Page 40 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
No matter what it took.
Because he did not intend to lose her again. He could not bear it.
CHAPTER NINE
London was coldand gray and as far Saskia could tell, completely missing the magic of Manhattan.
It had been painful to climb back onto the plane. To face the reminder she hadn’t wanted that there was a reality to return to. That all these fingers intertwined and hands held weren’t who they were.
That he still believed she couldn’t remember him.
Saskia still couldn’t seem to make herself tell him otherwise, and she tried. She kept trying. But she couldn’t seem to make those words come out of her mouth.
She sat in the belly of the plane with him, pretending not to watch him as he rolled calls and answered emails, in that same resolutely competent fashion he did everything. This wasn’t anything new to her. He had always worked, constantly, in all the time she’d known him. She had been the one with the schedule that was flexible, and she’d been only too happy to fit herself in around his.
Because it had seemed like whattheyhad to do,together,to make sure they spent the most time together.
She had studied on this plane. She had painted and sketched on this plane. She had flown with him to far-off places and never exited the plane at all, waiting for him to finish his meetings and come meet her back here to fly some more.
Saskia was tired of these memories. She was tired of nostalgia. She was tired of second-guessing everything she said and everything she felt because she was still trying to pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
When the truth was, she had taken great pride, back in the day, of always being entirely herself. Because she had never had the option to be anyone else. She had neverwantedto be anyone else.
But then she had met Thanasis, and she had wanted so badly to behis.
And she realized then—as they sat in the back of another town car, driving through the listless, damp London streets—that the only reason she was still concealing the fact that she had her memory back was because, on some level, she wanted to hurt him.
Because he had hurt her, all those years ago.
She had been so deeply in love. And she would have sworn that he was, too—she’d been certain he was—but he’d never said it.
He’d neversaidhe loved her. He’d never said those words.
Oh, he’d said a million other things, and often, but never that.
Saskia had let it fester inside of her, like a wound.
Until she’d come to the unpleasant conclusion that, in the end, their entire relationship could be looked at in two completely different ways at the same time. There was the story that they’d met and fallen for each other at first sight and had arranged their lives around that ever after, and she loved that story.
But there was also another way to look at it.
That Thanasis had seen her, claimed her, and then tucked her away where she could cause him no trouble at all. That he’d kept her meek, and a secret, so that he wouldn’t ever feelembarrassed by the fact that he’d fallen for a no-name orphan girl he’d met more or less on the streets.
She’d veered back and forth between those two stories all the time, in those years, depending on howkepta woman she felt she was at any given time. And eventually, the bad one had got its teeth in her.
And now, all these years later, she really couldn’t understand how she’d let that happen.
They’d walked through the streets of a foreign city and she’d felt that sheer, sweet joy in her chest, bubbling up like glory.
They had talked of nothing in particular and anything that occurred to them as they moved, and she’d forgotten that part. The way it felt to have his arm slung over her shoulders. The way it felt to move through the world with this man, constantly aware of him, and fascinated by him, and always attuned to his every movement, because that was how much she’d entangled herself with him.
She never knew what he might say next. She prized his smiles, and his rare laughter. And she didn’t believe that she would have been able to throw herself so completely into him if he didn’t feel the same way.
She’d seen the evidence in New York, hadn’t she?
There had been the way he’d danced with her, there in the crush of a crowded rooftop ballroom. Around and around he’d spun her, but she had been close enough to see the intensity in his gaze. As if he would throw himself down and allow everyone in the ballroom to stomp all over him rather than let go of her for even a moment.
Then there had been the way he’d led her through the crowd, that possessive grip on the back of her neck or on her bicep, guiding her so easily that she didn’t need to do anything but trust him.
