She looked at him, this bronzed, handsome man she had married, his face a little
more dissipated now, his mouth a little harder, his boyish charm worn a bit thin. What was
she hanging onto? Seven years of dreams? She had given herself to him with such love
and high hopes and she could not bear to let them go, could not bear to admit that she had
made a mistake that had turned her life into a barren wasteland. She remembered Bill
Fraser and their friends in Washington and the fun they had known. She could not
remember the last time she had laughed aloud, or even smiled. But none of that really
mattered. In the end the reason that she would not let Larry go was that she still loved him.
He was standing there waiting for an answer. “No,” Catherine said. “I’ll never give you a
divorce.”
Larry met Noelle that night at the deserted monastery of Kaissariani in the mountains
and reported his conversation with Catherine.
Noelle listened intently and asked, “Do you think she will change her mind?”
Larry shook his head. “Catherine can be as stubborn as hell.”
“You must speak to her again.”
And Larry did. For the next three weeks he exhausted every argument he could think
of. He pleaded, cajoled, raged at her, offered her money, but nothing moved Catherine.
She still loved him, and she was sure that if he gave himself a chance he could love her
again.
“You’re my husband,” she said stubbornly. “You’re going to be my husband until I
die.”
He repeated what she had said to Noelle.
Noelle nodded. “Yes,” she said.
Larry looked at her, puzzled. “Yes, what?”
They were lying on the beach at the villa, fluffy white towels spread out beneath
them, shielding their bodies from the hot sand. The sky was a deep, blazing blue, dotted
with white patches of cirrus clouds.
“You must get rid of her.” She rose to her feet and strode back to the villa, her long
graceful legs moving smoothly across the sand. Larry lay there, bewildered, thinking that
he must have misunderstood her. Surely she had not meant that she wanted him to kill
Catherine.
And then he remembered Helena.
They were having supper on the terrace. “Don’t you see? She doesn’t deserve to
live,” Noelle said. “She’s holding onto you to be vengeful. She’s trying to ruin your life,
our lives, darling.”