Rion didn’t know what the hell to think, but he did know her use of the word betray was the admission he had been waiting for. ‘So you’re confessing that your thoughts about me have been lustful ever since you walked into my office, gineka mou?’
‘The only thing I’m confessing is that I would never have allowed myself to be seen in public as your wife if doing so humiliated anyone other than me.’
Rage flared in his eyes. ‘Oh, yes, if only you’d married someone less humiliating, someone as refined and morally seamless as you are—oh, no, wait a minute. Haven’t you, who has just spent the last ten minutes accusing me of omitting the truth, been lying about this other man all along?’
Libby’s cheeks started to burn. ‘You assumed—’
‘In the same way that you assumed my business here had to do with Delikaris Experiences. Only you went one step further by perpetuating your lie.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
She dropped her head. ‘I thought it would make you see the logic in signing the divorce papers. You seemed sure that all I wanted was money, and I needed you to see that it wasn’t.’
‘Even though all the time it was?’ he bellowed.
‘No, I told you—’
‘Oh, yes, you told me—getting a divorce now is logical. But you’ve already lived with the humiliation of being my wife for five years, so why did remaining married suddenly become illogical? Has Ashworth Motors folded? Is that it?’ he went on. ‘Are you here because you hope a hefty divorce pay-out will restore your family’s fortunes, prevent you from having to work a day more?’
Libby drew in a ragged breath and began walking back in the direction of the house. How had she spent even a minute believing he was capable of understanding a single thing about her? He wasn’t the Rion she’d once known. He’d grown so cynical. She glanced at him as he came alongside her. Why was that, when in the years since she’d been gone it appeared that so much had gone his way?
‘I love my work,’ she said tonelessly. ‘And I’ve already told you I don’t want your money. After all this time I just thought it was the right thing to do. As for Ashworth Motors, I honestly have no idea. The last time I saw my parents was the day we left for Athens together, so your guess is as good as mine.’
‘Your father refused to have you back?’ He looked appalled.
‘I didn’t go back.’ Didn’t Rion realise she’d had nothing to go back to?
‘So where did you go?’
‘The first flight back to the UK from Athens landed in Manchester.’ She shrugged. ‘It seemed as good a place as any.’
It had been two hundred miles away from her parents for a start. Not that that had stopped her father getting hold of her phone number three years later, when he’d read about Rion’s success in the paper and thought it was in his interest to call her and repent.
‘So living alone in a strange city was preferable to being married to me?’
Libby’s expression grew taut. ‘It was what I needed to do, Rion. In the same way that I knew you were happier working, making it on your own.’
Rion turned sharply to look at her as they reached the front door. ‘Happier? The only reason I was always working was to earn enough to get us out of that hovel we were living in!’
Libby felt as if someone had just removed the ground from beneath her feet. Working so hard had been his dream, hadn’t it? After the excitement of getting married had gone, when she’d realised that she wanted to take control of her life, he’d discovered that what he really wanted was to make a success of himself alone. Hadn’t he?
‘It made you happier than I could, Rion. Our marriage wasn’t what either of us was expecting. You said yourself the day I left it had been on the cards from the start.’
‘Only because you never believed in me.’
Libby clung on to the front wall of the house for support, guilt washing over her in a wave. Was that true? Had she been the only one who’d been disappointed in their marriage? Her mind traced back over those three short months. No, whatever he said, she knew he had been too. But the reality was she was the one who’d given up on it altogether, who’d left her proud Greek husband. And suddenly she saw with hideous clarity the answer to her question. Why had he become the dark, jaded man stood before her now when so much had gone his way in the intervening years? Because she’d walked away from him.
Hot tears pricked behind Libby’s eyes. ‘I always believed in you, Rion, that’s why I married you.’
Rion gritted his teeth. Yes, when she’d accepted his proposal she’d believed in him, believed her father would give them his blessing. And maybe she’d desired him so much that even after her father had given them the opposite she’d allowed herself to believe he was still someone back in Greece. She’d gone through with the wedding, after all. But once he’d taken her back to that god-awful apartment he’d known she must realise that he was really no one at all. And, though he’d tried to convince himself that she didn’t think like that, deep down he’d been half expecting her to bolt from the minute he’d carried her over the threshold.