Carrying the Greek's Heir

by Sharon Kendrick

  ‘Please don’t,’ he said. ‘Elaborate displays of emotion are the last thing I want to deal with right now.’

  It wasn’t an unreasonable reaction in the circumstances, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. Ellie’s arms hung uselessly by her sides as she pursed her lips. Yet, why should he accept her comfort or her help when she’d spent weeks pushing him away?

  She nodded. ‘Good luck,’ she said quietly, though never had she wanted to kiss him quite so much.

  She spent the day trying not to think about what might be happening in France. She told herself that Alek wouldn’t ring and she was right. Every time she glanced at her phone—too often—there were no texts or missed calls and the small screen remained infuriatingly blank. She’d been due to meet Alannah for lunch, but she cancelled—afraid she would end up doing something stupid, like crying. Or even worse, that she would blurt out the whole story. And she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t her story to tell. She’d already broken Alek’s confidence once and to do so again—wittingly this time—would be unforgivable.

  She tried to keep herself occupied as best she could. There was a subtle nip to the air, so she slipped on a jacket and walked across a park with leaves showing the distinct bronzed brushstrokes of autumn. She went shopping for food in the little deli she’d discovered, which was hidden unexpectedly in a narrow road behind the smart Knightsbridge shops, and she bought all the things she knew Alek liked best to eat.

  But no matter what she did, she couldn’t clear her mind of nagging questions which couldn’t be answered until he arrived home. Though it occurred to her at some point that he might not want to tell her anything. He was naturally secretive and that wouldn’t necessarily have changed. Discovering something about his past wasn’t necessarily going to transform him into someone who was comfortable with disclosure.

  She went to bed at around eleven and it was sometime later that she heard the sound of a key in the lock and a door quietly closing. Her throat dried. He was home. She could hear him moving around, as if he didn’t want to wake her, but as the footsteps passed her door she called out to him.

  ‘Alek.’

  The footsteps halted. The floor creaked and there was silence.

  ‘Alek?’ she said again.

  The door opened and a powerful shaft of light slanted across the room to shine on her bed, like a spotlight. She blinked a little in the fierce gleam and sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She tried to search his face, but his eyes were in shadow and all she could see was his powerful body silhouetted against the bright light.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘Won’t you...come in?’ Her voice gave a nervous wobble as she switched on the bedside lamp. ‘And tell me what happened.’

  She’d been half expecting him to refuse, to coolly inform her that he’d tell her everything—well, maybe not quite everything—in the morning. That would be much more characteristic of the Alek she knew. But he didn’t. He walked into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, only she noticed he kept his distance—as if ensuring that he was nowhere within touching range. And stupidly—because it wasn’t very appropriate in the circumstances—she found herself wishing she were wearing some provocative little excuse for a nightie, instead of an oversized T-shirt which had nothing but comfort to commend it.

  ‘So,’ she said nervously. ‘What happened?’

  Alek looked at the way she was biting her lip. At the shiny hair spilling over her shoulders and the anxiousness she couldn’t quite keep from her eyes. He thought that she loved him, but he couldn’t be sure. His mouth hardened. How could you tell if a woman really loved you? He had no baseline to work from.

  ‘We met,’ he said. ‘And after a while he showed me some photos. The first—’ His voice cracked slightly. ‘The first photos I’d ever seen of her.’

  She nodded. Swallowed. ‘What were they like?’

  He tipped his head and looked up at the ceiling. ‘She was very beautiful—even in the later shots. She had this thick black hair and the most amazing blue eyes.’

  ‘Like yours, you mean?’

  He gave a wry smile as he looked at her again. ‘That’s right. Just like mine.’ It had been beyond strange to see the physical evidence of somebody he’d only ever heard about in the most negative terms. A woman in a cotton dress, glinting at the sun—her face filled with an unmistakable sadness.

  ‘And what was your brother like?’

  Ellie’s words broke into his thoughts and Alek opened his mouth to answer but the most articulate person in the world would’ve had difficulty expressing the conflicting feelings which had torn through him when he’d seen his twin brother for the first time.

  ‘He looks like me,’ he said, at last.

  ‘Your twin brother looks like you? You don’t say!’

  And unexpectedly, he began to laugh—her quip doing the impossible and taking some of the heat out of the situation. He thought about how he’d felt when he’d walked into the famous hotel and seen a black-haired man with a face so scarily like his own, staring back at him from the other side of the restaurant. He remembered the overpowering sense of recognition which had rocked him and momentarily robbed him of breath.

  ‘His name is Loukas but his eyes are black,’ he said. ‘Not blue.’

  And that had been the only physical difference he’d been able to see, although after the second bottle of wine Loukas had told him about the scars which tracked over his back, and what had caused them. He’d told him a lot of stuff. Some of which was hard to hear. Some he’d wanted instantly to forget. About a mother who had been a congenitally bad picker of men, and the sorry way that had influenced her life. About his poverty-stricken childhood—so different from Alek’s, but not without its own problems. Dark problems which Loukas had told him he would save for another day.

