Because she wanted to be around him for Angelos’s sake, she added hastily; nothing else.
‘Vayle?’ he pressed.
She moved towards the table, then paused. ‘Is Capaldi…?’
‘He’ll let us know if we’re needed.’ His gaze dropped to her chest. ‘Unless you wish to return for a different reason?’ His voice pulsed with…something. Her cheeks flamed. She hadn’t missed the breast pump near the changing table when she’d put Angelos to bed.
‘No, I don’t.’ She cleared her throat and moved to the chair he pulled out for her. ‘We haven’t even discussed where we will live. Or does that not matter to you?’ she asked once they’d sat down. It wasn’t an accusation, just a means of gaining insight into this man whose child she’d birthed and whose name she now carried but whom she barely knew, except in the biblical sense. God, why had she thought about that right now?
His eyes lingered for too long on her heated cheeks before meeting hers. ‘I’m able to work anywhere in the world, but I primarily base myself in Athens. And, no, England won’t be my first choice,’ he added with the hint of an edge that said it wasn’t just the weather he objected to.
Vayle wanted to pry more into his meeting with Agnes but she held her tongue as the waiter approached and they ordered their food. ‘So do you have men like Capaldi and Andreas littered all over the world to aid you in your empire-building?’ she started as a means to fill in the watchful silence, but as she said the words she realised she genuinely wanted to know.
He handed the wine list back to the sommelier and fixed his eyes on her after she declined wine in favour of flavoured water. ‘Not so many as you might think, but enough that I trust implicitly, yes.’
‘And how did they earn your trust?’
His lips tightened and his gaze slanted over her shoulder to rest on the horizon. The tension building told her to leave the subject alone but that urgent throb in her chest said she couldn’t. Or perhaps it was the echo of Agnes’s words pushing her when she would’ve withdrawn at any other time.
She sucked in a steadying breath and plunged ahead. ‘I know you’ve given me the broad strokes of what happened the day the foster carer came to your house,’ she murmured.
His mouth twisted. ‘A truth you thought was a lie, or at best a grand exaggeration, even after feeling a measure of rejection from your own father?’ he asked a little bitterly.
Her heart squeezed, for him and for her. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’ she pushed softly.
His unyielding expression didn’t lessen. ‘What purpose would it serve?’
She toyed with the crystal glass dampening with condensation from the cold water. ‘Beyond wanting a better understanding of the person I’ll be parenting my son with? How about so I’m not caught flat-footed and pitied next time I have a conversation with one of your trusted friends? Or are you happy to let everyone wonder why we don’t know the bare facts, never mind the most important things, about each other?’
Dark-coffee eyes examined her for a full minute, his upper body relaxed against his chair in a posture of ease she knew was false. ‘And all this baring of oneself and risking losing one’s appetite for what should be an exceptional meal—is it to be a one-sided thing?’ he drawled idly. But the taut skin around his mouth told a different story.
Her insides fluttered with nerves she hadn’t felt for a very long time. And, while she knew reliving everything would reawaken a slumbering anguish, bare her failures and vulnerability to his incisive probing, part of her was eager to rise above the wounds of her past rejection, to share this part of herself with him. After all, it wasn’t her heart or the strain of fevered yearning she couldn’t quite stem. So it was fine…right?
‘I hate the dark because part of my father’s illness included adverse reaction to bright lights during his manic episodes. Lights out in my house meant things…weren’t going well. Even candles bothered him.’
Nelios went statue-still, exhaling harshly as thunder rolled across his face. ‘So you were forced to live in the dark when he was unwell? How long were his episodes?’
Yeah, maybe he was right about the indigestion, but even as her stomach roiled she carried on. ‘Sometimes hours. Sometimes days.’
His nostrils thinned as his fury grew. ‘And you were forced to endure this all on your own?’ he seethed.
‘After my mother died, yes. Unfortunately, he only got worse with time…until…you know what happened.’
His eyes narrowed but a layer of tension eased out of him. ‘So it took the bank to make him seek help?’ he asked.
She laughed caustically. ‘The hotel was the only thing he cared about after my mother died, so yes, the threat of having it taken away finally got through to him.’
‘And then Agnes and Tolis entered the picture,’ he concluded.
‘Yes.’
‘And you think, because they purportedly saved you, you should go around saving everyone else?’ he asked, eyebrow raised, and then a hint of regret flashed across his face when she flinched. But he didn’t take it back, nor did she want him to, because there was truth rooted in his statement.
She’d nearly fallen off the edge of a cliff of despair from her inability to help her father. To be worthy enough for him to want to seek help. To be worthy of him, full-stop.
She’d failed. But a Greek couple had shown her she wasn’t entirely worthless. She’d been saved by the very people her husband despised. It didn’t negate her love and gratitude for them, even if she realised they too might have been flawed.
‘Maybe. But it may also be because, while we both know that no one can hurt you like family can, family can also heal you, even if that family isn’t necessarily your blood.’
