As the car stopped, Carmel Davenport closed her eyes against the craving that rose in the back of her throat. She didn’t really want alcohol. She wanted the blankness. The numbness. Emotions were spiky and hot and heavy. They bombarded her as the door opened beside her.

She kept her eyes closed, concentrating on her breathing technique as she absorbed the slice of regret and the bruising ache of shame, the loss of time and the opportunities she had squandered. She drew a breath laden with nostalgia while technicolor images danced behind her eyelids. A man with black hair and tanned skin that gleamed with drops of water. A cocksure smile. A heated stare and a confident touch that made her feel thrilling, wonderful sensations. Caresses that told her she was worthy and special.

She exhaled melancholy because those moments were yet another thing she’d taken for granted and misused.

Darker voices tried to creep in and berate her for that, but she firmly reminded herself she was not worthless and stupid. She couldn’t change the past, but she could move forward making better decisions.

She had to move forward. No more backsliding. No more wallowing in the purgatory of yearning and self-loathing and what-ifs.

“Sorry,” Carmel murmured to her brother’s driver as he continued to wait patiently in the hot Athens sun.

She snatched a few tissues from the holder in the console, blinking her eyes against the press of tears. She hated crying. It made her feel sloppy and out of control. Plus, tears would ruin the makeup she had taken such pains to apply.

Everything about her appearance from the low, twisted chignon to the power suit in navy blue had been debated to death by her inner critic.

What would Damian say about how she had aged? It had been five years. She was no longer twenty-four and stick-thin with bleached blond hair and a penchant for showing skin. What would he think of her natural brunette hair color? Her weight gain? Her sobriety?

Ugh. She didn’t need his approval. She needed a divorce.

She didn’t even need his approval for that. She could have filed the petition and waited to see if he would contest it, but she was hoping he would cosign so it could be rubber-stamped without delay.

So she could continue her trek forward, out of the past and into a more deliberate and fulfilling future.

She stepped her open-toed Ferragamo onto the sidewalk and accepted the hand the driver offered.

“I’ll walk back after my meeting,” she told him, not caring if the heat frizzed her hair out of its bun or turned her into a flushed and sweaty mess. No matter what happened, she would need to clear her head after she saw her husband.

“I’m happy to wait for you.” The driver knew as well as she did that there were three licensed establishments between this office building and her brother’s apartment.

“I’ll be fine.” She hoped. “Please let me tell Atlas in my own time where I asked you to drop me today.”

“I’m sure you’ll speak to him before I will. I would only tell him if he asked.” But he would tell Atlas if Atlas asked, and Atlas wouldask because he still didn’t fully trust her. His wife, Stella, had been the one to say effusively, Of course you can stay in our apartment while we’re away. Atlas had instructed the housekeeper to lock up all the alcohol.

“I’ll text you once my meeting finishes, then.” Gone were the days when she could bribe or charm her brother’s employees into hiding her secrets.

Not that she wanted to be that person anymore.

Or that she had many secrets left. Only this husband she was planning to divest herself of.

She looked up at the building and her belly filled with a heavy, oily sensation.

Maybe she should have asked Atlas to handle this for her. She didn’t think Damian would come after her fortune—which begged the question, “what fortune?”—but he could make a grab for the assets she had left, like the company she’d inherited from her mother or her flat in London.

No. She didn’t want to tell Atlas about this rash, short-lived marriage of hers. They were finally in a good place. She didn’t want to ruin it by asking him to clean up yet another of her old messes.

She was so tired of being humbled by her past. Of having to ask for help. She needed to do this herself, to properly make her amends with Damian.

Even though it scared her spitless.

She glanced in her shoulder bag for the millionth time, ensuring the envelope of paperwork was there.

A horn beeped to nudge her driver into moving from his spot in front of the building.

She let him go and hurried through the revolving door, then showed the envelope and her lawyer’s card to the security guard.

Her assistant had finagled a five-minute appointment with Damian by claiming she was bringing paperwork from a London law firm that required his signature. Which was true, if not as forthcoming as Carmel was striving to be these days.

Heck, if she was as brutally honest as she should be with herself, she would admit the real reason she hadn’t involved Atlas or allowed her lawyer to handle this was because she wanted to see Damian.

And she knew he wouldn’t see her if he knew she was coming. He had said so the last time she’d seen him.

I never want to see you again in my life.

The antipathy in his expression had sat as a cold spike in her chest for five long years. Hot misery over earning his hatred had prompted her to get serious about sobriety, not that she’d succeeded right away. No, she’d stumbled in and out of treatment several times, trying to pull herself together only to fall apart again. She was taking accountability now, though. Facing her demons.

