Page 47 of Forgotten Greek Proposal
Thanasis watched the boat containing the woman he loved disappear on the horizon.
The world swayed beneath his feet and he had to squeeze his eyes shut to ground himself.
Heading in the other direction, sailing towards him, the first of the many yachts sailing to Sephone for the wedding of the century.
He rubbed at his raw, gritty eyes.
So much to do. A wedding to cancel. All the people who needed to be notified. The press, who needed to be managed.
He didn’t have the heart or energy to do any of it.
It no longer mattered what he lost. He’d already lost the only thing that mattered.
This time, there would be no reprieve. No third chance.
Lucie was gone for ever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE KINDNESS OFstrangers was something Lucie would never take for granted again. After docking in Kos, the captain of the supply boat, who must have thought she was some kind of castaway who’d ended up on Sephone by accident, had given her his phone and been happy for her to search the business number for Kelly Holden Design and then make a call to England. Four hours later, she had the last available ticket for a flight to London.
Her father, stepmother and half-sisters, all laden with luggage, all failed to spot her when she passed them outside the airport.
* * *
The package that had been couriered was nondescript. Just the ordinary white plastic packaging of a particular courier service. The only thing out of the ordinary was that the sender had known to send it to Kelly’s house. No one other than Kelly and her husband knew Lucie had taken refuge with them. If the press found out, they would descend on the Holden home like bees around a honeypot but with a much nastier sting.
They’d been stalking Thanasis for five days. She wished she didn’t know this but Kelly had loaned her a spare laptop and, like the masochist she was, Lucie couldn’t stop herself stalking his name.
He deserved everything he had coming to him, she told herself with regularly needed fortitude as she read article after article detailing the mysterious circumstances of the bride’s disappearance from Sephone, and article after article about the future of Antoniadis Shipping and the severe peril it had been plunged into.
Thanasis’s refusal to discuss the cancelled wedding only added fuel to a fire keeping the Internet alive with gossip and rumour. The few paparazzi shots of him showed a dishevelled man who’d stopped sleeping. Well, he wasn’t going to get any sympathy from her, not when she held him responsible for the purple hollows that had appeared beneath her own eyes.
Tsaliki Shipping wasn’t faring much better in the publicity stakes, and now there were rumours circulating that the missing bride had been forced by her evil stepfamily into marrying their enemy, and that she’d run away to escape her fate and was refusing to return to the Tsaliki family bosom. Her mum, Lucie thought, played the part of distressed mother quite well but she really needed to get some stronger onions to provoke better tears. As for Athena…
Athena’s actions had broken her heart, more so even than her mother’s had. Her mother had always been selfish and single-minded, but Athena’s cruelty cut deep.
Had she always resented her? Had her sporadic mood swings and bitchiness been symptoms of something that ran deeper than Lucie had known?
It was unlikely she’d ever know. She never wanted to see any of the Tsalikis again. None of them loved her. That was the truth. You didn’t treat someone the way they’d collectively conspired to treat her if you loved them. Lucie was expendable to them. She was expendable to everyone.
The package was still in her hands.
Some kind of sixth sense told Lucie what it contained and who’d sent it: the person whose very name it destroyed her to think of. And it was because of this sixth sense that she held off opening it until night fell and she was alone in the guest room with her ninth cup of tea of the day. It was the only form of sustenance her belly could cope with. Coffee turned her stomach. All foods tightened it into a ball.
At least she wasn’t pregnant. She supposed that should be considered a mercy. Certainly not something to feel wretched about. Hadn’t even been something she’d given two thoughts about until her period had started that morning.
Why hadn’t Thanasis used protection? It was the first time she’d dared ask herself that question. She knew why she hadn’t—because she’d believed herself in love with him. Love, marriage and babies.
None of these were things she would ever have now. To love, you had to trust and she would never trust again. When she was back on her feet—Kelly had given Lucie her old job back without having to be ambushed into it—she would rent herself a small place and get herself a cat. At least cats never pretended to be anything other than what they were. Yes. A cat. Maybe a new cat each year, create a collection of them, and then when she was an old lady and her hair all wild and grey, she would morph into the local cat lady and let that be her legacy.
She couldn’t put it off any longer. Lucie ripped into the packaging. Inside was a box as nondescript as the packaging. Wrapped around the box was an envelope with her name on it written in a penmanship she didn’t recognise but which still made her tremble.
She closed her eyes.
Box or envelope first?
Box.
