Bound to You Read Online Free PDF Page B

you,
kali
?’
    Layla embraced me and covered my face with kisses. She was casually dressed in jeans, and a scoop-neck T-shirt, her hair swept up in a messy knot, caramel skin gleaming under the flattering bathroom light.
    ‘I’m well, Layla. Well, no, actually, I’m
etsi-getsi
.’ That was Greek for so-so and Layla touched my arm in affection and laughed.
    ‘You learnt
etsi-getsi
! You’re adorable! Why, Nichi
mou
, what’s wrong?’
    I hadn’t planned on telling Layla like this, but better than spilling it in front of Christos and potentially starting another argument in the restaurant. So out came the story, out came my woes and fears and anger. Layla listened intently, smiling. Even when I told her about Markos, she carried on smiling.
    ‘Can’t you have a word with him, Layla? Make him understand why I’m so upset that he would let his parents effectively make a decision about our life together?’
    Layla’s smile began to shrink. ‘I’m not taking his side, Nichi, but maybe he has a point about the stress of studying and not wanting that to affect your relationship. When I started my Masters I argued with Constantine all the time.’ Constantine was Layla’s boyfriend. They were still together after seven years of studying and living across the continent from one another. ‘I can totally understand where you’re coming from, but it is a cultural thing, unfortunately. Christos is rebellious, but knowing him, he must have thought about this long and hard.’
    My throat tightened again. Oh God, Layla not you too. I couldn’t believe she was citing culture clash as the problem here. Wasn’t she effectively saying that I was Christos’s way of rebelling against his family? That to do the right thing by them meant rejecting me?
    ‘I know the way Greek parents can come across,’ she continued, ‘they’re bloody annoying and ridiculously protective, but what can you do?’
    So that was it. Layla didn’t really understand either. Or if she did, her answer was effectively ‘deal with it’. This was my problem. Christos was going to move out and I would have to deal with it.
    Layla could see the raw hurt in my face. ‘He loves you, Nichi
mou
.’
    ‘Then why is he leaving me?’ I felt like screaming. The idea that this might be about more than Christos’s family, that it might be something he himself wanted, was too agonising to contemplate.
    There was now just one more month before Christos moved out. At the end of July he would be flying back to Greece for the summer, mainly to help at the garage, and then I would join him at the end of August for a holiday in Greece on the island of Rhodes, where his family were originally from and still had a home. We were both working so much there was little time for us to do anything together beyond having dinner and watching TV.
    And we were having less sex than we’d ever had, generally only three times a week. That might sound like plenty to many people, but as time-rich students we had made love once or twice a day, every day. This had continued even after moving to London together. I couldn’t tell whether the diminished activity was because we were just finally both working full-time and city-fatigued, or because something was shifting between us.
    Christos loved to analyse our relationship. ‘How are we doing, Nichi
mou
, do we think? Is our relationship going well? Do you have any complaints with me? How can I improve myself?’ He would ask this in a pretend therapist fashion, often when I was reading the newspaper, and he was polishing our shoes or folding the laundry. But I couldn’t remember him asking the question in recent weeks. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to answer it if he had.
    When Christos left for Greece, I cried. I cried because it was the last time he would leave our home together to go back to his. I stood by the bay window and watched him walk towards the tube station, rucksack strapped across his straight strong shoulders,