Or the one she’d married at least, she thought ironically.

She accepted the visitor badge and was escorted into an elevator. As it whisked her to the top floor, she tried to inject strength into her weak knees and willed her palms not to be so clammy.

Her apprehension only grew worse as she shot skyward. This was one of the tallest buildings in Athens and it hadn’t escaped her notice that Damian’s name was on it, including on the wall that faced her when the doors opened.

Growing up in a wealthy family, she wasn’t intimidated by the marble floors and glass walls and hushed air of luxury as she followed the receptionist. She was impressed, though. Damian had been a scrappy start-up in green energy when she’d met him. Now he dominated that industry across Europe and had offices around the globe.

The receptionist stopped near the end of the hall and left her in the custody of an assistant who invited her to take a seat in a waiting area.

She almost didn’t hear him, her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears. As subtly as she could, she regulated her breathing. Her hands longed to wring the envelope like a wet rag.

It would be fine, she reassured herself. Damian didn’t want to be married to her. How could he? They had married on impulse after a few days of passion. He had had big ambitions, and she had wanted to fund them. She had believed that marriage would grant her access to her trust, and she had wanted to be free of her father’s pressure to marry one of his toadies.

At no point had she imagined their marriage would last. Damian couldn’t have thought so, either. He’d been indulgent and affectionate. Possessive enough to stare down any other man who looked at her, but he had already been realizing his mistake by the time they arrived in London.

Did you just put vodka in your mimosa?

She had. Because she had she known that her father would be appalled that she had married a common working man she had met while vacationing in Greece.

Like father like daughter, she had said when Oliver curled his lip at Damian. At least I married my lover. At least there won’t be a baby turning up fifteen years from now.

Good, her father had said. That means you can get rid of him.

She sighed, no longer blaming Atlas for her father’s philandering ways, but she had no one to blame but herself for the way Damian had looked at her as his father sneered at him.

Is that the reason you married me? To offend him?

The assistant’s phone buzzed, startling her back to the otherwise silent office.

The young man answered in Greek, which Carmel understood better than she spoke. Atlas’s mother had been Greek, and Carmel had learned enough to eavesdrop on him.

“Málista, kyrie, but your ten o’clock is here.” The assistant flicked his gaze toward her. “She has documents from a law firm in London.”

He made a noise of assent and an apologetic expression began to form on his face.

No. Carmel lurched to her feet.

“I only need two minutes,” she said in English, rushing toward his desk. Her brain frantically tried to find the words in Greek. “Dýo lepta.” She held up two fingers. “Parakaló.”

“Kýrie?” the assistant said, frowning at his phone.

There was a loud bang as the wide doors that dominated the end of the hall were pulled inward so forcefully, they hit the walls.

Carmel jumped again, heart stalling in her chest because there he was, like an avenging god. Damian Kalymnios. Her husband.

She had stalked him online many times, rarely seeing his image in anything other than groundbreaking ceremonies or corporate headshots. None of those small photos had prepared her for seeing him in real life.

He was still tall and wide-shouldered, but he’d filled out with maturity. His muscles were even more powerful beneath his gray, bespoke suit. He was clean-shaven, not wearing a scruff the way he used to, revealing the cleft in his square jaw. His black hair was shorter, his mouth unsmiling. Grim. His gaze raked her, then slammed back to meet her own. His eyes brimmed with outrage. And contempt.

Ouch.

She had braced for his disgust, but it surprised her how much it hurt to see it so fiercely alive and well. It surprised her how sensitive she was to his regard and how badly she wished he had softened a little with time.

Not that she let him see any of that. If her history of being a shameless liar had been good for one thing, it was the shell of indifference she had developed to protect herself.

She lifted her chin and offered a cool, collected smile. “Hello, Damian.”

“No,” he said flatly in English. Then, to his assistant, he said in Greek, “I’ll work remotely as time allows.”

“Yes, sir. The pilot is preparing for takeoff. Is this a matter for security?” He darted a wary glance at Carmel.

“No.” Damian switched back to English. “She’s leaving.”

He strode past her without another glance, heading down the hall toward the elevators.

“Damian.” Carmel hurried after him, careful to keep her heels from sliding out from under her on the polished marble. She waved the envelope at him. “I only came to give you this. Read it, sign it, then we never have to speak again.”

“I already don’t have to speak to you.” He jabbed the call button, not even looking at her. “In fact, I distinctly remember telling you I never wanted to see you again.”

“I know, but…” I want to apologize. “Please, will you take this?” She continued to hold out the paperwork. “It’s time. You know it is.”

