Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife(52)

He stared at her, hollow eyes wide. ‘You’ve forgotten something?’

She hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes.’ She supposed you could put it that way.

Rion did a quick mental tour of the house. ‘Of course—your work.’ He stepped back, encouraging her to wait inside. ‘It’s still on the table in the lounge. I’ll get it.’

‘No—I mean—yes, please—in a minute. But that wasn’t what I came back for.’

‘Oh?’

‘I just…need you to know something.’

He turned fully back to face her, and nodded to confirm that she had his undivided attention. Her misgivings quadrupled, but she forced herself to go on.

‘I need you to know that the reason I said I didn’t want to have your baby has nothing to do with your past.’

‘I know,’ he said softly.

Libby knotted her hands together self-consciously. ‘Good, I just didn’t want you to think—’

‘I don’t.’

An awkward silence descended.

‘I’ll get you those papers, then,’ he said, disappearing from the hallway.

Libby looked at herself in the mirror on the opposite wall, appalled. Oh, yes, Libby. Great job of expressing your feelings.

He returned swiftly, his hands full of her brochures and notes, but she didn’t even register them.

‘In fact,’ she bulldozed on, before she lost her nerve, ‘there’s no other man I would want to be the father of my children, if I had any. It was one of the reasons I married you then.’ And it’s one of the reasons I’d marry you again tomorrow, she almost said—until she realised how ridiculous that would sound, given that there was a taxi waiting outside to carry her and her suitcase containing their divorce papers away from him for ever.

One of the reasons I married you then, Rion noticed. Before she’d realised that marriage and a family couldn’t make her happy. He felt a certain relief that it sounded as though she didn’t foresee any other man being able to change her mind. Yet the thought that she’d never have any children, his or not, made him infinitely sad. She’d make a wonderful mother.

‘You don’t have to explain. I know that married life could never make you happy.’ His voice grew self-critical. ‘It’s taken me too long, but I understand now that freedom and independence are the only things which can.’

She did a double-take, her heart beginning to pound in her ears. That was the reason why he thought she didn’t want his child?

‘Then you misunderstand, Rion.’ She shook her head, relieved that she had turned around on the doorstep to set the record straight. ‘Crazy, I know, but the only times in my life when I’ve felt truly free have been times when I was with you.’ Their wedding day. Making love here in the hallway. Inside that lift.

Rion took a step towards her, the tempo of his breathing beginning to accelerate. ‘Then why are you leaving?’

She dropped her eyes, tears hovering beneath their lids. ‘Because the only times I’ve ever felt that kind of freedom have been times when I stupidly thought it was possible that you might love me as much as I love you…the way I’ve loved you ever since I was fifteen years old—so much that when I’m not with you it feels like I’m only half alive.’

‘You think I don’t love you that way?’ Rion bit out, trying to stop his own tears from falling, almost unable to believe what he was hearing. But Libby wasn’t looking at his face. She was staring at the floor, stifling her own sobs.

‘I know you don’t. Maybe you had a passing attraction to me once, when I presented you with a challenge, but—’

Rion’s foot came into view, and she realised he’d taken another step forward and was now only inches away from her. He placed his forefinger under her chin, tilted her face upwards, and smoothed her hair away from her eyes before she had a chance to even try and hide behind it.

‘A passing attraction?’ he repeated in disbelief. ‘You think what I feel for you is a passing attraction? I can’t tell you how many times in the years since you left I’ve wished that was all it was—so I could just forget you, stop wishing you’d come back and move on.’ He shook his head. ‘I never could. Libby, I want you so much that when I’m with you I can barely control myself—so much that it makes me ashamed.’

‘Ashamed?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Why ashamed?’

‘Because you are my wife, and you do not deserve me taking my own pleasure like the boy from the streets that I am.’

Libby’s mouth fell open and her heart-rate rocketed. Good God, had what she assumed was uninterest in her in bed really been him thinking he was showing her respect? Was it possible that it could always be the way it had been when they’d made love here, in this hallway?