“Everybody should feel special at Christmas. Especially those without a home.”
“But the presents,” Sister Connelly sighed. “All those children’s smiles. You’re so generous.”
Claudia shrugged. “It’s easy to be generous when you have money. Did they like the gifts?”
“Very much so. I wish you’d come out and watched.”
“Oh, no. I think that would detract from the good work you do. I’m just here to help behind the scenes.”
Sister Connelly flicked the tea towel over her shoulder and put her hands on Claudia’s arms, turning her around so that they were facing. “You really are a good soul.”
“Thank you.” Claudia smiled, her heart thumping for the first time in almost a week, since she’d walked out of The Maychester and away from Stavros Aresteides.
“Have you got someone to drive you home?”
“I’ll walk,” Claudia said. “It’s only a couple of blocks.”
“Of course. Thank you again, dear. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
The nun wrapped Claudia in a hug then, bringing her close to her and kissing the top of her head. Claudia felt the warmth of the embrace and let it comfort her.
“See you tonight.” The words were emotion-tinged and Claudia smiled to cover that. She moved through the kitchen, grabbing her bag up before sliding out of the back door. She moved quickly down the street, her head bent, her arms wrapped around her body.
She was almost home when she realized she’d forgotten her coat. She swore softly and turned to look back, then shook her head. She could get it later that night. She was closer to home now than she was the church, and once she was home she could sit in front of the fire and warm up.
“Claudia.” His voice whispered across her flesh, and her gut clenched with a thousand remembered sensations.
She had barely a moment to settle her racing nerves, to calm her body, to shut off her instant response of desire and need. She was careful to appear calm. Annoyed, even.
“Dear?” Another voice called her attention and she spun away from Stavros, conscious of his nearness the whole time. “You forgot your jacket, dear.”
“Oh.” Claudia’s cheeks darkened. “Thank you.”
“I hope I didn’t get any suds on it,” Sister Connelly laughed. “Go and have a rest. You must be exhausted after all you’ve been doing for us.”
Claudia smiled weakly. “Thank you.” She waved goodbye to the sister once more then turned back to Stavros.
The fact he was there, at her front door, his expression watchful, angered her. How dared he intrude on her life? Especially after he’d kicked her out of his?
“What are you doing here?”
“I needed to speak to you.”
“Fine.” She slipped her arms into her jacket, pulling it tight around her middle. “What?”
He looked around. There were no photographers in evidence but people were milling around, walking past.
“In private.”
She glared at him. “No way.”
“Yes.” He moved closer. “I don’t want our conversation to be overheard.”
“We have nothing to discuss,” she snapped, moving past him towards her front door.
“Not true. How come you never told me?”
Her fingers shook as she slipped the key into the lock and made to turn it. But she dropped it to the ground and Stavros was there, crouching down to retrieve it and inserting it calmly back into place.
“Told you what?” She responded softly, cautiously.
His eyes held hers as the door pushed inwards. “About your dyslexia.”
She sucked in a deep breath but it didn’t help. The floor shifted and she was dizzy. She reached behind her for the railing and gripped it. All the colour drained from her face.
“Come inside, asteraki,” he said gently, with the sympathy she had dreaded for so long. “Let us speak privately.”
She nodded, completely numb, knowing there was nothing he could say that would make this easier or better. Knowing that she needed him to go away again, but that she could hardly tell him that out here, with people swarming past.
“For two minutes, okay?”
The front door of her home opening into a small anteroom and then a large living space.
Stavros had to conceal his amusement – it wasn’t an appropriate emotion – as he walked in and saw the gigantic Christmas tree given pride of place in the very centre of the floor.
There were ivy garlands strung along the ceiling and up the banister of the stairwell, and all of the décor had been swapped out to show a festive flavor. At least, he hoped it had been swapped out. The cushion covers had dark red snowflakes on them, and the curtains had tiny little Christmas trees embellished into the fabric.
Claudia, apparently, didn’t see. She was used to the décor, apparently.
“How did you find out?” The words were barely audible. Her eyes were huge in her pale face, and she stood just a little way away from the Christmas tree, her arms crossed over her torso, her body hunched.
“You should have told me,” he responded, and then cringed at the obvious criticism in his voice.
“Why?” She snapped. “Why was it any of your business?”
“I’m your guardian, for one thing. Don’t you think it’s something of which I should have been made aware?”
“Not particularly.”
Silence throbbed in the room. He took a step closer, his eyes warring with hers. “Did you mean what you said about Pennington?”
She frowned, with no recollection of what he was referring to.
“Did you sleep with me just to make it easier to seduce him?”
Her cheeks flashed bright red and for a moment she thought of lying. But why? She had lied to cover the truth of her dyslexia. He knew about that, now, so she might as well be honest. “No.”
Satisfaction glowed in his eyes. “You lied so I wouldn’t keep asking why you don’t like to read?”
“How did you find out?” She asked again, bringing their conversation back to the more pressing matter. “And hurry up, you’re running out of time.”
