Page 59 of Vows of Revenge

‘Our time in the Highlands was the most precious time in my life. I felt a happiness I had never known before, being with you. We were good together—so very, very good. And I knew it was the same for you. I knew then that I did not want to be without you. I wanted our time together to go on, back here in Greece, just as I told you. But then—’

He broke off. Shut his eyes again for a moment, unable to bear seeing her looking at him. But he must bear it—must bear what he now had to say.

‘I had to deal with what I had set up when I first came here. The plan to...to use you for my own ends. If...if there had been more time I’d have wanted us simply to be seen in Athens as a couple. The news would soon have reached Cosmo and your father. But there wasn’t time for that. So I... I decided I just wanted it over and done with—the whole damn thing. I wanted to force the issue...have Cosmo and your father presented with us together and that would end it. I just didn’t realise...’

He stopped again.

‘It horrified me,’ he said at last. ‘Appalled me. What your father said to you.’ His voice dropped. ‘And it appalled me that I had exposed you to it—to that vile diatribe from your father...saying such things to you.’

He swallowed. There was a razor in his throat, but he swallowed anyway. He had no choice but to do so. He was telling her the truth about the truth.

‘But I exposed myself as well. Exposed myself to your father’s accusation of me. That I had used you.’ He stopped again, then went on, making himself speak. His voice was low and drawn. ‘I hadn’t wanted you ever to know...to know that I had come here deliberately, wanting to use you. Oh, I’d told myself at the start, when I dreamt up the idea, that it would do you no harm, my taking an interest in you. That if you did not want to get involved with me then that would be that. And if you did, you would likely enjoy your time with me because—well, why not? I even told myself that since you couldn’t possiblywantCosmo Palandrou foisted on you—what woman would?—you might appreciate the impact of our affair yourself. I told myself all that...’

He took another breath, ragged and razored.

‘But when I realised that I wanted you for yourself, not for any other reason...then I didn’t know what to do. I felt an impulse to come clean—to tell you why I had originally sought you out. But then I hesitated. It was too risky. It was safer not to tell you. I thought you need never know, because by then it did not matter. I wanted you for yourself, for real, and what we had together was so very precious to me, becoming more precious still with every day that passed. So why tell you anything about my original intentions?’

He stopped, his eyes veiled.

‘But there was another reason I did not want to tell you—a reason I did not want to face. But in Spain you made me face it.’

He looked away, out over the serried trenches to the olive trees beyond. When his eyes came back to her they were bleak.

‘In Spain, you told me I was exactly like your father—using other people for my own ends, as I had used you. And it shamed me—I deserved it to shame me.’

His eyes were bleaker still. Bleak as a polar waste where no warmth could ever come. His voice was just as bleak.

‘But I am paying the price now, Kassia. Believe me, if you believe nothing else, Iampaying the price. It’s a price I deserve to pay for what I did. And it is a price I would not wish on anyone. I have lost you, and I cannot bear it. Except I know I must.’

I must bear this unbearable loss because I made it happen myself. And nothing can undo it—nothing.

Emotion speared him, right in his guts, twisting viciously. He had to bear that too...

He turned away. There was no point being here any longer. He had to go and live without her, all his days.

A hand touched his arm. Kassia’s hand. And then there was Kassia’s voice, speaking low and faint.

‘Don’t go,’ she said. Her voice was almost inaudible. ‘Don’t go,’ she said again. ‘Don’t leave me.’

His face stilled. His breath stilled. The world stilled.

He looked round at her. She wasn’t looking at him. Her head was bowed, shoulders hunched.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she said again. A husk...a whisper. ‘I can’t bear for you to leave me. I don’t want to lose you. I lost you before, and I can’t bear to lose you again. Not now...’

He heard her words but he did not believe them—dared not believe them. Dared not. And yet...

Slowly, he turned. The touch of her hand on his sleeve was so faint it was scarcely there at all. But he felt it tremble, as if it might fall from him at any moment.

She lifted her head now. What was in her eyes, he did not know. And yet he must speak. His heart seemed to be filling his chest.

‘Don’t say that,’ he breathed, ‘if you do not mean it.’

She shook her head. Slowly. As if she were moving it against the weight of the world. Against the weight of what he had done to her.

A rasp sounded in his throat, torn from his stricken lungs.

There was urgency in his words. ‘Kassia, if you will have me after all I’ve done to you, what I would give all the world to undo, I would beg your forgiveness—but how can you forgive me?’

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