  ‘Had he been trying to find you for a long time?’ Ellie whispered.

  He shook his head. ‘He only discovered that I existed last year, when his...our...mother died.’

  ‘Oh, Alek.’

  He shook his head, unprepared for the rush of emotion, wanting to stem it, in case it made him do what he’d been trying very hard not to do all day. He cleared his throat and concentrated on the facts.

  ‘She left behind a long letter, explaining why she’d done what she’d done. She said she knew she couldn’t live with my father any more—that his rages and infidelities were becoming intolerable. She had no money and no power—she was essentially trapped on his island. She thought he would blight the lives of all three of us if she stayed, but she also knew that there was no way she could cope with two babies. And so she...she chose Loukas.’

  She nodded, not saying anything and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to ask it, but of course she asked it. This was Ellie, after all.

  ‘How did she choose?’

  Another silence. ‘She tossed a coin.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘Oh, I see.’

  He gave a bitter laugh. He wasn’t a man given to flights of fancy but he’d vividly imagined that moment just before she’d walked out of the house for good. He’d wanted his brother to lie; to invent a fairy story. To tell him that she’d chosen Loukas because he had been weaker, or because she thought that Alek would fare better because he was two minutes older and a pound heavier. Or because Loukas had cried at the last minute and it had torn at her heartstrings. But no. It was something much more prosaic than that. His fate and the fate of his brother being decided by a coin spinning in the air, until it landed on the back of her hand and she covered it with her palm. What had she thought as she’d lifted her hand to see which boy would be going with her, and which boy would be left behind? Did she find it easy to walk away from him?

  ‘My mother flipped a coin and I l
ost out,’ he said.

  Another silence. A much longer one this time.

  ‘You know she did it because she loved you?’ she said suddenly. ‘You do realise that?’

  He raised his head, barely noticing the salty prickling at the backs of his eyes. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘She did it because she loved you,’ she repeated, more fiercely. ‘She must have done. She must have been out of her head with worry—knowing that she could barely look after one baby, let alone two. And if she’d taken you both, he would have come after you. He definitely would. She must have thought your father would be glad to have been left with one son, and that he’d love you as best he could. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t—for reasons you’ll probably never know. But what you have to do, is to stop thinking that because of what happened you’re unlovable—because you aren’t. You need to accept that you’re very lovable indeed, if only you’d stop shutting people out. Our baby is going to love you, that’s for sure. And I’ve got so much love in my heart that I’m bursting to give you—if only you’ll let me. Oh, darling. Darling. It’s all right. It’s all right. Oh, Alek—come here.’ Her eyes began to blur. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  She put her arms around him and he did what he’d been trying not to do all day, which was to cry. He cried the tears he’d never cried before. Tears of loneliness and pain, which eventually gave way to the realisation that he was free at last. Free of the past and all its dark tentacles. He had let it go and Ellie had helped him do that.

  His hand was shaking as he smoothed the pale hair away from her face and looked at her.

  ‘You would never do that,’ he said.

  She turned her head slightly, so that she could kiss the hand which was still cupping the side of her face. ‘Do what?’

  ‘Leave our baby.’

  She turned her head back, biting her lip, her grey eyes darkening. ‘I don’t want to judge your mother, or to compare—’

  ‘That wasn’t my aim,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m just stating a fact and letting myself be grateful for that fact. I’ve given you a hard time, Ellie, and a lot of women might have lost patience with me before now. Yet you didn’t. You hung on in there. You gave me strength and showed me the way.’

  His question shimmered on the air as she looked into his eyes.

  ‘Because I love you,’ she said simply. ‘You must have realised that by now? But love sometimes means having to take a step back, because it can never flourish if there are darknesses or secrets, or things which never dare be spoken about.’

  ‘And I love you,’ he said, his free hand reaching out to lie possessively over the bump of their unborn child. A lump rose in his throat as he felt the powerful ripple of movement beneath. ‘I love you and our baby and I will love you both for ever. I will nurture and care for you both and never let you down. Be very certain of that, poulaki mou. I will never let you down.’

  He could taste the salt from her own tears as he kissed her and did what he’d been wanting to do for so long. He lay down beside her and put his arms around her, gathering her close against his beating heart.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘SO WHAT’S IT LIKE, being back?’ Ellie’s words seemed to float through the warm night air towards her husband. ‘Is it weird?’

  Shining brightly through the unshuttered windows, the moon had turned the room into a fantasy setting of indigo and silver. Over their heads whirled a big old-fashioned fan and the sheets were rumpled around their gleaming bodies. The faint scent of sex hung in the air and mingled with the tang of the lemons squeezed into the water jug which stood beside the bed.

  Ellie turned onto her side and looked at Alek, who lay beside her with his arms stretched above his head, looking a picture of blissful contentment.

  This journey to Kristalothos was one they’d waited a while to make, until both of them were certain they were ready. A trip to the island home of Alek’s childhood—a place which symbolised so much of the darkness and horror of his past—was never going to be at the top of their bucket list. In fact, Ellie had been surprised when Alek had first suggested it because although their life had been hectic, it was pretty close to perfect. The birth of their son two years previously had put the seal on their happiness and Ellie had been...

