That much was true. Last time he had loved her, or professed to at least. This time there was no pretence that his feelings for her were what they once had been; this was all about wanting to be a father to his son.
‘I know that, but everything else is. You…’ She stopped and smiled at an elderly couple who walked past hand in hand.
‘Lovely afternoon.’
‘Marvellous,’ she agreed.
‘Why are the British obsessed with the weather?’ Before she could defend the national obsession he added, ‘Why are you determined to be negative about this?’
‘I’m not being negative,’ she protested. ‘I’m being realistic. We’re going back to the same house. You’re the same man, your mother will still resent me.’
‘My mother did not resent you!’
Georgie smiled and looked away. ‘If you say so.’
‘Perhaps you have left out the most significant obstacle.’
She paused and ran her fingers along the moss-covered wall beside the church gate. Her glance lifted to the tiny church with its square Norman tower. As a young girl she had spent many an afternoon imagining herself walking up the aisle here, and standing underneath the big horse chestnut having her picture taken in its shade.
The reality could not have been more different: an anonymous register office. Angolos had let it be known that he hadn’t actually wanted a big wedding. ‘Been there, done that…but, of course, if you want…?’ he added.
‘No, I hate big weddings,’ she lied dutifully. ‘It’s the next twenty years that counts, not the day itself.’
He laughed at her earnestness and called her a hopeless romantic, but she was happy because she had pleased him.
With a sigh she rested her back against the wall now. ‘And what is that?’ She stretched out her hand and languidly watched the dappled light play across her skin.
‘You’re still the same person too.’
She shook her head, but didn’t look at him. ‘You’re wrong, Angolos. I’m not the same person at all.’
‘You mean you won’t grow discontented this time.’
This time she did look up. ‘Discontented…?’
‘You never made any effort to fit in.’
‘Fit in!’ she exclaimed in heated response to this monumentally unfair claim. ‘Short of changing my identity, that was never going to happen.’
‘What are you talking about?’
As if he didn’t know.
‘Tell me, Angolos,’ she began with vibrating antagonism. ‘How long had we been married before you began regretting it? A week…two…?’ Now he was prepared to put his life on hold to be with their son; back then he hadn’t even been able to free a weekend to spend time with her! If her friend Alan hadn’t arrived she would have felt even lonelier.
‘This,’ he said heavily, ‘is getting us nowhere.’
‘Maybe someone is trying to tell us something,’ she murmured as she levered herself up onto the wall.
‘It’s not exactly constructive raking up the past every five seconds.’ Angolos’s gaze moved from the small hands folded primly in her lap to her neatly crossed ankles and his jaw clenched.
‘You look like a child,’ he accused throatily.
She continued banging her heels against the stone as he set his hands against the uneven wall either side of her. But it was an uphill battle to continue to act as if her pulses weren’t racing like crazy and she weren’t painfully aware of the proximity of his warm male body.
‘I’m not, and I’ve got the stretch marks to prove it.’ Without thinking, she moved her hand to hover above the area low on her belly, where the silvery lines were a permanent reminder of her motherhood.
‘I’m well aware you’re not a child.’ He exhaled a long shuddering breath that sucked in the muscles of his flat belly and expanded his impressive chest. He dragged a hand through his dark hair. ‘I used to know your body as well as I knew my own.’
The accusing throaty addition brought her startled glance to his face. Their eyes meshed and her insides dissolved.
‘The attraction is still there.’
‘I don’t know if Greece fell short of your expectations or I did? But it is my home and once,’ he added, ‘it was yours. I would like for my son to have the opportunity to learn to love it also.’
‘It was never my home.’ The sadness in her eyes was tinged with resentment. ‘I was always a visitor and not a welcome one at that.’ His mother, the daunting Olympia, had made sure of that.
‘That’s ludicrous. This melodrama isn’t helping anyone,’ he retorted impatiently.
Georgie didn’t respond. She knew perfectly well that he would never believe that his family had loathed her; in front of him they had been sweetness and light.
‘I don’t want to share a home with your mother and sister.’
‘Is that a fact?’
She could tell from his expression that he didn’t take her seriously. She took a deep breath. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it on her terms. ‘Let me rephrase that. I won’t share a house with your mother and sister.’
Eyes narrowed, he scanned her face. ‘You’re serious?’
‘Deadly serious.’
His expression changed. ‘You expect me to throw my mother and sister from their home?’
Georgie could see he was totally outraged by her suggestion. ‘They’re hardly going to be homeless, are they?’ His mother owned a palatial villa a few miles away and a town house in Athens and they were only the ones Georgie knew about! ‘As for Sacha, if you let her stand on her own feet instead of fighting her battles…’
‘She got married last year.’
‘Oh, that’s great.’
‘They had a falling out and—’
‘Let me guess—she came back home.’
Angolos’s expression grew defensive. ‘And why should she not?’
‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that she’s never going to sort out her own problems while she knows you’re always going to ride to the rescue when the going gets tough?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you dislike my family so much?’
She released an exasperated sigh. ‘I don’t dislike them