He ignored it, exactly as he had the first set of divorce papers she’d offered.

The doors opened and he stepped inside.

She followed.

Now he looked at her. Straight down his nose. His cheek ticked as he seemed to debate whether to give her a hard shove out of the elevator. Out of his life. But that would require he touch her. He jabbed a button instead, expression dismissive, gaze aimed straight ahead.

Her stomach twisted, but she pressed on.

“Don’t you want to close this chapter?” she asked.

“No. I would rather stay married and continue to bring shame upon your family name.” He was quoting what her father had said of their marriage. “But wait.” He pinched his chin in a mock ponder. “Have I got that the right way around?”

The severe sting of a hard blush hit her cheekbones and sent a withering path of culpability down her spine.

“I won’t pretend I don’t deserve that. But isn’t that more reason to sever ties?”

“Did you just say you won’t pretend you don’t deserve that?” His tone balanced between spite and dark laughter. “That almost sounds like honesty, Carmel.”

“It’s a new thing I’m trying.” She flashed a facetious smile.

“Good luck getting people to buy it.”

The doors opened into a small waiting room with windows onto the roof where a helicopter waited. Damian strode straight out into the blistering sunshine.

Carmel didn’t have time to think. She ran after him and shoved herself into the space of the open door to the chopper, blocking him from climbing inside.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He sounded as astonished as he was enraged.

“Getting what I came for. I want a divorce, Damian. Sign this.” She tapped the envelope against his chest.

“I know you’re the ultimate spoiled rich girl who thinks the world bends to your will, but it does not. I do not.”

They were too close. She could feel the animosity radiating off him, but there were pheromones within it that spoke to her body in ways that couldn’t be explained. Her bones softened and her pulse tripped, and she was accosted by a sense of breathless anticipation.

“It will take five minutes,” she said in a voice growing husked by reaction.

His pupils were pinpoints in orbs of bitter dark chocolate. In her periphery, she saw his hands flex. His whole body was coiled muscle that she expected to spring at her any second.

“I don’t have five minutes. Move or I’ll move you myself,” he warned.

“And give me something to use against you?” It was beneath her to threaten him like that. She wouldn’t, but she had a lot of practice fighting dirty and some habits were hard to break. “Right now, this is a no-fault, irreconcilable differences divorce. Let’s keep it that way.”

“You haven’t changed, have you?” he said with tired spite.

It was the cruelest thing anyone could say to her. Coming from him, someone who’d seen her in ways she’d never revealed to anyone else, someone who’d made her want to change, it was even more hurtful.

“Is this how we’re playing things? With intimidation and threats?” He crowded closer, voice turning low and menacing. “Are you absolutely certain you want to test me right now?”

She set her hand in the middle of his chest. The contact sent a jolt of white-hot electricity through her. If she hadn’t been face-to-face with him, stares already locked in challenge, she might have missed the way his pupils exploded. The air crackled. A magnetic force tried to pull her forward. Her gaze dropped to lips she longed to feel against her own.

Maybe she hadn’t changed, if she was longing for things that were likely to destroy her.

“Me synchoreíte,” the pilot blurted as he came around the tail of the helicopter. He started to turn away.

Damian jerked his head up, flashing her an accusatory glance.

“Come back. I’m ready.” He switched to English to say to Carmel, “I’m meeting someone important to me. I don’t want to keep her waiting. Move.”

She tried not to flinch at the mention of “her.”

“I’m sure she would want you to be free of me.” She made a wild, split-second decision, turning to grasp the handle on the open door. She levered herself into the luxurious passenger cabin of the helicopter and took a seat.

“Do you have a death wish?” Damian asked in a growl of amazement.

“What are you going to do? Push me out while we’re in the air?” Her fingers shook as she buckled in. “That’s one way to get what I came for.”

“Don’t tempt me!”

“You seem to be in a hurry. I’m accommodating that.” She tried to overcome the tremble in her voice. “You can read through the papers while we’re in the air.”

“Since when do you have an ounce of consideration for anyone else?” he asked as he levered in to sit beside her.

“It’s another of those fashionable things I’m trying.”

He jerked his head at the pilot who was hovering uncomfortably, silently telling the man to proceed with takeoff.

“I’m not flying you back here,” Damian said. “You’ll have a long walk to the ferry slip.” He sent a pointed look at her shoes. “It departs at ten in the morning so you’ve already missed it.”

“I’ll manage.” It wouldn’t be the first time she’d found herself at loose ends in a strange place. She had credit cards. At least this time she’d be sober.

“I bet you will,” he muttered, implying she would press herself onto the nearest man.

