Page 22 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
Until he’d met Saskia, he had not believed in love. Until he’d touched her, he hadn’t understood how one person could connect to another like that.
He had grown up here, after all. In this circus, where everything was for show, nothing was ever as it appeared, and any sign of weakness was swiftly and ruthlessly punished.
Only with Saskia had he dared experiment with the notion that it was possible to feel, and deeply, and yet exhibit no weakness whatsoever—only strength.
But how could he explain this to this woman who lived in her body and wore her face, but was not Saskia, somehow? How could he convince her that the way she had decided to twist their relationship was not only wrong, but something like ruinous?
He couldn’t. And he almost wished he’d never seen her again, he thought then, even though he knew that wasn’t quite true.
What was true was that there was a part of him that would always regret, now, that she had so quickly and resolutely tarnished his memories of those two years they had shared.
Then again, perhaps the real loss was that he could no longer trust himself, or his own memories where those years were concerned.
“You have nothing to say, do you?” She made a face, as if she expected nothing else from him. But he remembered that it was this woman, not his memory, that had kissed him back like her life depended on it. It wasthisSaskia who had clung to him and rode his hand as if she had pulled it to her body herself.
That made him feel better.
To some degree.
Because it meant he wasn’t going mad. There was some solace in that.
“I understand that you can’t know,” he said, perhaps more to himself than to her. “That you can’t recall the things I can. That you feel you must make these things up.”
“What I feel,” she said, in that same edgy way, “is that I am marrying your father and it is just as well for the both of us that I can’t remember any Zacharias but him.”
Somehow—somehow—Thanasis did not reply to that the way he wished he could.
The way every atom within him demanded he should.
“My father is neither a good man nor kind man,” he told her, as coolly as he was able. “I understand that you think I’m insulting him when I say this, but I’m not. Do not take my word for it. Ask anyone. His only virtue is that he knows it. He knows exactly who he is and he delights in seeing how far people will go to cozy up to him no matter how repugnant his behavior.”
“I have seen no repugnant behavior,” she replied, her chin tipping up again.
“You will,” Thanasis assured her, his voice quiet. “I hope you do not, but you will.”
He made himself move, then. He went over to the briefcase he’d stashed beside the bench and pulled out a business card. “I can’t stand here and try to convince you that my memories are true, not when you’re so determined to think the worst of a relationship you can’t even remember. I won’t.”
“Convenient,” she murmured, but there was something about the way she was looking at him. Something that made his heart kick a little harder.
“Ask yourself this. Why did you take nothing with you if you were running away from me? Not even a wallet. If that train hadn’t derailed, you likely would have been tossed off at thenext stop because I don’t think you paid for your ticket.” Saskia frowned, but she didn’t argue. He kept going. “But none of that matters. What matters is that you are engaged to a man that everyone considers a monster, even the man himself. You should look into that. You should ask yourself what it is he plans to do with you, once you are his wife.”
“He plans to let me paint,” she told him, and he didn’t think he was imagining the note of defensiveness in her tone, then. “He’s given me an art studio where I will be free to do as I wish.”
“Will you?” Thanasis shook his head. “I hope for your sake you’re right.”
He handed her his card, but she didn’t take it. She stared at it as if it was a live snake. He felt his lips shift into some sort of curve, though it felt to him more like a grimace. He reached over and tucked the card beneath the strap of the bra he could see beneath her shirt. It sat there on her shoulder and he barely touched her as he did it.
But they both reacted as if he’d doused them in gasoline and then lit a match.
“Maybe,” she got out, hoarsely, “she left you because you thought she was an object you could treat as you liked.”
“She wasn’t leaving me,” he told her in the same voice, and even more intensely. “Someday, when you remember what actually happened that night, we will revisit it. But I’m not discussing it with you.”
“Because you know you can’t defend yourself.”
“Because I know what happened, and you don’t.” He reached over and tapped the card he’d slid beneath her strap. “In the meantime, keep that card. Everything on this island belongs to my father in one way or another. There may very well come a time when you might like to leave. And if he would prefer that you stay, you’ll need help.”
He remembered trying to leave himself, when he was a child. He also remembered the precious few times his mother had tried to do the same, and had been turned back to the villa by every last villager with a boat.
