AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d known that, and it hadn’t mattered. She’d valued feeling wanted above anything else.
But he hadn’t really wanted her. Not enough. He’d betrayed her before they’d even said their vows—he hadn’t deserved the trust she’d placed in him.
And Leonidas?
Hannah stepped away from the window, padding back to the bed, sitting down on the end of it and looking at her feet. She’d painted her toenails pale pink the day before, thinking how nice they’d look through the strappy sandals she planned to wear for her wedding.
Leonidas didn’t want her. If she hadn’t been pregnant, they’d never have seen each other again. The thought made her gasp into the bedroom and she held a hand over her stomach, because that very idea seemed impossible to contemplate.
Hannah could no longer disentangle her life from Leonidas’s.
They were like roots from neighbouring trees, intertwined and interconnected, dependent on staying where they were for life.
But what if he didn’t—wouldn’t—couldn’t love her?
She’d decided the night before that she would simply wait. Wait for him to realise what they were, what they shared. But could she really do that?
Hannah pushed up from the bed, knowing in her heart what she’d known even over dinner on the terrace.
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t do this if he didn’t know how she felt. She had to be honest with him. She had to...she had to tell him.
And words she’d bit back the night before refused to be silenced now, so she closed the distance between their rooms quickly and pushed the door inwards without knocking, too distracted to wonder how she might find him, her thoughts churning through her.
He was standing with his back to her when she entered, wearing only a pair of grey boxer shorts, his body momentarily robbing her of the ability to think straight. He held a square piece of plastic paper in his hands and, at the intrusion, moved quickly to place it down on the windowsill behind him.
‘Hannah.’ He was surprised; then worried as he saw the pinched expression on her features. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No. Yes.’ She shut the door behind her, moving deeper into his room, looking at this man and feeling as though everything and nothing made any kind of sense.
‘What is it?’ He stood perfectly still, staring at her as though he barely recognised her.
‘I...need to talk to you.’
His expression didn’t shift. ‘Okay.’
She nodded, wringing her hands in front of her body, knowing what she needed to say but not exactly sure how to express it.
‘I’ve done something stupid,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘What is it?’ He was quiet, patient, but there was something lurking just beneath his exterior. A darkness that she felt but couldn’t navigate.
She expelled an uneven breath and padded across the carpet of his room until she was right in front of him. He stiffened a little.
‘Leonidas, the night we met...’ She tapered off into nothing, looking at him with eyes that were huge and awash with emotions.
‘Yes?’
‘It came out of nowhere. I’ve never done anything like that in my life but I know that there’s no way that wouldn’t have happened between us. From the moment we literally bumped into each other, I felt this...magnetic pull to you. I know that sounds...ridiculous. But I looked at you and felt like I couldn’t not go to your room with you. And, once I was with you, like I couldn’t not be with you. I feel like, from the moment we met, there’s been something bigger pushing us together.’
He was quiet, but she didn’t let that discourage her. She’d expected this. She’d known he wouldn’t necessarily welcome this confession.
‘And then you disappeared and you were angry and I told myself it was for the best. That I was messed up after Angus and so none of this was making sense and I’d made a mistake with you.’
He didn’t say it was a mistake, and she was so glad for that, because it would unstitch a part of her soul in a way she’d never recover from to hear those words now.
‘But it wasn’t a mistake. I never really believed that.’ She shook her head slowly, an unconscious smile on her lips. ‘I went to London but a part of me stayed on Chrysá Vráchia with you. A part of me stayed with you from that night, and I took some of you with me. I didn’t stop thinking about you, Leonidas.’