Which was not an unfounded accusation. She’d been taught manipulation by a master. She hid her shame over that behind a stiff mask of indifference.

The pilot locked the door, then closed himself into his own cabin. The rotors began to turn, causing the sunlight to strobe around them.

“Will you please read this now?” She offered the envelope.

“No.” Damian brought his phone to his ear and told someone in Greek that he would miss their meeting. A string of business calls followed.

She took the opportunity to text Atlas’s driver not to wait for her, then informed the housekeeper that she would be away for the night. She would have to offer some excuse to Atlas, too, but he was in New York. She had time before she had to reach out to him.

As they flew south across the water, she realized they were headed to Damian’s island south of Mykonos. They had met while she’d been cruising the Cyclades with friends five years ago, but she’d stayed with him on Mykonos, never seeing his actual home.

The people she’d been with hadn’t been real friends, either. They’d left while she’d still been in bed with Damian, not that she’d minded at the time, but their lack of regard for her was indicative of the company she’d kept back then.

Growing up with her father’s fortune at her fingertips, Carmel had always had a lot of people around her. They’d all been up for adventure and partying, especially when she covered the bill, but none had ever stood by her with true loyalty or love. The ones who’d possessed any sense had quickly distanced themselves from her chaos while the rest were there for a good time, not a long time. She had pruned those hangers-on from her life once she began taking stock and saw how detrimental they were to her.

These days, she had one real friend: her sister-in-law, Stella. Their friendship was still new and, really, Stella was teaching Carmel howto be a friend. Stella was naturally warm and thoughtful and unconditionally supportive, which were unmastered skills in Carmel’s repertoire. Carmel aspired to be more like Stella, though. Her sister-in-law was lovable. Watching Atlas, a certified hard-ass, turn into a gooey-centered pushover around his wife was hilarious and stupefying and envy-inducing.

No one would ever look at her that way. Not if she didn’t change.

Certainly not the man who ended his latest call and removed his jacket with impatience, tossing it to the seat across from him.

“Why now?” he asked flatly.

Oh, God. She had scripted this thousands of times. The words were there, but they were jumbled on her tongue and difficult to push past her lips.

“I…um…” She swallowed. “I’ve been making a lot of changes to my life. I’m…” She rolled her lips inward and carefully stacked her hands on the envelope in her lap, contrite. “I’m sober now. I’m running my mother’s company and trying to…” She cringed inwardly, wishing this wasn’t necessary, but it was. “I’m trying to make amends with those I’ve hurt.”

He released a choked noise. “This is your idea of making amends? By lying your way into my office and forcing your way onto my helicopter?”

“Is this not how apologies work? I’m joking,” she insisted when his mouth tightened.

Humor was one of her go-to defense mechanisms and one of her few good qualities, not that she always used it appropriately, but she couldn’t be expected to change everything about herself, could she?

“Look. You’re right,” she conceded. “This wasn’t the best way to approach you. I could have had the lawyer send this, but I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to face you and acknowledge that I behaved very badly. I knew that marrying you would upset my father. That wasn’t kind to you. I genuinely did believe I could help you, financially, but I deserve your anger and dislike for pulling the rug on that. I should have been more honest about how he would react.”

She was trying to hold his gaze so he would know she was being sincere, but he was wearing such a hard, implacable expression, it felt like she was throwing herself uselessly against a rough, brick wall. She was collecting nothing but bruises, but she swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed on.

“He’s no longer in my life. My father.” Cutting Oliver away had been like using a rusty scalpel for self-surgery, but she felt lighter these days, having excised him.

“I also wanted to tell you…” A hot pressure rose behind her eyes. The burn in her chest spread into her throat, thinning her voice. “I wanted you to know that I didn’t actually, um, cheat on you.”

He snorted disparagingly.

“What I mean is…” She nervously licked her lips. “I didn’t have sex with that man. I kissed him. Obviously. You saw that. And I took my top off so it would look like we were having sex, but I didn’t actually sleep with him.”

She realized her hands were clenching the stiff white envelope into a cone. She smoothed it flat and dared a look at him.

“I’m very sorry.”

“I’m no longer that gullible idiot you met on Mykonos.”

“I never thought you were.”

Another snort.

“No, I mean…” She held up a hand. “Okay, I thought everyone was gullible enough to believe whatever I told them. I actually thought that it didn’t matter what the truth was. Lying to you was never a personal attack. I wasn’t trying to trick you. It was the way I lived.” God, that was humiliating to admit. “This is what I’m trying to convey to you now, that I am genuinely trying to be a more truthful, sincere person. Letting you believe I cheated on you was a lie. I have deeply regretted it since the moment it happened. I’m truly sorry, Damian. I promise not to lie to you again.”

