Aware his emotions were near to imploding, he reined himself in. Settling back, he stared at her. ‘Fine. Go on, then.’
‘I came back for you—six months later. When I realised I was being put off. Discouraged from asking questions.’
Shock rushed to fill the hollows inside him, then he shook his head. ‘That’s a lie! You never came back.’
She sent him a sad smile. ‘I came, but no one knew what had happened to you. I eventually traced you to a home that had burned down.’ She wept silently, shaking her head in despair. ‘I was so terrified…’ She stumbled to a stop.
Nelios was reeling from the revelation that she’d returned to find him herself. And from a niggling he couldn’t quite pinpoint.
‘So you came for me. And left again. Then what?’
‘Every moment I could spare, I came back to Athens. But you…you seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.’
His lips pursed. ‘Between the authorities, who were very keen to lock me away in another home and throw away the key, and unsavoury characters who preyed on children my age, I was forced to become a master at hiding on the streets.’
She flinched. Her hand darted out, beseeching. He clenched his gut because his feelings were in danger of softening, her pain feeding into his. And he couldn’t afford that.
Then the niggling congealed into a tangible question. ‘You keep saying “I”. Where was Apostolis?’ he demanded.
Tears filled her eyes, and a different hollow opened inside him.
‘Forgive me, Nelios. We… I was always going to tell you when you were older…’
‘Tell me what?’ His voice as sharp as a scalpel digging straight into his heart. Because that heartknewwhat was coming.
Her eyes closed. ‘Apostolis was not your father.’
That stopped him, numbed him from head to heel.
‘What?’
Agnes’s hand twisted in her lap. ‘You were conceived before I met him. I was young, naïve. Your biological father left beforeyou were born. Apostolis had always wanted me and he married me to save my reputation. To give you a name.’
Nelios stared at her. The floor had shifted under him, but still he didn’t move. ‘And he hated me for it.’
‘Not at first, but…’ Her voice cracked. ‘Eventually, he resented how much I loved you. He saw you as a barrier to me loving him. And he…he gave me an ultimatum.’
He swallowed. ‘Say it.’
‘He said it was him or you.’
Silence.
Nelios stepped back as though she’d struck him. ‘And you chose him,’ he whispered.
‘I thought I could fix his relationship with you. That if I kept the marriage intact, he would relent and I could bring you back. But time passed and—he made it impossible. Every time I tried, he reminded me of what I owed him. And I couldn’t stand against him.’
‘Yes,’ he said, voice low and lethal. ‘You were a coward.’
She didn’t argue. ‘Yes, I was.’
The truth settled between them, finally out in the open.
‘You were my mother,’ he said, softer now, but somehow more brutal. ‘You were supposed to fight for me.’
‘I know.’ More tears slid down her cheek, catching the light like glass. ‘And I’ll never forgive myself. But you must know—I loved you, Nelios. I loved you so much. And that’s why he came to hate you. Because you were always mine.
‘A year—that was all I planned to be away from you, regardless of what Lancaster or Tolis wanted. Not…’
