Angry now, she turned to face him. He looked terrible. “It’s been a good couple of weeks since you dismissed me from your presence, Mr. Lazarides, so why the sudden concern?”
He looked at her without speaking for a moment, his face oddly haggard, a dark shadow about his jaw as though he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning.
“I’ve only just found out that you aren’t where you were supposed to be,” he muttered.
“As I thought,” she responded sourly. “I was clearly at the forefront of your mind.”
“My father died, Kizzy.”
She blanched at that news, wishing she could call back her too-hasty words.
“The phone call from the nursing home came almost immediately after you left,” he said, looking away from her. His face was grim. “They said he didn’t have long, so I had to fly straight to Athens. I only just made it. We had a few hours together before he died.”
“Oh no,” Kizzy whispered and without thinking cupped his rough jaw in her palm. She closed her eyes briefly as he turned his head to kiss her wrist.
“He was lucid at the end and we made our peace,” he said quietly. “He apologized for being so hard on me as a child—he’d wanted me to grow up a strong man, not a drunken loser who sponged off his wife like he did. He regretted so much, just hadn’t been able to swallow his pride and admit it. He was smaller than I remember—frail and helpless.”
He took Kizzy’s hand and threaded their fingers softly together.
“Dad told me about my mother too, about her secrets. She wasn’t as pure as she’d led everyone to believe.” He looked down at Kizzy’s feet, shod with cheap, simple sandals. “She had affairs, lots of them, but there was one man in particular. He was an artist. Dead now but—but most probably my natural father.”
Kizzy’s mouth fell open. “You had no idea?”
He shook his head and his voice cracked “And Mum never told me she was ill either—cancer. I always assumed she’d died of a broken heart when she lost my sister, that her death was my fault as well.”
Kizzy nodded as a fat tear coursed down her cheek, unable to speak a word of comfort. Nothing seemed sufficient at that moment.
“The funeral took place straightaway. That was what my father had wanted. Quiet, discreet. I wanted to rush back to you, but there were things I had to do first. I had to build my case before asking, begging you to come back to me.” His face contorted. “It’s not much of an excuse, but from the day I returned until this morning I’ve been in the tower trying to sort my life out.”
“All that time? Then it’s no wonder you look such a mess.” Her face crumpled as she touched the dark, rough stubble on his jaw. “Have you finished it? The painting, your punishment?”
“Yes.”
“Is it beautiful?”
“It was. Briefly. Until I set fire to it once and for all.”
“You burned it? All those months of work?”
He stroked the top of her brow. “Don’t look so shocked. I burned it and started something new. Something I’d like you to see.”
“You can’t mean that, Andreas,” Kizzy murmured, not daring to believe that even after such dramatic events, there could be a grain of hope for them. “I can’t go back to your house, not after everything that’s happened and was said. It’s over between us, you made that quite clear.”
“I was an angry, bitter, egotistical mess. I didn’t know what I was saying. It was the only way I could get you to leave before I showed myself up by breaking down. I lost control, don’t you see? You’d taken me to the point where I felt totally exposed and I couldn’t cope with it. It was wrong, I was wrong, and I realized that very quickly after you’d left.”
He reached out to brush her mouth with his thumb, but she moved her chin away, her deep blue eyes questioning and wary.
“You hurt me badly, Andreas. I’d been hoping you’d feel more for me than that, but—”
“So why didn’t you stick up for yourself, Kizzy? It wasn’t like you to just do exactly as I said and walk away—it completely threw me.”
“There didn’t seem much point in fighting,” she replied quietly. “You clearly couldn’t stand the sight of me and…and…I always knew in my heart that I could never force you to care for me. However much I wanted you to.”
She twisted her feet awkwardly in the dry soil; she had frightened herself by almost using the word love.
“It was always going to be safer for me to be independent anyway.” Her voice was brittle, steeling herself for the inevitable good-bye. “Safer and tidier to make my own way, and not rely on anyone but myself.”
“I want you to listen to me now, Kizzy,” Andreas said seriously. “And I want you to think very carefully before you say anything. Agreed?”
Kizzy nodded, her heart thundering with the bewildered pain of not knowing what was going to happen next.
“I spent a long time alone in that tower. It was so painful going over everything in my head that sometimes I would just say it all out loud, like a madman, to face up to what I had done and what I needed to do to. But I soon realized, once I’d swallowed my pride and arrogance, that there’s a gaping hole in my life without you. A chasm that no end of painting or successful court cases can ever breach.”
Kizzy pulled the water canister away from him and attempted to straighten the buckled lid as the water heaved about inside.
“This is such a mess, isn’t it?”
Andreas gently took her chin between his fingers and forced her to look him in the eye. “What’s the point in me trying to make life better for others when my own life is in tatters?” He saw tears brimming at the edge of her lashes. “I suddenly saw that, in time, without you, I would end up wandering the world, spending endless days in courtrooms and conferences and my nights in miserable, lonely hotel rooms. I would never stop wondering where you were, who you were with, what our baby looked like.”
“There would never be another man, you must know that,” Kizzy exclaimed.
A look of agony crossed his face. “I can’t lose you, Kizzy. I never want to let you go again. This time away from you has been more painful than any bereavement. You were right when you said my sister’s death wasn’t my fault, but sending you away, hurting you—well, that was my fault. Everything went so dark, and I apologize for that, for my actions, my words.”