“I cannot imagine why you think I’d care one way or another what you say, how you feel, or who you sleep with,” he said with derision.

She dropped her gaze to hide how deeply that pierced her.

“Or that I could possibly bring myself to believe a word coming out of that deceitful mouth of yours. Here’s what I know is true, Carmel. I’ve seen the headlines. Your father got sick of your spendthrift, devious, disgraceful behavior and kicked you off his payroll. God knows you couldn’t possibly work for a living so you’ve come to the Bank of Divorce for a piece of the fortune that I built without your help.”

“No—”

“I would also bet my hard-won fortune that you have another sucker on the line, one you can’t marry because of this.” He pointed at the envelope. “So, no, Carmel. I will not sign your papers. In fact, I will happily spend every last euro I possess on legal fees fighting that divorce. I will break both of us before I will give you anything you want. This is what you get when you poke the bear. Maybe you should have listened to me and stayed out of my sight.”

Chapter Two

“Okay, but if you could just sign this first?”

Theós, she was brazen, blinking with facetious innocence as she pushed her toe over the line.

“You really have no sense of self-preservation at all, do you?” Damian was trying not to look at her, refusing to fall under her spell again, but the small details of her appearance kept puncturing his wall of anger. Her hair was a rich, warm brown now. Her features were no longer softened by youth, seeming more pronounced, but maybe that was sobriety because she had collected a few kilos and they suited her. She had also traded in raw sex appeal and edgy fashion for refinement and elegance.

She looked like she was stepping into the potential that she’d been squandering when he met her.

Her voice hadn’t changed, though. It still had that husky edge that swept across his skin like velvet. That voice was what had pulled him from his office as he informed his assistant that he needed to leave for the island early. He had heard Carmel’s unmistakable feminine tone with its condescending accent insisting on two minutes, and his vision had gone white. His scalp had tightened and his abdomen had tensed and his shoulders had bunched with raised hackles.

Even as he told himself she wouldn’t dare turn up like this, he had known damned well that she would. Carmel Davenport had no shame whatsoever.

Is this not how apologies work?

As if an apology would cut it when she had cratered his savings account, throwing away his hard-earned money on clothes and high-end booze and offered an empty promise to pay him back.

I get access to Mummy’s money once I marry. I’m sure Daddy would invest in your expansion if I ask him to.

That had not happened. After her father had treated him like a street mongrel and threatened to ruin him, Carmel had come back to their hotel with papers very like the ones she was trying to foist on him now.

Daddy wants us to get a quiet divorce. Sign this and he’ll give you ten thousand euros.

Damian had seen the advantages in marrying her. Or rather, the apparent advantages. It had all been a lie. All of it. He’d been so offended, so disgusted with himself for thinking he could profit off marriage, he had refused to profit off their divorce.

He had walked out of their hotel room only to come back two hours later to find her in bed with a Belgian tourist who was lucky to still be alive.

He should be over it by now. He knew that. After years of hardscrabble hustling, he had more than enough money to cut her a check and expel her from his life for good.

That wasn’t enough to compensate for the humiliation of trusting her, though. She had used him. Betrayed him. Then she waited five long years to show her face and offer a weak apology in exchange for, once again, wheedling to get what she wanted.

He should put an end to this farce of a marriage. He knew that.

But vengeance sounded so much more appetizing.

How much did she want? he wondered. The suit she wore was couture, but it could have been purchased before her father’s wallet had been closed against her.

Seeing the headlines about her falling out with her father had been unavoidable. The Davenport family had always been a favorite with paparazzi. Her father had inherited a media conglomerate from his own father and an athletic clothing company from his late wife. Carmel and her brother had been models for the brand for years. Being a beautiful, notorious party girl, Carmel made enticing clickbait.

It really was a miracle they’d kept their marriage under the radar for five years, but they’d both been motivated to do so. Carmel had been trying to stay on her father’s good side and Damian had kept silent out of embarrassment, hating himself for falling for her tricks.

He never would again.

She really wanted him to believe she was running her mother’s company? It was common knowledge that it was under the umbrella of DVE, the global conglomerate her brother had recently taken over. At best, she was collecting a paycheck for the use of her likeness on the company org chart.

He glanced over to see her chewing her bottom lip. Crafting a plan, no doubt.

“Whatever this is, I don’t want any part of it,” he said flatly. Not now when he had other, greater concerns. His thoughts turned to his grandmother. “As soon as we land, I want you gone.”