“How the hell have you kept it hidden for so long?” He asked instead.
Her blush deepened and she shrugged her slender shoulders. “Easy. No one expects much of me, intelligence wise. I’m a good time girl, just like you said.”
“That’s because you’ve made everyone believe that,” he reminded her.
“How did you find out?” She needed to know. What had she done wrong? She couldn’t slip up again.
“I found the school letters,” he murmured softly.
Claudia’s eyes fused together and he knew she knew what he was talking about. “I presumed he’d destroyed them.”
Stavros nodded, but that didn’t explain a thing. “Did he arrange for you to see an occupational therapist?”
Claudia turned away from him, unwilling to reveal what was clearly visible in her face. “No.”
“I don’t understand that. He never mentioned your disability.”
She winced at his use of that word, though it was, of course, the correct term.
“He wouldn’t have.” It was a shaking admission. “It wasn’t something he was proud of.”
Stavros moved closer but froze when she visibly stiffened.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said softly, finally shrugging out of her jacket and discarding it over the back of a nearby chair. “Dad’s gone. School’s out. I am as I am.”
“But why didn’t he enroll you in Occupational therapy?”
“It wouldn’t have helped.” She spun around, her eyes shining with the depth of her emotion. “My dyslexia isn’t your average, run of the mill disability. I’m not just slow. My brain doesn’t work. When it comes to reading and writing, I’m wired differently to you. I will never be able to read.” Her eyes bore into his for a long second and then slid away. “Is it any wonder the great Christopher La Roche wasn’t shouti
ng it from the rooftops?”
“I did not have long,” he said, the words graveled. “Between finding the letter and coming to London. But everything I saw on the internet said that dyslexia is a condition beyond the control of those who have it. That it is something one is born with. Your father wouldn’t have blamed you, asteraki.”
Claudia’s blood simmered furiously in her body. “You can talk to me about my father’s books. And his estate. You can talk to me about his disappointment in my mother and his fears I would be just like her; you can talk to me about your friendship with him. But when it comes to how he felt about me, you don’t get a say. You don’t know anything about that.”
“I know your father. I know that he loved you.”
“He hated me,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut at the heart-wrenching admission. “He hated me.”
“How can you say that?” Stavros demanded. “You are his daughter.”
“And I couldn’t read! Not even a little bit.” She moved closer to him, simply to show how serious she was. “I can’t read. You show me a book and I see a blur. My brain can’t decipher the shapes of letters at all. Any of the tricks people like me are taught and become able to master just don’t work. I’m essentially illiterate.”
Stavros nodded, not wanting to appear to undermine what she was saying. “And yet, there are still things you haven’t tried.”
She glared at him. “I’ve tried everything. Everything. After dad refused to enroll me in Occupational Therapy my headmistress became an expert in dyslexia. She studied all the techniques and worked on them with me. Nothing helped.”
“Why did he refuse?” Stavros honed-in on her statement, curiosity firing inside of him, warring with something else. Something he didn’t want to analyse. Christopher had been his closest friend and deserved his unswerving loyalty. Yet he paused, waiting for Claudia to explain.
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know. I cannot imagine a world in which your father would not have expended every bit of energy trying to improve your education.”
“The press would have had a field day, that’s why! Cristopher La Roche, preeminent author of all those brilliant books, with a daughter who can’t read?” She made a tsking noise. “He was so embarrassed. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t learn. He was furious that I wasn’t trying hard enough.”
Stavros kept his temper in check with effort. “This is not a question of trying. Ability is predetermined. One cannot master the skill without the right tool. Your brain doesn’t work this way.”
“I know that.”
“Surely your father did too.”
“No. He disagreed with the diagnosis. He felt I just wasn’t trying hard enough. He threatened to pull me out of the school – the only home I’d ever really known – if I broached the subject again. That was the end of it.”
Stavros paced the room, his shoulder brushing the tree as he passed. It emitted a fragrant pine scent, though it was plastic. He looked at the tree again and then saw the little gadget behind it, plugged into a light switch. An automatic room freshener that smelled like Christmas? Of course.
“Whatever he felt,” Stavros spoke softly, slowly, forcing himself to be rational. “Has no bearing on how we proceed. You have a condition that prevents you from reading. I don’t care. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
She tilted her head towards him, her heart in her throat. “And how do you feel about me?”
The smile he gave her was twisted with self-condemnation. “I love you.” Words that stuck inside of her and yet she pushed back at them.
“What?” She stared at him and a frown moved across her face, while her heart leaped inside of her.
“You must know the truth of that.”
“No,” she said simply, shaking her head and moving towards the kitchen simply so she could prop her shoulder against the door for support.
