An hour later, Hamid informed him that Maddie was in the salon with her luggage. Giannis stared at the computer screen and realised that he had done no work during that time.
Clad in a simple white shirt and denim skirt, with her glorious hair confined by a band at the nape of her neck, she was standing by the window.
‘I realise that you’re upset, but there is such a thing as the art of compromise,’ Giannis drawled softly.
‘Giannis…’ Maddie whispered in jagged interruption. ‘Compromise would only be another word for you using me, and I’m not a glutton for punishment. But I have decided that everything that’s happened isn’t entirely your fault. I have to take a share of the blame too.’
His ebony brows pleated. ‘Meaning?’
Maddie wanted to tell him about Suzy, because she was convinced that this would be the last time she ever saw him. ‘For you to understand, I have to go back nine years in time to when I first saw you. I was fourteen years old.’
Giannis was intrigued. ‘The first time? How? Where?’
‘You visited my twin sister in a children’s hospice.’
Disconcertion made him frown. ‘A hospice?’
Her generous mouth compressed. ‘Her name was Suzy…and, no, you didn’t notice me on either visit. I was just one of the admiring crowd round the tea trolley. My sister had leukaemia and not much time left. A fortnight later you returned and brought her favourite pop pin-up to visit her. She was overjoyed. He was her hero, and that day you became mine for doing it for her.’
Giannis was astonished by what she was telling him. He too had lost a sibling as a teenager, but that was something he never discussed. Furthermore, what she said had cut through even his tough shell and drawn blood. He was her hero and that day you became mine. Ten words, and every one the equivalent of a spear in the guts, Giannis conceded grimly. ‘Your sister—Suzy—died?’
Her beautiful green eyes sad, Maddie nodded.
‘I’m sorry. Over the years I’ve visited hundreds of children. I’m afraid I don’t remember her,’ he admitted.
‘It’s long time ago. I didn’t expect you to. I just wanted you to know that, even though everything has gone wrong between us on a personal level, I’ll always be grateful for the fact that you made my sister so happy.’
‘I don’t want you to be grateful, pedhi mou,’ Giannis breathed in a roughened undertone. ‘Gratitude in that field is the one thing I have never sought from anyone.’
‘But I hope it explains why I acted so stupidly when I finally got the chance to speak to you. I had this false picture of you—a silly, immature image. I’m sure I gave you the wrong impression.’
His gilded bronze eyes darkened and screened. ‘Theos mou…I don’t want to hear this.’
‘I must go.’ Maddie would not allow herself to look at him again. Hamid had already told her that the heli-pilot was waiting to fly her to the airport. She would not allow herself to drag out their final meeting. Giannis had made her weak, but she was determined to be strong and make a dignified exit.
‘You did not give me the wrong impression,’ Giannis asserted, his accent very thick. ‘I saw you and the deed was done. The hunter’s instinct is a powerful one, and the more you resisted me, the more I desired you. I am sorry that I hurt you. But think long and hard before you turn your back on what we share. That happiness is not easily found.’
‘But it was fool’s gold,’ she responded, with a bitterness she had to battle to conceal. ‘And it turned to dross in the light of day.’
Dark golden eyes bleak, Giannis watched the helicopter take off. His big, powerful frame taut with frustration, he tossed back a brandy. His stubborn jawline clenched. Her departure had unleashed uncomfortable reactions within him. His resistance to her climbed in direct proportion to that disturbing knowledge, because he disliked the sense that he was not fully in control. Perhaps it was fortunate that he would not see her for a while. After all, he was not a hero, and he had never suffered from the delusion that he might be. He thought it was just typical of Madeleine Conway that she only wanted a guy who was a bloody hero!
She had storybook ideals—fantasy expectations. His conscience, never the most active part of his psyche, creaked into action to remind him that she had believed he was single and unattached. He remembered how gutted she had been. He had behaved like a bastard, he acknowledged unwillingly. He had taken sexual advantage of a starry-eyed virgin who had evidently seen him in much the same light as an infatuated teenager. He recalled the shine in Maddie’s eyes when she’d looked at him that first day in his office. He wondered exactly what he would have to do to bring that shine back, and he did not doubt his ability to achieve that end. How was it his fault that other women had asked so little from him that he had become spoilt? Even a little lazy and arrogant?
While Maddie had values that he admired—even if living with them was a distinct challenge for him—she also had a lot to learn. Krista was not a negotiable element in his life, he reasoned. He had chosen Krista to be his wife, and he was not a changeable man. The only vacancy available was that of mistress. There were strict boundaries between his public life and that which he led in private. Maddie would have to understand and accept it. He would give her the chance to adjust to the concept of compromise. He refused to consider what he would do if she proved stubborn.
After a lengthy delay at the airport, Maddie returned to London and a grey wet morning. She felt the loss of bright sunlight almost as much as the loss of Giannis. He’d had her flown back to London on a Petrakos jet and, mindful of the crew, she had felt obliged to stay dry-eyed. Nemos had carried her bag right to the door of her bedsit, and even put the key in the lock for her. When the door had shut behind her she’d thought how hopelessly dark and drab her rented room seemed.
She was quick to remind herself that this was her real world. Had she resisted temptation, as all her instincts had urged, she would not be feeling as though someone had forcibly torn her in two.
But at least she now understood why her time in Morocco had felt unreal. How could it have felt like anything more serious or durable? Her love affair had just been a casual sexual intrigue to a Greek billionaire for whom one woman was clearly never going to be enough. He had picked her because she had been so amazingly free with her favours in his office. Had she paused to ask him then if he was a single man? No, she had not. So it would be hypocritical to blame him for the entire débâcle. Having torn up the rulebook of how she lived her life, it seemed she was now paying the price for being free and easy.
The next day she was wakened by the delivery of a magnificent bouquet. She would not allow herself to read the card and, although the waste of such beauty brought tears to her eyes, she dumped the flowers.
Feed a cold and starve a fever, her grandmother had often said, and Maddie knew she had a fever that required brutal discouragement. She refused to wallow in the belief that she loved Giannis. How could she have loved someone she hardly knew? She had to get over him and do it quickly. But the craving for him nagged at her like a constant pain. She did not know how to kill the terrible bone-deep longing just to see his lean, dark face one more time. Her peace of mind was gone as well. How would she ever forgive herself for the mistakes she had made? The mistakes she had then excused so that she could go on making them with him? Her self-esteem was at rock bottom.
Keen