“If I send this through a lawyer, will you sign it?” she asked.

“I don’t know how to state this more clearly, Carmel. No.”

The truth was always made out to be so noble and golden and pure.

It was not. It was messy and dark and covered in thorny barbs that shredded you when you tried to wrestle in it. The more you waded into honesty, the deeper you were in whatever reality was already drowning you.

Lies were easier. They were silk roses and false compliments and the oily bronzer that helped you slip out of a tight spot.

Until they piled up around you like the stinking garbage they were, of course.

So Carmel chose honesty over lies as often as she could, especially with herself. Even when that meant acknowledging she had come here hoping for forgiveness.

He would never forgive her. That was the bleak truth she confronted as the helicopter began its descent toward an island and a blinding white villa sprawled between olive and orange groves. The roof was covered in solar panels. The pool sat like a glittering blue sapphire next to a courtyard covered in pink bougainvillea. There were abundant terraces and paths to small gardens, and stairs cut into the hillside that led down to the beach.

This could have been mine, she thought.

So could the boxy mausoleum outside of London, if she hadn’t chosen to side with her brother against her father last year. Now she had a flat in Barking that was trendy and secure, but modest by the standards she’d grown up in.

It was hers, though. It was enough.

She had no idea how she would get back to it. This villa seemed to be located well away from the nearest town. She’d need a taxi to a hotel where she could stay while she waited for the ferry, she supposed.

Should she leave the papers? Was there any point in doing so?

She glanced at Damian to see him scowling as the helicopter settled onto its pad. Looking for whoever he was meeting? She tried to ignore the searing jealousy scorching her heart. She had no claim on him! Who did? She looked for the beautiful supermodel she presumed was waiting for him.

As the rotors slowed, the pilot stepped out and nodded that it was safe to disembark.

Carmel followed Damian away from the helicopter into the shade of a nearby tree where a middle-aged man waited.

“Where’s the car?” Damian demanded in Greek.

“Your grandmother refused to go to the hospital. The doctor is with her now.” He motioned toward the smaller stone cottage that Carmel had assumed was staff housing.

Damian strode toward it without looking back.

“His grandmother,” Carmel repeated in bemusement.

“Yes. Are you…?” The man was studying her clothes, trying to discern if she was a guest or staff.

She was about to faint with relief that Damian wasn’t meeting a paramour, but she looked after him with concern.

His grandparents had raised him after his mother dropped him here and disappeared. He hadn’t told her a lot about it, only that he’d been six and had always been confused by her abandoning him that way. He didn’t know what he had done to cause her to reject him.

His grandfather had already been gone when she met Damian, but hadn’t been the warmest man. She was a little surprised to hear his grandmother was still alive. And ill? That was distressing.

Damian had demanded she leave, but Stella would never walk away if someone was going through a difficult time. She would wait and offer emotional support—something Carmel had not given her husband in the past, despite the vows she’d taken to do just that.

She looked around, then pointed at the nearby bench. “I’ll wait for Damian there.”

Zoia Kalymnios had grown faint while walking in the garden. That was the call that had had Damian telling his assistant to clear his schedule and prepare the helicopter only to hear Carmel’s crisp English demanding “Two minutes” of his time.

“But I didn’t faint,” Zoia insisted from the overstuffed, swivel rocker she occupied, sounding alert and impatient. “I felt faint and tried to get back to the bench to sit down. I caught my toe and stumbled.”

The fall had been enough to scrape her hand and knee and alarm Renita, one of her caregivers, into calling Damian along with the doctor. Zoia had eighty-two years behind her and a number of conditions related to that age: arthritis, blood sugar issues and a heart that was liable to fail if she didn’t have surgery.

The operation wasn’t without risk so she was refusing it. She didn’t want to spend her last days in a hospital in Athens, she kept saying. Or lose what quality of life she had by suffering through weeks of recovery. What if she never recovered at all?

Damian had to abide by her wishes, but it was frustrating. Worrisome.

“Renita shouldn’t have troubled you,” she continued. “Or the doctor.” She glowered at the physician. “I’m perfectly fine.”

The doctor wore a stoic expression as he folded his stethoscope into his bag.

“I’ll walk you out.” Damian followed the doctor through the kitchen to where the doctor had parked his car behind the cottage. “She’s not fine, is she?”

“She needs that surgery,” the doctor said.

“How soon could she get it, if I can talk her into it?”

“I’ll speak to the specialist in Athens. He’ll want some tests, which we can do here on the island. Two weeks, perhaps? You have my number. If she changes her mind, call me. I’ll expedite it. Either way, you ought to stay nearby.”

