re not together as much as I miss you. I want you to take me with you when you travel because you can’t bear to be parted from me but, the truth is, if I’m not with you then I don’t exist for you. Your feelings for me are all wrapped up in your desire for me and when that fades what are we going to be left with?’
He dragged his fingers violently through his hair, a tumult of emotions flickering over his face. ‘No one knows what the future holds.’
‘And you’re not denying anything I’ve just said! We could have something really special here but you’re not even prepared to try.’ And, as she said the words, fury laced her veins and she shoved hard at his chest with all the pain ravaging her heart. ‘You won’t try because you’re a coward. Love turned bitter for you with Anastasia so you’re punishing me for it by refusing to embrace what we have.’
‘That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard you say,’ he snarled. ‘I’m not punishing you for anything. You’ve been insecure about Anastasia from the start. How many times do I have to tell you—whatever feelings I had for that woman died the day I learned another man had fathered her child!’
‘But at least you had feelings for her before it all turned to hate. You’ve punished me for her sins since the day I told you I was pregnant! It’s infected every part of our relationship because you refuse to let go of your hate for her and embrace a future with me.’
His face whitened, the pulse on his jaw throbbing madly.
‘I want happiness, Giannis, and I can’t have that if I’m spending my life waiting for your interest in me to fade while holding on to the futile hope that one day you’ll let me into your heart. I’ve spent enough of my life living in the shadows and having my very existence denied and I’m not prepared to go through it any more. I can’t hold on to a dream that doesn’t exist. If you can’t even try to let go of the past and embrace a true future with me then I leave now.’
He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her back to him. ‘I’m not letting you go. You’re my wife.’
‘Then start treating me like your wife.’ She yanked her arm from his hold. ‘You think I want to go? This is breaking my heart, Giannis, but if I stay as things stand it’s going to destroy me.’
The darkness shadowed his face again, his features contorting with a mixture of menace and anguish. ‘I’m not letting you take my child from me.’
‘I’m not taking it from you.’ She kneaded her temples and blinked back the hot tears, terrified to unleash them. ‘You’re still its father, but right now it’s being nurtured in my belly, and until it’s born I will care for it.’
‘What about the stable life we married to provide it with? If you leave then everything we’ve done will have been for nothing.’
‘No, Giannis, it won’t have been for nothing.’ Hating to see the pain on his face, even though she knew his pain wasn’t for her but their child, she flung her arms around his neck for the last time and pressed the lightest of kisses to his mouth. Then she stared into the clear blue eyes brimming with all the emotion she wished could be for her. ‘It’s for our baby’s sake as much as mine that I must do this. I don’t want it to live with a mother who’s miserable all the time. Better he or she has two happy parents even if they are apart. You’re the one who’s taught me to be strong and the strength you’ve given me will make me a far better mother than I would have been.’
The strength he’d given her had also given her the spine she needed to put her future in her own hands.
She pulled away from him, no longer able to look at him, and walked out of the living room.
He followed her to the front door as she was hooking her handbag over her shoulder. Luckily her passport was already in it.
‘Where will you go?’ he asked stiffly.
‘Back to England.’ She blinked back the tears still fighting for release and swallowed. ‘I’m going to do what you keep telling me to do and fight for what is mine. I’m going to get my inheritance back for me and our baby.’
He shut the door before she’d made it to the elevator.
* * *
She could do this. She was strong as Giannis had told her.
Leaving him had proved it as nothing else could.
She would not be second best any more. And she would not allow her inheritance and her child’s inheritance to be stolen from her a minute longer.
She wouldn’t even bang on the door.
This was her home. She had no intention of waiting politely for entry to be granted.
She took one deep breath and turned the handle.
The moment she crossed the threshold, Tabitha’s bravado almost deserted her. Her palms went clammy and her heart began that awful sick thud of dread.
She closed her eyes and took another deep breath. Clearing her throat, she parted her lips, but before she could call out her stepmother appeared.
For a moment neither of them said anything, then the frigid mask that was Emmaline’s Botoxed face spoke. ‘What are you doing here?’
Tabitha wiped her hands on her trousers and fought for air.
‘What are you doing here?’ Emmaline repeated icily.
In desperation Tabitha brought Giannis’s face to mind and his stern assurance that she was strong enough to confront her stepmother and reclaim what was hers.
This was something she had to do.
Ignoring the tremors in her hand, she pulled out the document from her bag and held it out.
