Page 97 of A Diamond Deal
He understood everything.
So unafraid was she of her feelings. To let them take her. She was strong. Strong in ways he couldn’t be. Would never let himself be. Because he’d seen whatfeelingcould do. His mother, she’d felt too much. She could not compartmentalise. And it had destroyed her.
He would not let himself be destroyed by…emotion.
He would not let himself…feel.
And yet, hefelt.
His skin ached as if he had the flu.
His throat was scraped raw.
Bile rose in his mouth. He’d used mind games. Manipulated her. Turned her honesty—her vulnerability—into a weapon. Turned her love against her.
He didn’t know how to fix what he’d done…
Poppy, she deserved more.
She deserved to know the truth.
He owed herthat.
He owed Isaak too.
Forty-Eight Hours Later…
‘To new beginnings.’
Poppy looked at Léon’s raised glass. The deep red wine within it. Her feet curled beneath her on the sofa, she shifted her bottom forward so she could reach his outstretched glass from where he sat in his wheelchair beside her. She raised her glass. Silently, she clinked it to his.
‘It will ease,’ he said, taking a sip. ‘Time—it’s a strange thing, Poppy. It lets us…heal. Never fully, but it changes us,’ he said, and she wanted to oppose his statement.
Time, it did nothing but turn pain into a numbness. But she was never without it. It just changed form.Grief.There was no medicine for it. No surgery to cut it out.
‘It opens us to thepossibilityof change,’ he continued. ‘Soon you’ll see,this, your divorce,isa new beginning.’
She smiled. She understood he knew grief. She knew he’d opened his home to her again as his friend. She knew tonight he’d told them to set the fire alight to warm her as he had every night since she’d been here. She knew he understood she didn’t want to be alone, so he sat with her when the night closed in. When her loneliness was most acute. When still she missed him.
Konstantinos had been generous in the settlement. The Paris apartment was hers. It had been hers from the moment she’d left the island. The lawyer had contacted the lawyer appointed for her by Konstantinos.
She was sure there were implications there of her ex-husband providing her with legal counsel. But she understood he hadn’t wanted to talk to her. And she hadn’t been ready to talk to him. She hadn’t wanted anything from him. She hadn’t needed legal representation, yet he’d ensured she had enough money to be financially secure forever. The island they would share, because of Isaak. He required forty-eight hours’ notice if she wanted to go and he’d accommodate her, and it was expected she’d do the same for him.
It was all fair.
All wrapped up with neat little bows.
It was over. Their separation was official. Unofficially, in the secret place inside her heart…it would never be over. She didn’t know what to do with that. There was no closure incoming. There was only the regret of what-ifs.
Tomorrow, maybe the next day, or the next, she’d figure it out. But right now, she just wanted to sit with it.Feel it.The loss of what could have been. She wasn’t scared these feelings would take her under. She’d been under, and she’d made it out. She was a survivor, and she’d keep on surviving. One day, maybe she’d learn how to thrive. But today, tomorrow…she was okay to just…be.
She took a sip of her wine.
The lounge was a beautiful room. Not one where visitors were allowed. This was the place where Léon had spent time with his family, doing all the things normal families did. It hurt her to be in here with him. It filled her full of yearning, but it also stroked something inside her. Made her hunker down into the plush cushions of the sofa.
It made her…warm.
‘A little TV, I think…’ Léon reached for the remote.
