by Pippa Roscoe
‘That’s the last time you ever say her name.’ Dimitri’s fury was ice-cold. It raised goosebumps on his own skin and he clenched his hands into fists, balled at his sides. ‘Do not ever speak of her or my child again. Because you’ll never see them. You’ll never get to infect them with your lies or your bitterness.’
Instead of seeing his fury reflected in Agapetos’s eyes, Dimitri was cut short by the sight of tears. As if all the fight, the power, the vitriol had fled from his father’s body.
‘So he told you.’
‘Yes, he told me. I thought you had done absolutely everything you could possibly do to me. I thought that nothing you could do would surprise me any more—but I was wrong. And what really gets to me is that I should have known. Of course my brother wasn’t capable of laying down a paper trail that led to me. He was barely capable of getting up in the morning.’
Dimitri didn’t know how, but he was now standing right in front of the desk, towering over his father, who was shrinking back in his chair and almost shaking.
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he said, tremors racking his voice. ‘My son is weak,’ he continued helplessly. ‘He could never have survived a prison sentence—I don’t think he will even now. But you?’ he said, looking up at Dimitri. ‘You are your mother’s son. Strong, fierce and capable. The only way I could save one son was to sacrifice the other. I had to cover up Manos’s theft, I had to lead them to you because no one else had access to the top-tier accounts. I tried, Dimitri. I just couldn’t allow that soft, weak boy to languish in prison.’
‘But why offer your olive branch at the party?’ Dimitri demanded, giving vent to his deepest pain, the greatest betrayal. ‘How could you even stomach to do it, knowing what you had done? Was it because you wanted to make up for your actions, or because you were afraid that I would keep digging, that I would uncover your involvement?’
Agapetos was almost sobbing. Tears ran down creases in his cheeks; red eyes, the irises bright blue, peered up at him. Seeking what—forgiveness?
‘You want me to believe that you did this out of some kind of familial love? That you were trying to protect him? That it was some form of altruism?’
‘Yes.’ The need, the desperation in his father’s tone could have swayed him. It could have saved his relationship with his father, his brother... It could have but for one ultimate truth. And that truth nearly undid Dimitri.
‘But you loved neither of us enough to sacrifice yourself.’
The hitch in his father’s breath was enough for Dimitri to know how right he’d been, the glint of selfishness in the man’s watery eyes all the confirmation he’d ever need.
Dimitri had thought he’d feel powerful, he thought he’d feel as if he’d righted some incredible wrong. But instead, all he felt was empty, exhausted and devastatingly betrayed. So much more so having let himself hope...hope for a future, a relationship with his father, the kind he’d always wanted, no matter how badly treated or ignored. This was the death knell on that hope, and it made him feel like the vulnerable seven-year-old he’d never wanted to be again.
He left his father, tear-stained and miserable, in his office. Dimitri didn’t even stop to collect his bag from his own office. For all he knew, his computer was still on.
The silence of the lift grated on his frayed nerves. His shirt scratched against his chest, and he wanted to escape. He left the foyer of the offices and crossed the street with powerful strides, fury making his steps long. He approached the unmarked blue van and pounded on the back doors.
They swung open as Dimitri reached inside his shirt and pulled the wire from beneath the cotton, ripping away the small pieces of tape securing the tiny microphone from its moorings.
‘You got what you need?’ he demanded of the FBI agents who had heard everything. His father’s confession, his family’s dirty laundry...the pain.
The man in the windbreaker nodded, and Dimitri stepped back as agents poured out of the van and entered the offices of the Kyriakou Bank, ready to arrest his father.
Dimitri turned and walked away as he heard one of the men ask about him giving his statement.
‘Not now,’ he shouted over his shoulder and stormed deeper into the city.
* * *
Dimitri’s feet were sore. Not just aching but bruised and battered, since the handmade Italian leather shoes were unable to withstand the furious pounding as he had walked through Athens down to Piraeus. His heart felt cold, the way it had done when he’d heard of his mother’s death. Was he grieving again? His confrontation with his father certainly felt like grief. It scratched at him, ate at his skin, his bones. Dimitri’s mind was full of anger and pain, and he pounded the pavement the way that the rain had battered his home less than a week before.
The streets had changed in the last few years. Graffiti marked buildings that had once seemed magnificent. Posters with anti-austerity jargon were clumsily pasted over advertising for expensive clothing, anger vibrating up from the very foundations of Greece. Poverty had spewed out people into the corners of streets and back alleys, each face peering out of the gloom showing the darkest of circumstances. It matched him, matched his mood. No one dared approach him, such was the sheet of armour his fury and pain had created.
If the private-boat captain thought anything strange about his appearance nine hours after dropping him off that morning, he said nothing. They surfed the sea in silence as the sleek motorboat cut through the waves between the harbour and his island, the mindless hum of the engine providing a constant grinding drone that churned his thoughts.
For the first time in years Dimitri felt the plush, leather-lined seats, the chrome and steel of the boat an outrageous luxury, jarring against his humble origins with his mother. Was this how Anna had felt? Pulled from her quiet, small life, and thrust into his obscenely rich world?
