But don’t mention the divorce to anyone. It’s none of their business. Let people think we are discussing reconciliation. Just until the party is over and you can leave with the other guests.’
She frowned. ‘You mean pretend I’m still your wife?’
He shrugged. ‘If you put it that way. Just for a few hours. Legally you are still my wife.’
‘You mean I’d have to act loving and—?’ Her breath started to come in tight gasps at the thought of it and she had to put her hand to her chest.
‘Just civil would do, if you find the thought of pretending an affection you no longer feel so distressing,’ he said. ‘Just keep it dignified. You’ve caused me enough humiliation.’
‘I don’t know that I could face explanations and—’
‘No explanations would be required. I have told my family nothing of what happened between us.’
And, no doubt, his relatives had assigned all the blame for the end of their union to her. Slowly, she shook her head, forced her breathing to return to something resembling normality. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do it.’ Such a charade would bring back old memories, old feelings she had fought so hard to put behind her.
He frowned his displeasure. ‘Do it for my cousin’s sake who liked you and stood up for you. Don’t let us ruin this day for them.’
Us. How thrilled she’d been when they’d become a couple. How she’d loved to drop those magical words we and us into the conversation, preferably while flashing her engagement ring at the same time. Now Cristos used the word in such a different context it made her shudder. Us united in a charade of dishonesty. Although, she was forced to admit, it would be with the best of intentions and just for a few hours. She sighed out loud. He still knew which of her buttons to press. The last thing she’d ever want to do was ruin someone else’s hard-won happiness. Everyone in Sydney knew the tragedy Alex had gone through.
She looked up at Cristos. At that handsome, handsome face that had once been so beloved. ‘I’ll do it. Then after lunch I’m out of here. With the divorce papers signed.’
And she would say goodbye to her husband for the very last time.
CRISTOS FISTED HIS hands by his sides. He could lie to himself all he liked but his indifference towards his wife was just another mask. Seeing Hayley again had stripped it away, leaving raw the ache for her he had never been able to suppress.
Call it desire, need, obsession—when she had first smiled at him across that crowded pub in Durham it had lodged in his heart like an arrow from Eros, the ancient Greek god of love and desire. He had found it impossible to wrench it out—even when he had tried to hate her for the way she had left him.
What he had felt for her defied logic, reason, common sense. But it hadn’t been enough to see them through the loss of their baby, a time that should have brought husband and wife closer together in a shared grief rather than driven them inexplicably apart. What had gone wrong? He needed answers. And he had to get them from Hayley before she took that boat back to Nidri.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Hayley had barricades up around her that might be impenetrable. But Cristos was an optimist. To be a successful gambler you had to be an optimist. And he was a gambler. His was not the kind of reckless, addictive gambling that had driven his late father to embezzlement and fraud and stints in prison. Not to mention unending shame for his mother’s family.
Cristos’s gambling took the form of calculated business risks that had led him to invest in start-up internet businesses—most of which had succeeded beyond all expectations. At not yet thirty, he was a multimillionaire. These days the wide spread of his investment portfolio ensured his fortune was secure—and kept growing. Yet he kept the gambler aspect of him a secret from his family. And had never shared it with Hayley.
His father had died when he’d been thirteen, followed six months later by the death of his mother. His grandparents had brought him back to Nidri, aged fourteen, to live with them. He’d been embraced with love by his grandparents and extended family. But he’d soon become uncomfortably aware of how closely he was scrutinised.
He looked so like his father that his family were terrified he had inherited his nature as well as his good looks. It felt as if they were always waiting to pounce and stamp out any undesirable traits. As soon as he’d realised that, he’d become adept at masking his feelings, hiding his true risk-taking self. It was allowed to come out only when he played football where a winner-takes-all attitude was encouraged.
He had started investing in a small way in app developments by his fellow students at university but had kept both his successes and failures well hidden. Even though he saw himself as a canny businessman, he could never admit to his worried grandparents that he could be in any way like his father, the man they blamed for the death of his mother, their only daughter. The secrecy had become a habit, another mask he was beginning to weary of wearing.
But optimism was all he felt now as he looked down into Hayley’s face—a face he had doubted he would ever see again. It was difficult to stop himself from glancing at her every few seconds just to reassure himself she was really there. The sheen of her hair, the blue of her eyes, the curve of her mouth. She was here with him, in the same country, by his side. They were headed for divorce. But he intended to make the most of the hours ahead to get answers to the questions that had plagued him. Then he could put her firmly in the past and move on without being haunted by guilt or bitterness.
That was a much better position than he could have dreamed he’d be in when he’d thought back to their wedding this morning.
‘Alex is looking our way. Let’s go say hi,’ he said. It seemed natural to reach for her, to fold her much smaller hand in his for the first time in years. But she stiffened against him.
Did she hate him so much she couldn’t bear the most simple of touches?
‘You agreed to do this—we have to make it look believable,’ he said in a gruff undertone intended only for her.
He could tell the effort it took for her to release the tension from her body. ‘I guess so,’ she said, expelling a sigh.
She left her hand in his as he led her towards the chapel but there was no answering pressure, no entwining of her fingers through his. Their linked hands were purely for appearances’ sake. But it signalled they were together—for today at least. The fewer questions his family had about her sudden appearance, the better. They would take their cues from him. If he appeared unperturbed they would not question what Hayley was doing here.
His cousin and his wife had been posing for photos with their children but had now handed them over to their doting grandmothers. Cristos was glad. He would find it impossible to keep his mask in place if he had to watch Hayley react to the children, knowing how much she had wanted the baby they had lost that terrible night in Milan. The night that was branded on his memory for ever, to be brought out and poked and prodded in an agony of self-recrimination for failing her. But there had also been fault on her part. He had wanted the baby, but she had not allowed him to share her grief—let alone acknowledge his.
He’d been in a business meeting—a meeting that had turned out to be pivotal to his rapid rise to riches. The deal he’d done that night had been a major step up to the fortune