‘What is that?’ Emmaline sneered.
Tabitha cleared her throat and looked her square in the eye. ‘Copies of the documentary proof I’ve obtained that you used fraudulent methods to evict me from my home and steal my inheritance.’
Giannis’s investigative team had been more thorough than she could have imagined.
She’d read through it in the hotel suite she’d checked into in England six days ago, the day after she’d left him. She was still using the hotel as her base and had no intention of leaving until her home was her own again and she could move back to the place she belonged.
She had to keep ignoring the voice that kept whispering Santorini was where she belonged.
Emmaline’s mouth dropped open. Now she was the one struggling to speak.
Tabitha straightened and lifted her chin. ‘I’m here to give you notice. You have one week to leave this house and transfer all my father’s assets into my name or I call the police and have you prosecuted for theft and fraud.’
‘You can’t do that.’
‘Every time you argue with me, I decrease it by a day. This house is not yours. It was never yours. You had no right to it and you always knew that—this house belonged to my mother. My father transferred it into her name when I was a baby as a gift to her and she bequeathed it to me when she became ill.’
Her parents had protected her inheritance. When it had been clear her mother couldn’t survive
, they’d drawn up a separate trust for the house which allowed her father to live in it for the rest of his life, but the ownership of it would become Tabitha’s. He’d intended to surprise her with this when she turned twenty-one.
She knew why Emmaline had thought she could get away with stealing it. She’d thought Tabitha weak and she’d been right.
Not any more. Tabitha would never allow anyone to walk over her again. She would never again accept that things were the way they were and that all you could do was endure and survive.
She wanted to live.
‘You stole my home from me and I have documentary proof that you stole much more too. All you’re entitled to is half of the income from the brewery. Considering you have had all that income for your greedy self these past five years, you can have no objection to signing the document that’s also enclosed transferring your share into my name.’
She didn’t have to threaten her again. The rouge on Emmaline’s cheeks was stark against the whiteness of her cheeks.
‘One week,’ Tabitha said sweetly as she turned back to the door to leave. ‘You know what you have to do. Oh, and before I go, send my love to your daughters.’
Walking back down the long gravelled driveway, fallen autumn leaves crunching beneath her feet, she climbed into the waiting taxi without looking back.
Only when the driver pulled onto the narrow backroad did her posture dissolve and the adrenaline that had carried her through the ordeal slump.
Before all her courage deserted her, she snatched her phone out of her bag and, after deliberating how best to phrase it, fired off a message to Giannis.
I’ve seen Emmaline. She’ll be gone from the house in a week. Thank you for your help.
However things had ended between them, he’d done this for her. He’d gathered the evidence she needed to reclaim her inheritance and helped her find the strength she needed to confront Emmaline.
She would call him soon and speak to him but she wasn’t ready for that yet. Her strength could only take her so far and, until she knew she could be in a room with him without falling to her knees and begging him to take her back, it was best she kept her distance.
But, God, she missed him. All that had kept her going this past week had been gearing herself up for that confrontation with her stepmother. It had given her a focus that had dulled the ache she carried in every cell of her body.
She would not go back to him. She couldn’t. She could not live her life by his side knowing her love would never be reciprocated. Eventually it would destroy her. And what kind of example would it set for her child? She wanted her child to find love and fulfilment. One day she hoped to find it for herself too.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘WHAT ARE YOU doing here?’
Niki barged her way past Giannis uninvited. ‘I’m going on a date and thought I’d see if Tabitha was in—I want to borrow that gorgeous choker you got her for her birthday. Is she here?’
‘She’s gone,’ he answered baldly, his stomach clenching.
‘Gone where?’
He shrugged again. It was easier than talking. In the week since Tabitha had walked out on him in Milan, he’d found his vocal cords too tight to make more than monotonous grunts. After a merciful week doing business in Toronto away from his inquisitive family, five hours back in Santorini and his peace was shattered.
‘When will she be back?’
Another shrug.
‘Have you turned into a mute?’ Not waiting for an answer, she strolled through to his bar and began rummaging through the rows of liqueurs, spirits and wines. ‘You’re running low on white wine,’ she observed cheerfully as she pulled a bottle of white out of the fridge. ‘How did the party go?’
‘What party?’ he asked tiredly.
‘Alessio’s party.’
‘It wasn’t a party. It was a function.’ And it felt like a lifetime ago.
She poked her tongue at him and poured them both a large glass. ‘How did the “function” go?’