When had he become immune to it? To the money and lavish lifestyle? A lifestyle that his brother and father had been so desperate to protect at all costs. It had taken two years for the Kyriakou Bank to survive the last scandal. What would it take to ride this one out? And for the first time in years, Dimitri wondered if he shouldn’t just let it all burn to hell. But somewhere in him remained the last threads of his pride, and the determination to succeed that had seared his soul was clamouring to get out.
He stalked into the kitchen, where Flora and Anna were talking. Flora took one look at him, scooped up Amalia and disappeared.
And there stood Anna. A vision in white, the pristine sundress so pure, so innocent, he almost couldn’t look at it, at her. All he knew was that he needed to protect her and Amalia from what was about to happen. Protect them in the way that his father—his family—had never done for him.
And in that moment a small, terrible part of him blamed Anna. Blamed her for lifting the lid on this greater betrayal. Blamed Anna for making him think that he was better off with her and his daughter in his life, when all along he should have known. Should have trusted the knowledge and the simple fact that he was better off alone.
‘I have arranged for you to return to Ireland.’
‘What?’ Her shock was so sincere, so confused, it hurt. Hurt a part of him that he had thought long since gone from his father’s machinations.
‘Your mother is due to leave the facility in the next few days. It would be good for you to be there when she does.’
‘What’s going on... What happened?’
What happened? The question cut through him, and he wanted to scream, Everything. Everything happened.
‘My father has been arrested.’
Anna started across the kitchen, coming towards him, comfort, sorrow, confusion, all warring within her gaze. He held up a hand to ward her off. He couldn’t do this if she touched him. He had known what would need to be done, and his father had been only the first step. But this second step was the only way he could protect Anna an
d their daughter.
‘There is going to be a huge scandal. Bigger than any that have come before. The press will be camped out on my doorstep, and it will be nasty.’
My doorstep, not ours. That was the moment Anna realised Dimitri was truly sending her and their daughter away. Her head was spinning. She had been trying to tell herself that she’d imagined his withdrawal, but she hadn’t. Clearly she hadn’t.
‘I don’t care,’ she replied, clinging to her love for him, to the tentative bonds they’d formed before he’d gone to see his brother, before...this. ‘I don’t care if the hounds of hell come after you. I’m staying. We’re staying,’ she said, desperate to remind him that it wasn’t just her he was getting rid of, but their daughter too. ‘This is the worst of for better or worse. And I won’t just leave you.’
‘I don’t need you here. I need to focus on what is about to happen. You are just a distraction.’
He felt an arm on his elbow and he was spun round with more force than he could credit her with.
‘How could you say that?’ she asked, her voice hoarse. ‘I’ve seen you as many things over the last few years—’
‘What? As a criminal?’ he demanded, almost afraid of the answer. ‘A liar?’ he pushed, hurting himself just as much as he was hurting her.
‘No. I’ve seen you as the man who came to me one night, needing nothing more than I was willing to give. The man who was willing to go to prison, even though he knew it was wrong. As the man who showed me that I could reach for the things that I wanted in life, the man who encouraged me to do so.’
Something shone in her eyes, making them bright, making her words batter against the armour he so desperately needed. But he couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t bear to.
‘Well, I’m glad you got something out of it. But it’s time for you to leave.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Yes, you will!’ he shouted. ‘I’m trying to protect you!’
‘No, you’re not, you’re trying to protect yourself. I love you,’ she said simply. ‘I love you. And I want to be here for you. Please. Let me be.’
Had he even heard her? Had he heard her declaration of love, or had he just chosen to ignore it? ‘Dimitri,’ she cried.
He shook his head, as if rejecting her, as if refusing to accept her love for him.
‘My feelings for my father and my brother made me weak, left me open to...’ to the pain, he said, concluding the sentence in his head—not ready to admit such a thing to anyone but himself.
‘Love isn’t a weakness. Love is strength. Let me share that strength with you now,’ she pleaded.
‘No. You’re only saying that because you’re so desperate to cling to anyone that won’t abandon you, leave you like your father,’ he growled.
The hurt in her eyes created a chasm where his heart had used to be.
‘If you do this you are no better than my father. You will be making the same mistake he did,’ she accused. In an instant, fire whipped up around him, his fury, his helplessness, causing him to lash out with unspeakable anger.
‘And what chance did you give your father, Anna? Did you speak to him? Tell him about yourself? No. You walked away from him without telling him who you really were. You didn’t give him a chance because he’d failed at the first hurdle, failed to not instantly recognise you. Just like you failed to really try to tell me about our daughter. Tell me, Anna, is it easy to walk away and blame others for leaving you?’
Pain lashed across her heart as his whip-harsh words rained down upon her. Nausea swelled in her stomach and her head swam. She reached out an arm to steady herself on the table in the kitchen.
‘How could you say that?’ she demanded.
‘Is it not the truth?’ he said with a shrug, as if it were simple, as if it were true. Horrified, she pressed a shaking hand to her lips.
‘No,’ she said, her voice wavering, no longer truly confident of what she had believed her entire life. ‘No,’ she said with a strength she no longer felt. ‘But I will not subject my daughter to this, to you. You want me to protect my child? Then I will,’ she said, turning away from him. Turning away from the accusations and the hateful words.