Damian winced. “I was planning to spend the summer with her, but I’ll move that up.”

The doctor left, and Damian reentered the bungalow that his grandfather had brought Zoia to when they’d married. They’d struggled for most of their lives to eek a living from their small pasture and olive grove. Zoia had supplemented their income with chickens and a vegetable garden, selling off what she didn’t preserve for their own pantry.

Zoia and Eurus were Damian’s mother’s parents. When their only child had come home from her first year of university in Athens to announce she was pregnant, with no sign of the father, Eurus had been furious. How dare she throw away her future on an Australian tourist?

After a terrific argument, Hestia had left, swearing to make her way on her own. She had. Damian’s memories of her were dim, but warm. They hadn’t had much, but he had never gone hungry. He had believed she loved him.

Until she dropped him here one day when he was six years old and never came back.

“Something has happened,” Zoia had said a thousand times in those early days. They had called hospitals and police to no avail.

Hestia had died. Damian knew that now, but for most of his life he had believed his mother had deliberately left him behind. She hadn’t wanted him and neither had his grandfather. That’s how he’d seen it, anyway. Life had been hard. His grandparents had already been aging. They hadn’t needed the burden of a young child. Damian had learned to earn his keep from Day One, lest he be rejected again.

He had been ambitious, though. He had wanted more than a small farm and a lifetime of working it. He had quit school when he got on with a roofing company and, when a client asked about solar panels, he began to specialize in installing them.

Eventually, his fledgling company had grown enough that he was able to put a down payment on the run-down estate next to theirs. Over time, he’d renovated the villa, ensuring a comfortable apartment for Zoia.

Of course she refused to move into it with him. This was her home, she insisted.

As he returned to the living room, Zoia pointed to the window.

“Who is that?” The lines in her face deepened with curiosity. “Why did you leave her sitting in the heat? Go get her.”

Damian followed her gaze to see Carmel sitting in the shade of a tree, jacket off and draped over her bag on the bench beside her. Her white, sleeveless blouse exposed her pale arms. She sat with her legs crossed and was looking at her phone.

Typical. Of course she was still here despite his telling her to leave. Although, it was more her style to have changed into a bikini and jumped into the pool while ordering someone to bring her a daiquiri rather than sit on a bench as though waiting for a bus.

“That’s Carmel,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Your wife? You’re reconciling? Oh, Damian.” She set her hand over her fragile heart. “If there’s one thing I’ve longed to see before I died, it was you settled down and starting your family.”

“You’re not dying,” he reminded her. “You only felt faint.”

The oppressive weight of the doctor’s words hung over his head, though.

“She’s here to ask for a divorce,” he told her.

“You’ve agreed?”

“No.”

“Good. You’re right to give her a second chance.” A misty-eyed smile lifted the corners of her thin lips. “I know how you felt about her.”

An eely sensation squirmed in his chest, one that reminded him how trusting he’d been. Infatuated. That was the part that grated the most. Spending most of his life believing his mother had abandoned him, he’d been very careful about lowering his defenses.

Carmel had slithered around them, though. Before her, most of his hookups had been with tourists or older women who didn’t want anything serious. Carmel had immediately become a sexual fixation. He’d thought they had a connection of sorts and had begun to believe he could trust in someone besides himself.

That’s why it had been such a devastating kick when he’d found her with someone else. The nascent things he’d begun to feel for her proved to be unrequited and the height of foolishness.

And now?

“I don’t feel anything for her.” Except hatred. And a persistent sexual pull that wasn’t something a man discussed with his grandmother. Especially when he intended to ignore it. “Our marriage is over.”

“Then why aren’t you divorcing her?”

To punish her. It was such a childish statement, he couldn’t admit to it aloud.

“You would have found someone else by now if you didn’t feel something for her.” Zoia’s body might be ailing her, but her eyes were still bright and penetrating.

He had painted himself into a corner, but he suddenly saw an opportunity. He wanted Zoia to agree to the surgery that would prolong her life. Zoia wanted to see him “settle down.” Carmel wanted a divorce.

“If I make an effort to reconcile with her, will you agree to the surgery?” he asked. “At least have the tests and speak with the specialist?”

Her thin lips pursed with amused exasperation. “You’re coercing an old woman who only wants to see her grandson happy? Shame,” she chided. “I would feel comforted, though, if you at least tried to make this marriage work. I don’t expect to live long enough for you to divorce this wife and find a new one. Very well. If you make an honest effort with her, I will see the specialist. Now bring her in before she’s fully cooked.”

Carmel was browsing the hotel options when she looked up to see Damian striding toward her with the energy of a knight on a charger, jousting stick aimed at her heart.

