Page 79 of A Diamond Deal
The pain, it wasn’t imaginary. It was real. As real as the grave in front him. As real as…
Tentacles choked him from the inside. Wrapped around his throat and squeezed.
Or was that…?
He looked down. Her hand, it was holding his. Her fingers had slipped between his, entwined themselves around his. And she was…squeezing.
He raised his head. Looked into her blue eyes. She looked…thoughtful.
‘We need to talk,’ she said softly.
‘Why?’
‘The last two weeks… They’ve been good. So very good. But there is so much we haven’t spoken about. ThingsIneed to talk about, because it feels so heavy not to. I know last time was…hard.’
‘Poppy,’ he warned. He didn’t need to do this.Not here.When the memory was all too real. An imprinted image in his head of her falling to her knees, carrying her to bed, and leaving her to sleep.
‘I didn’t get a chance to apologise to my mum.’ She looked down at the hand she held. She placed her other on his. Trapped his between her much smaller ones. ‘I want to apologise to you, Konstantinos.’ She raised her head. ‘Iwas in the wrong, too, in our marriage. I see that now…’
Shame gripped him. She wanted to apologise to soothe her own guilt by owning her part in her pain. She needed to own it. He could see that now. And he recognised it. The need for it.
She needed to say sorry to him, because she’d never had a chance to say her sorries to her mother. Just ashehadn’t. How could he deny her that? But he struggled to open his ears and accept it.
He’d made so many mistakes. With his mother.With her.He should have held her. He should have done so many things differently. He should have been by her side; however hard it was to see her likethat. However it made him…feel.
It had been inhumane to close her off. But he didn’t know how to apologise for his actions. He didn’t know if it happened again, wouldhebe different?
It wouldn’t happen again.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed.
‘But it does matter.’ She snatched in a too shallow gulp of air. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t notice what you were going through with your dad. I’m sorry I was so wrapped up in myself I didn’t see the little things, Konstantinos. I was your wife, and I didn’t know—I didn’t see what you were going through. I didn’t consider it.’
‘I do not need your apology. Not about…him. He will cause no more distress for anyone.’
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there foryou.’
‘I didn’t need you to be there.’
She ignored him. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain before I left.’
‘You have explained now,’ he said roughly.
‘I was selfish.’ Her neck, those delicate tendons inside her pale flesh, tightened. ‘I’m sorry. For everything. I’m so sorry I pushed you away when I was pregnant.’
‘Your mental health…’ he offered up to her, as an easy end to this conversation. A ready-made excuse.
‘It started before the pregnancy was even deemed high-risk. I can see that now. So clearly.’
‘You were…’ he thought of her exercise regime in the beginning. Her healthy eating. Preparing the nursery ‘…nesting,’ he finished because that was how she’d appeared to him. Stockpiling her little twigs. Making her nest all alone. Without him. The nest had not been big enough for him to join them. She’d pushed him away. Disconnected from him, even then. Before he was…gone.
‘I was hyper-focusing,’ she countered. ‘Obsessed, with doing everything right.’ Her gaze left his and flitted to the little grave in front of her.
He didn’t turn. He kept his eyes on her. On the real woman in front of him.Alive.
He couldn’t save Isaak, any more than he could have saved his mother.
‘Your explanation about your…family. It helped me understand. It helped me understand…you. I’d like you to understand…me.A little more. I want you to know why I behaved likethatwhen I was pregnant.’