  She swallowed.

  Frightened that going back would test their happiness and threaten to destroy it? Scared he might go back to being the secretive Alek of old who had locked her out of his heart—or that the reality of confronting his past might bring renewed bitterness?

  Yes, she had thought all those things—and more. But she’d quashed her fears and entered into his plans with enthusiasm, because she’d sensed it was something he’d needed to do. Hadn’t she been the one who’d insisted you had to face your fears instead of running away from them? And perhaps there was some truth in the idea that you could never go forward until you were properly at peace with your past.

  After much discussion, they had decided to leave their little boy behind in England. Young Loukas—their adored son, who they’d named after Alek’s twin brother and who had given them so much more than joy. It was the tiny tot more than anything who had been responsible for Alek’s growing ability to show emotion. Because children loved unconditionally and Alek had learnt to do the same. He had learnt that real love knew no boundaries and sometimes Ellie just sat watching him play with their little boy and her heart swelled up with so much pride and affection.

  But a lively two-year-old was not an ideal companion for a cathartic trip which might be emotionally painful, which was why they’d left him behind with Bridget—who had become his honorary grandmother.

  Ellie and Alek had chartered a boat from Athens, which had taken them out to his childhood island home of Kristalothos, with the vessel making a foamy trail through the wine-dark sea as they journeyed. They had arrived on a spring morning, when the wild flowers were massed over the gentle hills and the sea was crystal clear as it lapped gently against the fine white sand.

  As he had looked around him with slightly dazed eyes, Alek had told her the place had changed beyond recognition. Some of the changes he’d discovered when he was making plans for their trip but seeing them with his own eyes had really driven home the fact that nothing ever stayed the same. A Greek-born hotelier named Zak Constantides had bought his father’s old fortress and razed it to the ground, putting in its place a boutique hotel, which was fast becoming as famous as his iconic London Granchester.

  But Alek had chosen to rent a villa instead of staying there and Ellie was glad, because she didn’t want to spend a single night on the spot where a young boy had spent so many miserable years.

  She leant across the rumpled bed and stroked her fingertips over his bronzed cheek, and her touch seemed to stir him from his pensive mood. He smiled as he reached for her and thought about her question.

  What was it like being back?

  Reflectively, he stroked her hair. ‘It is a bit weird,’ he admitted. ‘But it doesn’t hurt. Not any more. And I’m glad I came, because it was something I needed to do. Another ghost laid to rest. I like the fact that Zak’s hotel has brought work and prosperity to the island and that the place is no longer ruled by fear and oppression.’

  ‘I’m glad, too,’ she said, wriggling up closer.

  ‘But I’m glad of so many things,’ he said. ‘Mainly for my beautiful wife and my equally beautiful son, who provide me with the kind of contentment I never thought existed.’ He tilted her chin with the tip of his finger, so he could see the gleam of her eyes in the moonlight. ‘I’m even glad that I’ve got a brother, although—’

  ‘Although Loukas has his own demons,’ she finished slowly.

  ‘Yes, he does. But it isn’t Loukas I’m thinking about at this moment, poulaki mou. It’s you.’ He rolled on top of her, his fing
ers playing with the tumble of her hair as he felt the softness of her body beneath him. ‘Because without you I would have nothing. I am who I am because of you, Ellie. You made me confront things I’d spent my life avoiding. You made me look at myself, even though I didn’t want to. I’ve learnt...’

  ‘What have you learnt?’ she questioned softly as his voice tailed off.

  He shrugged. ‘That it’s better to face up to the truth rather than to block it out. And that feelings don’t kill you—even the very toughest ones. Everything that’s worth knowing, you have taught me and I love you for that, Ellie Sarantos—and for a million reasons more besides.’ He gave a mock glower of a frown. ‘Even though you have stubbornly refused to let me announce that particular piece of information to the world.’

  He traced a thoughtful finger over the angled line of her collarbone. He had wanted to go through a second marriage ceremony—a big glitzy occasion at the Greek Cathedral in London, intended as a mark of his love for her because he felt she’d been short-changed last time. For a while Ellie had been agreeable—even consulting a wedding planner and hearing about the rival merits of a string quartet versus an old-fashioned bouzouki band for the reception. Until one morning at breakfast, she’d told him she didn’t need declarations or lavish gestures. That it was enough to know he cared, and in the private moments of their precious relationship his heartfelt words of love meant more than a truckload of confetti.

  And wasn’t that another aspect of her personality which made him love her so much? That the things she cared about weren’t the things which so many people strived for. She didn’t need to put on a show or make some kind of statement. She didn’t need to prove anything. Diamonds she could take or leave, and, although she wore silky tea dresses because she knew he liked them, she was happiest in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She was still Ellie—the same straightforward, uncomplicated woman he’d first fallen for—and he wouldn’t want her any other way.