He released her then and flung himself back in his seat. "You may leave now. Don't let me keep you from your packing."
Chapter 12
The house was silent as a tomb. Creeping up the stairs, Brianna let herself into her room and slumped onto the love seat. She wished she could cry. But she had nothing left inside. No tears, no hope and no heart. She and Dimitrios were finally over. Done. She'd heard the absolute contempt in his voice. Seen it in his face. Felt it in his touch.
Slowly, she pulled off his ring and placed it on the coffee table. She couldn't blame Cecily for this latest falling out. This time it was all her own fault. She'd been the one who lacked faith, and if she was as honest with herself as she'd told him he should have been with her, she'd admit she'd been second-guessing herself and him from the day she arrived. Now the only thing left for her to do was leave with dignity.
Or was it? Was anything ever really over as long as a person had life and the will to fight?
You're the only woman I've ever loved, he'd said, not in a moment of passion, but with anger fueling his words. Wasn't that reason enough not to give up on the best thing that had ever happened to her?
She had no answers, and knew only that if she wanted to find any, she had to put some distance between him and her. As long as his room was just across the hall from hers, it would be too easy to go to him. She knew what the outcome would be if she did: the same as it had always been with them. A matter of body over mind, of the driving hunger of the flesh silencing the saner voice of reason.
And they had made enough mistakes. There were only so many times that a man and a woman could keep trying to mend what was broken between them before all they had left were the tattered remains of what had once been beautiful but was now ruined past recognition.
Kicking off her satin dancing shoes, she stripped away her pretty gown and changed into a light cotton shift and sandals.
Opening her door, she saw a strip of light showing under his. Otherwise, the house lay in darkness. Quietly she stole along the upper landing, down the stairs and out into the sweet night air of early June. When she reached the gates, she turned left, away from Rafina, which lay to the north, and toward the village a few kilometers in the opposite direction.
Dimitrios ripped off his bow tie and yanked the top two studs of his dress shirt undone. Still he felt choked-on anger, on regret, on pride. Why couldn't she simply have come to him and asked him to explain, instead of automatically believing the worst of him? He thought they'd moved beyond that. Instead it seemed nothing he did would ever really redeem him in her eyes. At the first hint of trouble, he became again the man she believed had betrayed her before.
Well, to hell with her! He was tired of proving himself worthy of her love. Let her run back to her precious career. He'd lived without her once before; he could do so again. He had his daughter, his loyal household staff, perhaps his mother. And if he needed a willing body once in a while, there were women enough who'd be glad to warm his bed.
But would they be enough to make him forget her, or would it always be her face he saw in his mind's eye, her body he thought of as he lost himself in some stranger whose name he'd have forgotten by morning? How long before the day came that he didn't think of her, or miss her with an ache that never went away?
Never. She was in his blood, a fatal, magnificent disease. And the cure he'd spend the rest of his life seeking, if he let her slip through his fingers a second time.
He couldn't let it happen. If he had to get down on his knees and plead with her to stay, he'd do it, and pride be damned.
Stepping out of his room, he saw a strip of light showing under her door. No time like the present, he decided. Tomorrow might be too late. Crossing the hall, he tapped gently, and when he received no reply, he turned the knob and went in.
He knew then why she hadn't answered. The room was empty.
Although it was well after midnight, the village teemed with life. Music and light spilled from open windows into the warm Mediterranean night. Children played in the street, dogs barked, babies cried. Men and women, husbands and wives, laughed and loved and scolded, daring to wring every last drop of flavor from life because it was worth it and in the end, the good balanced out the bad.
The four-kilometer walk had cleared Brianna's mind and swept away the anger and confusion. Standing now, a solitary spectator on the fringe of the scene, she knew that this was what she wanted. Not perfection. Not a trouble-free future with no dark clouds. She wanted the security of knowing she could be angry sometimes; of loving deeply enough to forgive; of trusting enough to believe what she and Dimitrios shared was strong enough to survive, not because they'd ironed out all their differences, but despite the fact that they didn't always see eye to eye.
She wanted all the rich flavors, all the subtle textures that made up a marriage. The sweet and the not-so-sweet. The rough and the smooth. She wanted him because without him, she was nothing. She needed him because she loved him. And there in that dusty road, surrounded by strangers, she at last realized what she had to do to keep him. She had to risk it all to have him.
She'd turned to go back the way she'd come, when the screech of brakes split the night. Parents scooped their children out of the path of impending danger and retreated to the safety of their doorways. But the speeding car had stopped at the far end of the road and a tall, familiar figure was climbing out.
A wonderful lightness filled her then, and slowly she started toward him. Then suddenly she was running and so was he, and they met in a breathless meshing of arms and mouths, and she was crying helplessly, and he was telling her he was sorry, that it was all his fault and he should have explained about Poppy sooner and he was nothing but a big, arrogant Greek fool with too much pride and not enough brains, and if she ever took off like that again without telling him where she was going, he'd put her over his knee.
Eventually the tumult passed and they drew apart. He took a deep breath and so did she. "Let's go home," he said, surely the sweetest words in the world.
"Yes," she said. "Please."
The next second he was carrying her to the car, while everyone in the village clapped and whistled, and the bouzouki music started up again, loud and exuberant.
"I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, holding her so tight she could hardly breathe. "When I saw you'd gone … Brianna, I once told you I don't beg, but I'm begging now. Don't leave me. Don't give up on us."
She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I won't," she told him, smiling through her tears. "Never again. I was coming back to tell you so, but then you were here and … "
"And I'm never letting you out of my sight again. If you want Poppy, you have to take me, as well. We're a package deal."
"And a bargain at half the price. I know that now."
They sat on the love seat in her room, and the first thing he did was slide the ring back on her finger. "Just to let the rest of the world know you're taken," he said, settling back with his arm around her.
After that, they talked far into the small hours of the night, hours longer than they'd ever done before. About how, after they'd made love by the pool after the garden party, he'd almost told her about Poppy not being his biological child, and how later, he was glad he'd kept quiet because he'd tarnished Cecily's memory enough and he wanted to leave Brianna with some of her illusions intact. About Poppy and what she faced in the coming months. About finally closing the door on the past. About how much they'd both always craved marriage and children and family. And most important of all, about priorities.
"I agree," he admitted, when she said the wedding should be put on hold. "As long as we're together, it can wait until everything else is sorted out. Assuming the transplant does go ahead without any complications, Poppy's facing a lengthy recuperation."
"There's also the small matter of you and your father getting past your differences and reaching some sort of truce. This ridiculous feud has gone on long enough, and you have to know how hard it is on your mother. Even though you and she have reconciled, she's still caught in the middle. Put an end to it, Dimitrios, for everyone's sake. You made your point. He got the message. Can't you please leave it at that and just sit down with him, man to man, and try to heal the wounds?"