“I’m sorry. It was a terrible thing to say—of course I want this baby,” she whispered and summoned the courage to look him in the eye. She was met with a man simmering like an angry volcano. “But I still can’t marry you.”
Andreas swore in Greek and slammed his palm against his forehead. “What do I have to do to convince you? I’m running out of ideas here but I’m telling you now—I will only ask once. I will not be humiliated into begging for your hand in marriage.”
“I don’t even recall being asked. As with most things that come from you, it was more of a command than a request.”
“An assumption, perhaps. What difference does it make? I thought you’d be delighted.” He paused briefly and his expression softened as he stared at her. “You’d make such a beautiful bride.”
She felt her resolve begin to melt and tried hard not to fall under the spell of his tempting words. Instead, she hoisted up an emotional shield to hide behind. “This time you assumed too much, Andreas. As it happens, I will consider marrying you for the sake of our child, but only if certain conditions are fulfilled.”
“Conditions?” Andreas took a step nearer, frowning. “I thought we’d gone beyond contracts and deals.”
“We have,” she said, agreeing. “No one else needs to be involved. We can sort it out between us right here. This minute.”
He crossed his arms. “Fire away.”
Kizzy took a deep breath. “I must insist on exclusivity in this marriage. I will not live with an adulterer.”
Andreas nodded slowly, and a flush of hard color tinged his cheekbones. “And I will expect the same from you, pethi mou. I won’t pretend I’m a man who is used to being told how things will be. But if you are to be my wife, an equal partner in our marriage, I suppose I had better get used to it.”
“There must be no secrets between us if I am to trust you with my dignity and the well-being of our child. There are two things I must know. Firstly, I need to understand what happened in your first marriage.” She paused at his sharp intake of breath, then plunged on regardless. She had to know the truth if this was going to work. “And secondly, I insist on knowing why you keep that tower locked all the time, if it’s not a lovers’ hideaway.”
“This is ridiculous!” He unfolded his arms, his face taut with exasperation. “Why do you insist on dragging my first marriage into this? It’s not relevant. And this constant obsession with the tower—it’s just an outbuilding!”
“I need to know.”
“But why?”
“How can there ever be any trust between us if you won’t tell me something as simple as this?”
“And how can you insist on this insulting question-and-answer session with the father of your unborn child? It’s undignified.”
“Yes, it is. And now it appears the matter is settled—I will not be taking your name.”
“This is stupid.”
“No, it’s very sad,” Kizzy whispered and stood up, gathering her strength to leave. She still felt a little dizzy and light-headed. “Andreas, I’m not asking you to fall down on one knee and profess undying love—you’ve made your feelings quite clear on that score and I was prepared to accept a civil and pragmatic marriage to secure the future happiness of our child.”
Her thoughts were becoming scrambled and clouded with the intensity of the emotion she was feeling. And each glance at Andreas’s tempestuous features increased her struggle even further.
“But I also firmly believe our baby should have two parents who at least respect each other. We can’t possibly have a future together if we’re not honest and open from the start. Secrets poison everything—they will tear us apart in the end.”
“It seems to be you who is trying to tear us apart,” he replied, running both hands through his hair.
“I’ve kept nothing from you, Andreas,” she continued desperately. “I’ve been completely open with you about my past, yet you seem incapable of doing the same for me. And it hurts.”
“So that’s what it will take, is it? Complete honesty?”
Andreas could feel his heart ramming ferociously against his rib cage as he battled with his pride, his rage, and his fear.
“If I tell you my secrets, if I reveal myself to you, you will marry me?” He grabbed her by the arm and began to pull her along the terrace. “Very well, we’ll do it your way. But I’m warning you now, Kizzy, you may not like what you discover.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kizzy stumbled along in a daze as Andreas propelled her mercilessly to the foot of the tower. He put an arm down into a clay urn that was beside the imposing door and retrieved a large iron key.
“You could have done this yourself if you’d been more dishonest and devious,” he said, turning the key noisily in the lock, throwing open the door she had only ever seen closed.
As he guided her up the dark, musty stairwell inside, he shielded her shoulders from the coarse stone walls by wrapping an arm around her and squeezing her to his body.
“Just a few more steps,” he muttered in a voice that seemed different from the one she was used to. He came to an abrupt halt. “Stay here and don’t move.”
Kizzy obeyed him—it seemed to her that they were both breathing heavily in the silent gloom of a stone tomb. Thin shafts of gray-brown light were the only hint of an outside world until Andreas wrenched open the first set of wooden shutters. Her hands flew to her eyes as she struggled to adjust to the fierce burst of sunlight streaming in.
Another shutter was flung open, followed by another and another until she was drowned in summer light that burst into every crevice of ancient gray stone. Looking around in bewilderment, she blinked her eyes into focus: a battered chair; a tumble of old jars; crumpled-up newspapers in every corner, and a pile of filthy rags.
“Satisfied now?” Andreas asked stiffly. He indicated that she should look behind her.
Satisfied?
Slowly, Kizzy turned and smothered a shocked gasp. “I had no idea that you—th-that—it’s beautiful!” She took a tentative step toward a huge canvas fixed to an easel.
Her gaze ran excitedly over the bold swirls of color and she inhaled the unfamiliar smell of artists’ materials—oil paints and turpentine. Brutally aware of his stony silence behind her, she resisted the almost overwhelming urge to brush her fingertips over the thick ridges of oil paint on the canvas and folded her hands together beneath her chin to keep them away.