“I know you told me to leave.” She scrambled to her feet and collected her things. “I was worried about your grandmother. Is she okay?”

He halted, seeming taken aback by her question. His gaze struck where the lace of her bra was visible through the sheer fabric of her sleeveless blouse before rising to crash into hers again.

She’d been melting in the heat and removed her jacket. Now she hugged her things to her middle, defensive.

“She’s not. She has heart trouble and nearly fainted. She needs surgery or she won’t last the year, but she’s been refusing it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He looked very remote and contained, but she could tell he was deeply concerned. She thought about reaching out a hand to him, wanting to squeeze his arm in comfort, but hesitated, then lost the moment as he curled his lip in cynicism.

“How badly do you want a divorce?”

“What?” Her heart spun out and fell. All the oxygen seemed to evaporate from her lungs, making it impossible to speak. The sense of loss, of a light of hope winking out and leaving her in a sea of darkness, was profound.

“Zoia wants to see me happily married. If we attempt reconciliation, she’ll agree to the surgery.”

“I—” She swayed under the impact of that statement, trying to make sense of what felt like a one-eighty spin. Despite everything she knew about his hatred for her, a continent’s worth of butterflies filled her chest. “That’s not likely to happen, is it?”

“Absolutely not. But it’s two weeks out of your life, Carmel. If you want a divorce, that’s what it will cost you.”

She was still in free fall, trying to gain her bearings.

“You want me to pretend to reconcile with you?” She shook her head. “I can’t lie to her.”

He released a disparaging noise. “Not if it benefits someone besides yourself?”

A vise pinched her heart, cutting into her air. “Lying was as much an addiction for me as alcohol—”

“Oh, you’re sober from lying. I didn’t know that was a thing,” he scoffed.

“Don’t.” She held up a finger. “You can throw insults at me for the stupid, hurtful things I did to you, but do not mock my sobriety. Or my desire to be honest.”

He narrowed his eyes, his gaze delving into hers so deeply her heart swerved in an effort to avoid being seen. It was hard to give up the shield of alcohol and subterfuge and stand in the truth of her past. It was even harder to admit she wanted something she had failed at more times than she could count.

She fought back the press of heat behind her eyes. Change was hard. It meant making difficult choices that the old Carmel would have refused out of selfishness. It meant evaluating every relationship in her life and deciding whether it was worth keeping. Worth fighting for.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you.” She felt her way forward as though inching onto thin ice. In the dark. While it creaked and cracked. “I said I wouldn’t lie to her.” That was no way to start a relationship with anyone. She knew that from experience.

She wanted to help him, though.

If she had a chance to make up to Damian for the way she’d treated him, if she could help him in a way that truly mattered to him, if she could give him more time with his grandmother, she wanted to do that.

Even if it would be hard for her.

“It sounds like your grandmother wants to see us resolve our differences. I would like to end our marriage on a better note, so I’m willing to make a genuine effort toward that kind of reconciliation.”

His expression remained flinty enough to cause her confidence to falter, but she persevered.

“One that is civil and…” She cleared her throat. “Less angry. Spell out what you would need from me.”

His expression hardened at the word “need.” His jaw worked while he debated something, then, “She would expect you to stay in the villa with me. I mean that, Carmel. No flitting away for shopping and parties. If you step one foot off this property, keep going because the deal is off.”

“Sounds like rehab,” she said pleasantly.

“I thought your sobriety was not to be mocked?”

“Oh, I’m allowed to do it. It’s the only way I can cope. But on that note, ask your staff to put all your alcohol in storage. Have a drink if you want one, but I’d rather not be confronted with temptation everywhere I look. This will be stressful enough. What about work? Can I set up a remote office here?”

“For the five minutes a day that you’ll be calling in your career? Use mine.” His mouth tilted downward with derision.

“See? I fully accept that insult.” Because she would make him eat it. She cared deeply about Davenwear. He would soon see that. “What about…”

She lost her nerve.

His brows went up.

She cleared her throat. She toyed with a button on the jacket draped over her arm. Her chest began to burn. Heat rose to bloom in her cheeks. But she had to ask.

“What about sex?”

“I’m not going to touch you.” His voice turned gritty, and his gaze lashed across her once before he looked away again.

“What a relief.” Sarcasm wasn’t a lie, was it?

“I’m doing what I have to, to persuade Zoia to get the treatment she needs. That’s all this is. If you upset her, you’re gone.”

“I won’t.”

He snorted. “I’ll be shocked if you’re still here by morning.”

Oh, she would be here. Every one of his little digs only hardened her resolve.