AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If ever there was a man who needed love in his life, it was Atticus Kalathes. And while he might not accept it, she wasn’t going to deny loving him. And she wasn’t going to stop. She would just have to love him in other ways, from afar, and it would have to be from afar. While she might love him, she wasn’t going to compromise on what she needed, not this time.
He was in agony, she could see that, but she couldn’t deny what was in her own heart. It was dishonest. She couldn’t bring her children into a world with a father who thought love was destructive, who didn’t want anything to do with it. She couldn’t create a family without it. She remembered her own family, those bright moments of joy that she kept close to her heart, and in every single one of them was evidence of love. Evidence of the caring they’d had for each other.
She wanted that again. She wanted it desperately. She’d tried to have it on Kalifos with Aristeidis, but it had been so one-sided. She, giving everything to Aristeidis, while he had been so caught up in his own grief he hadn’t noticed.
She couldn’t do that with Atticus, not again.
Perhaps it was cutting off her nose to spite her face, but if that was the case then so be it. She couldn’t build a life and a family with a man who didn’t love her. She wouldn’t.
Tears dripped slowly down her face as she doggedly finished packing and then got dressed in simple jeans and a T-shirt. The clothing felt rough and uncomfortable after the days of having nothing on her bare skin but sun, yet she ignored the discomfort just as she ignored everything else.
Once she was packed, she debated trying to find Atticus to tell him where she’d gone, and then decided not to. He’d deliberately taken himself away from her and there wasn’t any benefit to going after him. He’d see the helicopter when it landed and know she was leaving anyway.
Her heart aching, Elena picked up her bag and walked out of the house to the jetty to wait.
Atticus watched her from the other end of the beach, a small figure sitting hunched over on the jetty, her hair blowing around like a golden flag in the breeze that came off the sea.
Every part of him was in agony. He’d tried very hard to detach himself, running hard along the beach, hoping physical exercise would help him find that space where he could be free of the pain. Where his focus would subsume everything, the past lost in the moment of the present.
But he couldn’t lose himself. All he could see was Elena’s pale face and the fierce light in her eyes. All he could hear was her voice telling him how much she needed him.
How can you let her leave?
He had to, that was the issue. He couldn’t insist she stay. She wanted something from him that he didn’t want to give, and it was too much. He couldn’t ask her not to love him and he couldn’t keep on insisting on a marriage that wouldn’t give her what she needed.
He wasn’t that man.
If she wanted to leave, he had to let her go.
If you let go of her, you let go of hope.
He sat on the rocks, ignoring the sting of rough granite against his bare flesh, watching her. He’d called her his hope, but she’d wanted to be more than just an ideal, more than a talisman, and she was.
Over the past couple of weeks she’d become so much more. Warmth and comfort and a source of strength. Understanding and sympathy. And laughter. Joy. So many things he’d never thought he’d find again until she came into his life. All the things that were intrinsic to her, and weren’t merely a representation in platinum. A child reaching up their arms.
She wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman, with thoughts and feelings and dreams of her own, and she had to be free to live them. He couldn’t keep hold of her just because of what she’d once represented to him.
If she’s more than that to you, why are you giving her up?
He shook his head, trying to get rid of the voice inside him. But it wouldn’t go away. He had to give her up. He couldn’t, wouldn’t have anything to do with love again.
If you give her up, you also give up all the good things that came with it. The joy, the happiness, the comfort, the strength...
His jaw was tight, his shoulders tighter. He tore his gaze from the jetty where she sat, hoping if he didn’t see her, he wouldn’t remember his arms around her, her laugh in his ears, the smiles she gave him. The peace in his heart when she was in his arms. The comfort of her touch...
‘Do you have good memories of Dorian?’ she’d asked.
And he had remembered. So many good things that had been lost under his grief and his pain.
Love is pain, but it’s also all those other things too. Comfort and joy and happiness. Love is charity too.
Atticus shut his eyes. His charity was a business and he ran it as such. He’d wanted to give people hope.
Where do you think hope comes from?
A strange feeling coiled inside him, a powerful intensity that he didn’t understand. Hope came from...well, it came from a little girl in the rubble. It came from finding a moment of brightness in the midst of the darkness. It came from...
It comes from love.
