Page 25 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
But he hadn’t seemedangry, she reminded herself. Was that what she’d expected? For him to shout or threaten her?
And if she really had worried about that, why had she gone at him the way she had? Systematically dismantling a memory that was clearly precious to him…
“But I’m right,” she told herself, every time she ended up in this particular circle of thought.
And as she was usually alone when that happened, she was the only one around to notice that she sounded weaker each time she said it.
Pavlos, on the other hand, was becoming more and more jovial. And perhaps more comfortable with Selwen, she supposed. There were no more respectful, careful walks amongst the olive trees. When she tried to tell him about her art, he would wave a hand. Dismissing her.
She told herself he was simply a very busy man, what with his work and his commitment to so much socializing.
“I have news for you, girl,” he said one night, jolting her back from wherever her thoughts had taken her…off to a dark-eyed man who was far too beautiful and who only resembled his fathera little.“There has been enough lolling about. There is a gala in Athens this weekend. I will take great pleasure in showing you off. It’s about time.”
Pavlos had gathered his faithful in one of his favorite solariums, and the music was loud. The laughter was piercing.
Selwen was certain she had misheard him. “I’m not going to any gala.”
And maybe it was because Thanasis had planted all those stories in her head. Maybe it was the way all of Pavlos’s minions always looked at her, always studying her, as if waiting for her to crack into pieces they could kick away with their well-shod feet.
Whatever it was, she saw it when it happened.
When this man who she had decided would keep her safe looked at her so coldly she felt as if she was suddenly back in the dark depths of a long Welsh winter.
“I beg your pardon?” His voice was mild enough. But it was the way he said it. It was the way he looked at her while he said it.
Like he hated her.
Selwen told herself she was being dramatic, even though she had never been anything of the sort before. She tried to make him understand.
“We agreed,” she reminded him. “I am not built for public things.” Though even as she said that, she wondered. Was that true? Or was that what she’d held onto from her life as a secret mistress? She swallowed and kept going. “A gala sounds very public, doesn’t it?”
They had been officially engaged for weeks now. It had been the better part of a month, in fact, though she was certainly not counting days from Thanasis’s departure becausethatwould make no sense at all.
And yet something in her jumped—and not at all in the way it had on that dark beach that she absolutely did not spend any time thinking about—when Pavlos reached over and touched her face.
Everything in her seemed to screw itself tight, as if she wanted to armor herself against him.
You’re being ridiculous,she told herself.This man has never been anything but kind.
“You will change your mind, of course,” he told her, and there was something in the way his dark eyes moved over her that made her bite her tongue. Made her certain not to laugh the way she wanted to, because she could tell that it would not be received well. “I am Pavlos Zacharias. My wife will be on my arm when I wish it.”
Something she hardly recognized inside of her seemed to rise, them. Selwen found herself smiling. She wanted to bat his fingers away from her face, but, instead, she made herself reach out and touch his arm.
“That settles it then,” she said, channeling the light and air and sunshine of this place by day. Hoping it emanated from her. “I’m not your wife just yet, am I?”
For a moment, though she was aware that there was that music and all the usual laughter, it seemed very quiet, there between them. Intense, and not in the way it had been with Thanasis. That had seemed to come as much from inside her as from him. This was something completely different.
This was not an ache, but a weight.
Until, finally, Pavlos cracked a smile. Selwen felt something in her seem to release, too. “Not yet,” he said, and though he was smiling, his gaze was still cold. “Not yet, my girl.”
And when she slipped away from the party a little bit later, she stepped out into the cool night air, and felt how flushed her cheeks were. How hard her blood seemed to be pumping inside her body. How cold she felt, everywhere else, as if Pavlos had threatened her.
Why did it feel as if he had threatened her? Of course he hadn’t.
But though she knew exactly where the card was that Thanasis had left her, that she hadn’t thrown away, she didn’t go to it. She didn’t so much as pick it up.
She told herself that Pavlos was drunk, the way he often was. She’d imagined that they would have a perfectly civilized marriage where he would tend to his pursuits, she would handle hers, and they would meet when it suited the both of them for some kind of communal event. She had rather thought it would involve a nice walk. Perhaps a swim.
