At least she was sure she would feel that way once she’d slept on it.
CHAPTER SIX
LIBBY woke at six, after a surprisingly easy night’s sleep. She put it down to emotional exhaustion, and the relief of having settled on a course of action. Six was actually relatively late by her standards; she’d been an early bird since her childhood, reading voraciously in the early hours of morning when her father wasn’t around to forbid her on the grounds that no man wanted a wife more intelligent than he was. Now, getting up at the crack of dawn to lead an excursion, catch a flight, or meet a new tour group was part of her job description, and ordinarily she adored it.
So why did just the thought of returning to that life, even if she successfully got Rion to sign the divorce petition, fill her with such depression this morning? Because all these years she’d thought that if she saw him again she wouldn’t feel anything any more, she supposed, and yesterday she’d realised she was wrong. Because he’d made her realise that the life she’d carved out for herself didn’t make her as happy as she’d told herself it did. And because, just when she’d allowed herself to believe she had a shot at real happiness, she’d discovered the man who’d once made her so happy had been replaced by a man who wanted to control her for his own gain.
Well, today he was going to discover that she would not be controlled by anything or anyone, Libby thought defiantly, rifling through her suitcase and digging out a sleeveless top and skirt. She got up and pressed her ear to the door to see if she could hear any sounds of movement on the landing. Nothing. She was thankful that in giving her the co-ordinates of his bedroom, and having directed her to the bathroom to freshen up yesterday, he’d prevented her from having to embark on a Russian-Roulette-style door-opening session this morning, which would most certainly have resulted in waking him, and probably stumbling across him in bed too.
Appalled to catch herself lingering outside his door, wondering whether he still slept naked, Libby rushed to the bathroom and jumped straight in the shower. But she was frustrated to find jets of water shooting out from the walls to massage her body from every angle, and, despite the fact that she had to contend with different shower mechanisms all the time, she couldn’t work out how to turn them off. Defeated, but adamant that she would not be subjected to such a sensual assault, she turned the temperature unarousingly low, soaped, rinsed, and then dried herself off briskly in record quick time before flinging on her clothes and leaving the house.
It was a gloriously sunny morning, with a light breeze rising off the ocean that caught the scent of wild thyme as it blew inland. To her relief, it blew her melancholy aside and immediately put her in the mood to explore.
She decided to turn right and begin in Metameikos’s old town first, taking photos along the way and sketching out a rough map in her notebook. She told herself the old town was the most logical place to start, but if she was honest she was too curious about the place where he’d grown up not to start there. Especially when he’d always been so reluctant to talk about it, and tried to argue that there was nothing remotely sentimental about his decision to come back here. He’d admitted that he’d bought the house because as a child he’d sworn he’d own it one day, so surely there was more to his decision to come back to Metameikos than he was willing to reveal? After all, the place where you grew up always shaped the person you became, didn’t it? Even if only in the sense that it made you want to escape it.
But as Libby began to wander through the streets she couldn’t imagine Metameikos could have that effect on anyone, and knew almost instantly that it would go down well with the clientele who booked with Kate’s Escapes. Yes, some parts were in need of serious rejuvenation, but at the same time she couldn’t recall anywhere else she’d visited that was quite so charming: the rows of washing strung out across the narrow streets, the small gardens lovingly planted and teeming with butterflies, the natural stream of water that trickled down through the mountains to the village square, where locals gathered to collect water and exchange gossip.
But, she thought, stopping at a small café for a cup of lemon tea and a delicious pastry, she didn’t suppose stopping the rat race and enjoying life’s simple pleasures would appeal to Rion. Yet he’d still chosen to return to that house—even though there were newer, far more luxurious and impressive properties that must have sprung up since his childhood.
So surely that meant he didn’t want to escape the simple charm of the place where he’d grown up completely?