* * *
Anna packed with numb fingers. She filled the small suitcase she had brought with her with only the clothes she had come to Greece with. The lavish designer dresses, the trouser suits and glittering jewels lay untouched in the room. She went to the table and picked up the letter she had started to write to Dimitri, to the father of her child. But that man was, and always had been, a figment of her imagination. And she refused to share those thoughts, those words with a man who would turn his back on them. Who would get rid of them if they were an inconvenience.
What was it in her that made people turn their backs on her? She had married Dimitri in order to provide her daughter with someone who wouldn’t repeat the same cycle of accidental neglect. But there had been nothing accidental in the words Dimitri had hurled at her that night. Each one calculated to force her from his life. Each one a barb, sticking in her heart, making her wonder if he was right. If all this time it had been she who had walked away.
She had come to Greece with her daughter, and with dreams of Amalia getting to know her family. But now? Dimitri had become her world. The pain she felt eclipsed everything that had come before it. He was sending her away. Having let her into his life, having shown himself to be everything that she had ever needed, he was throwing her away. Even her father had had the decency to remove himself before she could ever know him. But Dimitri had been cruellest of all. He had shown her what her life could really be, full of love, and family...
She put the small number of belongings she had brought with her back into her suitcase and looked around the room, her gaze falling on the passports for her and her daughter almost accusingly. Her heart warred with her head. She wanted to stay. She wanted to be there for Dimitri. Through all the cruel words he had sent her way, she could see the pain and anguish that racked him so fully.
Flora, with tears in her eyes, had told her that the boat would be coming for her in one hour. So easy, so quick was it for Dimitri to remove her from his presence. Pride told her to leave, that Dimitri had burned his bridges, but her poor heart begged her to stay. Told her that he would change his mind. That he would come after her. But she knew that hope. She had felt that same hope over and over again, with her father, with her mother. It had no place here.
It was only as the private plane taxied on the runway, her daughter safely in the seat beside her, having slept through the whole awful mess, that she realised that Dimitri hadn’t come for her. And that he never would.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dear Dimitri,
You gave me hope...
ANNA LOOKED OUT at the fields that ran behind the bed and breakfast that had once been her home, remembering that night in Kavala, the words Dimitri had said. Everything was both the same and different.
Her mother was in the kitchen with Amalia, and Anna had stepped outside for fresh air. She needed a moment to take it all in. They were selling the place. Her mother, understandably, wanted a fresh start. She needed, they all needed, to leave the village that had been so cruel and full of so many painful memories. Her mother had rented a small house by the sea, and some of the money from the sale would provide a strong future there for her.
The day she had met her mother from the institution Mary had asked Anna for her forgiveness. She had said how sorry she was for the weight she had placed on Anna, for the hardness and difficulty she had put upon them. She had spoken of her love for Anna and Amalia, and Anna forgave her completely. They knew that it wouldn’t be easy, that her mother was an alcoholic and that there would always be an addiction there, but her mother had promised to do her best to fight for her sobriety every single day. Anna had never seen her mother as strong, but this time she truly felt there
was a difference. In the last month, she had seen her mother fight with an energy she had felt missing in herself.
They had spoken about her father and it was difficult for Anna to hear that her mother had felt betrayed when she reached out to her father. That Mary had felt terrified that Anna wouldn’t come back, would have chosen the man who had rejected them both, over her. Anna had warred with herself, feeling guilty that she had sought him out, but angry that her mother hadn’t been able to understand. At the time. There were hurts on both sides, and they wouldn’t just disappear, but they both had to work through them. Her mother’s rehabilitation didn’t just overwrite all the pains of the past, but they were both willing to try and resolve them now.
But Anna hadn’t forgotten the way the ground beneath her had shaken when Dimitri had thrown his hurtful accusations her way. From the moment the words had fallen from his lips, Anna had wondered, chest aching, whether he’d been right.
And deep down, with a very long, very hard look within herself, she realised that he was right.
Yes, her father had left, and there was no denying that. But when she’d gone to London three years before...she had left before she’d given him a chance. And she hated that. Hated both herself and Dimitri for showing her that about herself.
But in the last three weeks she had decided to do something about it.
A week ago she had called the number for the restaurant owned by her father. Although she had warred with the idea of going to London in person, she felt that her first tentative steps towards a relationship with him should be made gently. She had braced herself for all possibilities—rejection, anger, hurt...but she had hoped for love. And this time she had been right. Soon she would arrange a time to go to London and meet her father. But first...
Looking out over the fields, Anna clutched her mobile in a tight fist. For seven days she had tried to reach out to the Sheikh of Ter’harn. She almost laughed at herself. She, speaking to the ruler of a country she hadn’t even heard of more than two months ago. Naturally her calls had gone unanswered. Initially. But every day she had called five times, because she needed his help. She honestly didn’t think she could put her plan into motion without it, and she refused to drum up some fake injury to Amalia to get Dimitri’s attention. So every day she had spoken to the same assistant, but unlike last time she refused to be ignored, dismissed or lied to. Every day the same assistant explained that she couldn’t speak to Danyl.