‘Fine.’
‘What did Alessio say when you told him you’d got married again? Was he cross that he wasn’t invited?’
He took the glass she thrust in his hand and took a large drink of it. ‘The subject didn’t come up.’
‘Why not? And if you give another shrug as an answer I’m going to punch you.’ But before he could answer Niki’s eyes narrowed as she looked properly at him. ‘When was the last time you had a shave?’
‘What?’
She put her face to his neck then pulled away with her nose wrinkling. ‘You need a shower too.’ Then she stilled and bit her lip. ‘Giannis...where’s Tabitha?’
The clenching in his stomach became a vice as he finally admitted, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
His heart twisted so tightly he had to force the words out. ‘She’s left me.’
And she hadn’t come back. All her clothes, her jewellery, her cosmetics, every single item he’d bought her, were still in her dressing room. She had money he’d given her in her bank account and, from the message he’d received a few hours ago—the first message she’d sent since leaving—had her house back.
She had no reason to come home to him.
The horror on his sister’s face landed like a punch in his guts and he struggled to drag air into his lungs.
‘What happened?’ she eventually whispered.
‘A difference of opinion.’
He could feel Niki’s troubled eyes on him as he paced the vast living area—a space that had grown disproportionately since Tabitha had gone, enhancing her absence—to stand outside on the terrace overlooking the sea.
Far in the distance he spotted a yacht. He kept his gaze fixed on it when his sister joined him.
Something hot and rancid had been building up in him, right from the pit of his stomach, for days. He’d smothered it and doused it but now he could feel it rising sharply inside him.
Niki sighed and placed her hand on his.
But her attempt at comfort felt like needles on his skin and he snatched his hand away.
‘Is it fixable?’ she asked quietly.
He shrugged.
She punched him on the arm.
‘What was that for?’ he growled.
‘I did warn you I would punch you if you shrugged another answer. Tell me what happened.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He downed the rest of his wine.
There was a long period of silence before she said, ‘What are you going to do to get her back?’
‘Nothing. She doesn’t want to be with me any more.’
‘Don’t be stupid. She’s crazy about you.’
His breath grew ragged and he gritted his teeth. ‘We married to legitimise our child. It is disappointing that things haven’t worked out but we are both agreed that we will continue to put our child’s best interests first.’
‘And you’re happy with this? Because from where I’m standing you look as miserable as sin. Did you sleep in those clothes?’
The build-up of rage in his stomach suddenly exploded. Turning on his favourite sister, Giannis shouted, ‘For once in your life can you keep your nose out of my affairs? My marriage is none of your business. Tabitha is none of your business. I’m none of your business, so do us both a favour and get out of my face and go meet your date.’
Niki was nothing if not his sister, and uttered words at him that would have once earned her a slap from their mother. ‘What is wrong with you, Giannis? Where’s the fearless brother I’ve always adored? You love Tabitha...’
‘Love has nothing to do with our marriage.’
‘Oh, get over yourself, you blind fool. Anyone can see you’re crazy about each other, but instead of getting out there and doing everything in your power to bring her hom
e you’re moping like a love-sick teenager. Tabitha is the best thing that ever happened to you and if you’re too stupid to see that and apologise for whatever you’ve done to make her leave then you really don’t deserve her.’
‘You automatically put the blame on me?’ he roared.
‘She left you which, yes, does imply that you’re to blame. Tabitha loves you. There is no way she would have left if she didn’t think she had no alternative...’
He couldn’t listen to another word. With a roar that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, Giannis hurled the glass over the wall and onto the jagged rocks below where it shattered into a thousand shards.
It was the perfect mimicry of his own shattered heart.
* * *
A week later and Brigstock Manor was Tabitha’s again.
Emmaline and her daughters were gone, as was most of the garish furniture they’d replaced her parents’ furniture with.
Tabitha kept wandering through the mostly empty rooms as if she were in a dream. It didn’t feel real.
This was her home. This was the place where all the ghosts of her past lived. The echo of her mother’s laugh, the one thing she remembered about her with any clarity, was contained in these walls. Everything else about her parents had been erased. A part of her wanted to confront Emmaline and demand she replace everything she’d thrown away but her thickening waistline was all she needed to dissuade herself.
She had her home back. She would receive a regular income from the business and, after her child was born, she would do that business degree she’d always wanted to do and eventually take her rightful place on the Brigstock Brewery board.
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