And she hadn’t had to lift a finger. Everything had been arranged for her. Everything planned to be the end of a perfect day and the start of a perfect marriage.
Except, of course, it hadn’t worked out at all that way. That day had been the start of nothing and had brought the end of her ill-fated marriage before it had even really begun.
Except in one way…
Bitter tears burned at the backs of her eyes as she was forced to remember how Andreas had so ruthlessly made sure that their marriage could not be dissolved easily and swiftly.
‘There will be no annulment,’ he had declared coldly and harshly, making it plain that that was what had been at the back of his mind all the time. He hadn’t wanted her for himself any more, but he had made so sure that she could not be with anyone else for as long as he could keep her from it. ‘If you want your freedom, you will have to go through the full legal procedure.’
‘If I want my freedom!’ Rebecca had flung at him, blinded by pain and desperate to get out of there before she had broken down and let him see just what he had done to her. ‘If! I wouldn’t come back to you if you crawled over broken glass to come to me to beg for my return.’
He’d tossed aside her furious protest with an indifferent shrug of one powerful shoulder, a look of scorn on his beautiful face.
‘You’ll come crawling to me before I ever even think of you, if only because you need money for something. I’ll be willing to bet that you’ll come looking for cash before the year is up.’
‘Never…’ Rebecca had begun, desperate to stop him from thinking of her like this. ‘I’d rather die.’
He’d scorned that declaration too, swatting it away as if her fury were just a buzzing fly that had annoyed him.
‘You’ll be back—because you can’t help yourself. You’ll want to get your greedy, grasping hands on as much as you can before our marriage is finally over and done with.’
‘Kyria…’
The taxi driver was still hovering, trying to give her change, it seemed.
‘Oh, no…’
Rebecca waved him away, trying to find the strength to smile in spite of her memories.
‘Keep it. Keep the change.’
She might need him later, she told herself. Sooner, rather than later, if this interview didn’t go well. But certainly at some point soon, she would need a taxi to take her back down to the ferry and it was as well to keep this man friendly as it seemed that he ran the only firm on this island.
She barely heard his thanks or the roar of the car’s engine as it swung out into the road and set off down the hill again. Her gaze had gone back to the big, carved wooden door before her and her thoughts to the night, a year ago, when she had crept away from this place like a beaten dog, with her tail well and truly between her legs.
‘You’ll come crawling to me before I ever even think of you…’
The brutal words echoed again and again inside her mind, making her head ache, and her thoughts blur. She had come crawling to him in desperation, because only desperation could drive her to fulfil his prediction, make the callous words come true when she had vowed that it was the last thing on earth that she would ever want. And she was desperate.
But desperation wasn’t why she was here.
The terrible news about her baby niece had driven her to write that letter to Andreas, expecting only ever to receive the curtest of replies from him—if in fact he replied at all. She hoped for, prayed for a cheque that would help them out of the terrible fix they were in—a cheque that she had promised him that she would pay back if it was the last thing she did. But she had definitely not dared to hope for anything else.
Certainly she hadn’t dared to hope that he would actually see her, or speak to her. Let her put her case in person.
And of course he hadn’t.
The formal letter had come almost by return of post.
She was asked to meet with his lawyer. To state exactly why she needed the money and on what terms. And when he had the details then Mr Petrakos would consider her request.
She had been still reeling from the curt coldness of the single typewritten sheet when the telephone had rung.
‘Andreas…’
For the first time in almost twelve months Rebecca had let his name slip past her lips, whispering it aloud in the still, hot air, silent except for the buzz of insects amongst the flowers.
She hadn’t even been able to say it when she had heard the unknown, accented voice at the other end of the phone ask to speak to Mrs Petrakos. In fact it had taken the space of several stunned heartbeats to even remember that Mrs Petrakos was her own name. She had gone back to using her maiden name after the brutally abrupt end to her marriage and had tried in all ways possible to put the fact that she had ever been Rebecca Petrakos, however briefly, out of her mind for good.