“I love everything that you are. You are not the only one who’s been nursing a secret, agape mou. You were fifteen when your father died and I was … captivated by you. On your sixteenth birthday, I had to admit to myself that my feelings were not so benign as that. I wanted you, even then. At eighteen, when you begged me to make love to you, I wanted you so badly. Only knowing how much you’d drunk stopped me from taking what you wanted to give. I have kept myself away from you with will power alone, when I have wanted you most of all. And now, I won’t do it again. I won’t push you away and I won’t let you walk away.”
“I was disgusted in myself for how I wanted you. I was your guardian, and you were still a child. At eighteen, you were just barely a woman! Everything I owed Christopher and I owed you – how dare I want you like that?”
She was shivering all over. “You were disgusted by me,” she contradicted. “You told me that in no uncertain terms the next morning.”
His smile was loaded with self-condemnation. “I was disgusted in myself,” he insisted softly. “You represented the biggest danger of my life. I had no clue how to perform my duty as your guardian when all I could think of was taking you to bed.” He ground his teeth together and took a step closer towards her. “You were eighteen.” He wiped his hand over his eyes, as if he could erase all the guilt that way.
“Seeing you in the papers with other men damned near killed me.”
“Oh, like you weren’t off doing the exact same thing,” she spat, but her heart was beating so hard and fast she could hardly hear a sound over the noise in her ears.
“I wasn’t. I broke up with Rhiannon after that night. After your eighteenth birthday. There’s been no one for me since.”
Claudia froze, her eyes holding his with abject shock. “You’re saying you haven’t slept with anyone since that night?”
“Oh, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Which is, perhaps, the only mitigating factor in the way I took you in my office,” he shook his head darkly. “Instead of seducing you properly.”
Claudia swallowed down the hope that was bursting through her. The delight at his loyalty and the fact she hadn’t been the only one falling in love. She couldn’t let it tempt her and distract her from staying the course.
“It doesn’t matter.” The words were hollow, accompanied by a thin attempt at a smile.
“It doesn’t?”
She cleared her throat and stood up straighter, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Only he was looking at the shelves to her left. More specifically, at the assortment of items there.
The presents he’d given her over the years, all grouped together. His eyes shone when they returned to her face.
But Claudia didn’t return his smile.
“I think you should go now.”
“Do you?” He paced closer, bringing himself to stand right in front of her, so that she could feel his warmth and smell his masculine fragrance.
“It doesn’t matter that you accept me. That you think it’s okay that I have dyslexia. That you understand it’s something beyond my control.” She lifted a hand to his chest, splaying her fingers wide. “You’d never be happy with someone like me. And I’d be miserable knowing that.”
“How can you say that? I’ll never be happy if I’m not with you.”
She shook her head. “You think that now, but believe me, I know what you’re like. You’re more like dad than you realise.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek and Stavros realized how little the comparison pleased him.
“This would never work. You need to go.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t it work?” He pushed, refusing to budge.
“You think you’re okay with this now,” she whispered, dropping her eyes. “But there’s a whole heap of emotions at play. You feel guilty and responsible and you want to help me, because that’s who you are.” She turned her face away, staring out of the kitchen windows. There was no snow, only a bleak grey sky and the rapid approach of Christmas eve.
“I don’t feel any of those things. Wanting to help you, perhaps,” he conce
ded. “But only in the way you should have been helped all along.”
“I don’t want your help. I’m not a project.” She turned back to him, tilting her chin defiantly, her eyes sparking with his. “I’ve had a lifetime to come to terms with my failings. I don’t need your help.”
“This is not a failing,” he said urgently. “This is just who you are. In the same way you have brown hair and dark eyes, and the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
“I would never be able to keep up with you,” she said softly. “We live in different worlds. You’re incredibly intelligent. Business is your life. You love to read for pleasure. I will never be able to take part in any of that. I’d be an embarrassment to you.”
His temper was ratcheting up and he knew he had to control it, to be calm and encourage her to listen. But he couldn’t stand the way she spoke of herself. “I would only ever feel pride to have you on my arm.”
The words sifted through the angst in her heart, but still she shook her head.
“I have been wrong about you all along. But I’m not wrong now.”
“I can’t do it.” She stared up at him, and then turned her back, moving deeper into the kitchen. When he made to follow after her she spun around, holding up a hand.
“Don’t!” It was an emphatic plea. “Don’t come in here. Don’t act as if you know what you’d be getting yourself into. I’ve spent my whole life dealing with this, managing people’s expectations, knowing what a disappointment I am. I know that you’re going to try to fix me and when you can’t – because you can’t – you’ll get over this. Wanting to help isn’t the same as being in love.”
His heart was breaking, but it was breaking for Claudia. Beautiful, kind, intelligent, interesting, funny Claudia who saw herself only as defined by this one single aberration.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she murmured softly. “Functional illiteracy is such a clinical term but it doesn’t explain how isolating it is not to be able to read or write. I can’t read street signs or text messages, I can’t write shopping lists. I watch the cooking channel because recipes are like Sanskrit. I can live with that. But I can’t live with feeling like I have to apologise to someone for it. Like I have to make excuses about it.”
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