What The Greek's Wife Needs - Dani Collins Page 0,60

of clutter or the profound absence. He found excuse after excuse to leave town, but only felt emptier and emptier as time wore on.

Tanja, damn her, had sent one text to say they’d landed safely and nothing else.

He hadn’t reached out, either. They were back to the stalemate of their first five years of marriage.

Until she ended that, too.

When Georgiou sent him the notice that she’d finalized the papers and taken Leon’s ten-million-euro settlement, Leon was knocked onto his ass. He sat down to get drunk and couldn’t even do that. He just sat there with his bottle of ouzo on the coffee table, staring at the spot on the carpet where Illi had spit up and left a stain.

He should only feel satisfaction that she had taken the money. He wanted to provide for her and Illi, and some integral part of him was pleased he was able to do that much for them, but he genuinely hadn’t expected her to take his money.

Even though she had told him she wouldn’t wait for him, he hadn’t expected her to end it. That was the stark truth. She had said she loved him, and some distant part of him had known in those seconds that he loved her, too. That the emotional connection between them would never die. It couldn’t.

He had also known he didn’t deserve her. He was the one who’d been in the impossible position. If he gave in to longing and let their marriage go on, he would only be proving what a selfish self-serving ass he really was—exactly like his father.

Letting her go had been the only way to prove he was worthy of the love she’d offered him.

But she had gone through with the divorce. Why? To be free of him, as she’d once told him she wanted to be? Had her love died that quickly?

Unable to bear his own brooding, he abruptly had the helicopter take him to the island where he’d spent his earliest years. This was his mother’s domain, where his father had mostly left her alone.

Leon’s first thought on landing was to wonder what Tanja would think of it. Why hadn’t he brought her here? It was pretty and quiet and might have quelled some of her homesickness, given its seaside location. The beach was beautiful. Once Illi was walking, they could have enjoyed it to no end.

If they’d been a family.

They weren’t in his life anymore. It was such a punch in the chest each time he faced it that he could hardly stay on his feet. Illi wouldn’t smile at him like he was a white night rescuing her from a tower when he walked in to collect her from her crib. Tanja wouldn’t set him aflame with a sexy glance or make him laugh out of the blue or settle against him on the sofa and just make everything in his world...right.

“Leon.” His mother gave him a frown that might have indicated concern if they were the type to express that sort of thing toward one another. “How was London?”

“Hmm? Oh. I don’t know.” He supposed that’s where he’d been. It was all such a blur. “Cornelius here?” he asked politely.

“He’s staking the tomatoes. You walked right by him, said hello and asked what kind they were. What’s wrong?” Her dark brows drew together.

“Nothing,” he insisted, trying to convince himself it was true. “Tanja and I are officially divorced. I thought I should tell you.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

That took him aback. “How do you know?” Was it on the gossip sites already? How humiliating.

“We video chat.” His mother clasped her hands and pressed her lips into a self-conscious line. “Tanja said she wasn’t certain you would tell me and thought I should know.”

Leon swore and flung himself to face the window, then veered out the doors to the terrace, uncomfortable with his mother seeing how tortured he was by all of this. He braced his fists on the stone balustrade and stared at the green-blue sea, but he couldn’t have picked out if there were boats upon it or giant squids. His entire body was aching. Writhing in agony.

“Are you angry I’ve kept contact with her?” his mother asked warily as she came to stand beside him. “It seemed rude to ignore her.”

He choked at that, thinking his ignoring Tanja for five years was a lot worse than rude. It had been self-destructive madness.

Something in her hesitant tone plucked at an old, tight line of hurt inside