One year later
VAYLE DIDN’T WANTto be reminded of the complexities of human emotion as she stepped out of the lift on the third floor of her apartment building and approached her front door.
And yet, as she pushed the buggy bearing her three-month-old son along the brightly lit corridor, she was assailed by both joy and the overwhelming weight of heartache twisting round memories of the happiest day of her life. Even the tumult and wonder of the days, weeks and months that had preceded the day she’d given birth. Memories of feeling her baby kick for the first time, wondering if she had what it took to be a good enough parent when her father had failed her so badly.
Then, when the very thought of ever giving up on her own child had sent a surge of horror and rejection through her, she’d clung to that bolstering knowledge that she would never allow the trauma she’d suffered to be repeated on her baby. She’d built on that until nothing but pure love existed in her heart for the child she’d never expected to bear but loved beyond all reason even before he’d come into the world.
Her gaze dropped to the swaddled, sleeping occupant and her mouth predictably curved upward, joy superseding every other emotion for a long, heady moment as she basked in the pride and joy of motherhood. Of how her whole world now centredaround one tiny human: Evangelos Nelios Petralis. The child she’d created with Nelios in a moment of wild insanity she still couldn’t believe she’d been capable of.
The smile stayed in place until she reached her front door, then she took a deep breath. Because beyond it lay the kind of desolation that crept ever closer, like a fog over icy moors. Unbearable. All-encompassing. Unrelenting.
Agnes was deeply miserable. It wasn’t until Vayle’s return from Buenos Aires that the full scope of Agnes’s hope had revealed itself. While Agnes might have tried dissuading her from going in the first place, Vayle had discovered that her surrogate mother had secretly hoped Vayle would succeed in reaching the son who was so determined to remain estranged from his mother. They’d finally spoken as Vayle had made her way back from Buenos Aires the morning after her night with Nelios. And, like a series of evil tumbling dominoes, nothing and no one had been able to halt what came next.
Nelios had succeeded in wresting the hotel from them. They’d been served with an eviction notice mere weeks later, after an unseemly large sum of money had been dumped in Vayle’s bank account in payment. Then had come the worst insult. She’d discovered both she and Agnes had been blacklisted from every hospitality job worth having in London and beyond. It was then that Agnes had truly spiralled into despair, her every frantic effort to contact her son hitting a formidable brick wall.
It didn’t matter to Vayle that she’d been unable to find another job, or that she resented Nelios every time she was forced to use the money he’d paid her for Vayle Hotel. It didn’t even matter that she’d then been secretly relieved that she had that money to fall back on when she’d discovered she was pregnant with Angelos. What wrenched at her heart, and continued to deeply hurt her, was how Agnes was suffering. How nothing Vayle did could coax her out of her anguish.
Vayle stopped for a moment to blink back tears and compose herself, her fingers tightening around the buggy’s handle to bolster herself so she could be strong for Agnes.
On Vayle’s return from Buenos Aires, Agnes had elaborated a little bit more, although Vayle sensed she’d still held something back from the story—something that made Agnes’s eyes dim in deeper despair. She’d confirmed that they’d had to leave Nelios in the care of Tolis’s friend to take the much-needed job with George Lancaster because, yes, he had strictly forbidden them to bring a child to the premises of his precious hotel.
She’d accepted Agnes’s tearful insistence that the situation had only been meant to be very temporary; that they’d explained that to Nelios, and that she and Tolis had tried their hardest to find their son after he’d run away from his foster home. And, after Vayle’s own shocking discovery that she was pregnant in the weeks following her escapade in Buenos Aires, she’d found herself experiencing a sliver of Agnes’s anguish.
Because she’d borne Nelios Petralis an heir he’d never bothered to acknowledge…
Quelling emotions that threatened to unravel every time she thought of that night with Nelios, and the pitiless events that had followed the next morning, she re-pinned the smile on her face and entered the flat. Agnes glanced up from the living room sofa, bleary eyed and looking way over her sixty-three years, the ghost of a smile drifting over her face before it fell on Angelos. Then, in a belly-hollowing replication of her son’s features, a complex series of emotions drifted over her face: joy; sorrow; anguish; pride.
‘I brought you some food from the Greek café you like,’ Vayle ventured once she’d shut the door behind her.
She wasn’t surprised when the predictable head shake came, followed by the soft, ‘You have it,glikia mou. I’m not hungry.’
Vayle heart lurched at the endearment she recalled being uttered in a much deeper voice.
‘How isagapoula mou?’ she asked, cutting through Vayle’s impending plea for her to eat something.
‘Sleeping like an angel,’ she replied with quiet pride. She’d been blessed with a no-fuss baby who knew what he wanted and, as long as he received it, was very content.
‘His father was the same.’ Agnes’s voice caught and Vayle’s heart squeezed when tears brimmed the older woman’s lashes. Abandoning the carton of moussaka she’d meant to coax Agnes with, she crossed the room and pressed a tissue into her hand. She’d barely swiped at her eyes before they fixed on Vayle.
The vice tightened, as she sensed what was coming. What Agnes had insisted she do with varying degrees of persistence.
‘Did you try again?’ the older woman asked.
Vayle swallowed a mixture of concern, indignation and frustration. Now she had Angelos, Vayle couldn’t fathom how Agnes and Tolis had gone over two decades without tearing the world apart to find their son. But what she did understand, and fully empathised with, was that some things were simply out of one’s control. So she took a sustaining breath and exhaled. ‘I told you. It’s not that simple.’ She knew. She’d tried several times to reach Nelios and had met a very formidable wall every time. A wall that had finally threatened dire consequences if she persisted. ‘He doesn’t want to know,’ she added, ignoring the rough squeeze in her chest.
Since Vayle knew first-hand how it felt to slam her head against the brick wall of Nelios Petralis’s fortress, she’d recognised quickly that retreat was her best option. Even if it meant withstanding Agnes’s palpable sorrow as her gaze shifted to rest on Angelos. Rising, Agnes walked over to the buggy and stared down with fond sadness at her grandson before brushingher fingers down his cheek. When she returned to her seat, her air of despair was so thick, it clogged Vayle’s throat.
Eventually, when at Vayle’s urging the older woman went to lie down, Vayle snatched up her phone, giving in to the urge to look up Nelios yet again. He wasn’t exactly unavoidable, but she’d weaned herself off her near-obsessive cyber-stalking the day of her first scan.
And she’dmostlysucceeded, damn it. So what if his Buenos Aires launch of Nelios XV had been hailed as the most successful in recent history? Or that the hotel had featured in every architectural, hotel and property magazine for months? Or that Nelios himself had graced the covers ofTime,PeopleandForbesas the most influential genius on earth?
Or that every image of him had sent a mini-shockwave through her? Had made her achingly aware of her near-zealous interest when her eyes had burned because she’d stared unblinkingly at him?
She couldn’t forget he’d had her unceremoniously thrown out of his mansion the morning after he’d put his seed inside her. Or, worse, what he’d done afterthat…
But for Agnes’s sake… Her fingers hovered briefly over her phone before they moved of their own volition, typing his name into the search engine. And there he was—collecting yet another accolade. Her breath caught.He was right here in London.Then Vayle’s eyes shifted…to the woman on his arm…and her heart lurched, wild and unhinged.
She blinked and shook her head. It was unthinkable—laughable, even. Twin sparks of inexplicable anger and bemusement ignited in her belly. Because the woman…could’ve been Vayle’s sister. The thought that Nelios was dating a woman who looked like her made her insides jump because… Had she made that much of an impact on him?
