A time that could never return. Had gone forever.
Heaviness pressed on her. Then she blinked. That was then, this was now, and it was the now—the difficult, impossible now—that she was dealing with, had to deal with. She listened while Xander gave his and Dan’s order, and then, because she was clearly still being totally ignored by him, she added her own. A hamburger too. Then she took over sorting her drink and Dan’s. A jug of tap water and a bottle of elderflower juice for her and apple juice for Dan. What Xander wanted to drink, she didn’t give a damn. He ordered a bottled beer.
The waitress, casting one final languishing look at Xander, disappeared. With all her heart, Laurel wished she and Dan could too. But that was impossible. Heaviness pressed on her again.
Xander drew a breath. He was keeping his emotions on a leash so tight he could feel it cutting into his flesh. But it was essential. He could not let them loose. He had to play this very, very carefully. Very gently. His glance went to Dan.
My son—
Emotion stabbed, and he made himself control it. His glance slid sideways to the woman who had kept his son from him for six years, all his young life. Emotion stabbed again. A killing, deadly emotion. He made himself control that too. Not for her sake—for his son’s.
He looked across at Dan again, his expression lightening deliberately. “So, what do you think about your new home?” he said.
Dan looked puzzled. His eyes went to his mother.
“A holiday home,” she qualified. “Your father—” she seemed to hesitate, as if the word choked her, Xander thought with grim anger “—has arranged a holiday for us,” she said brightly. “Out in the countryside. We’ll be staying in a cottage with a big garden and woods behind it. I looked at it online—it looks good!”
“Holiday?” Xander’s growl was a challenge.
She looked directly at him. “For the school Easter holidays, yes,” she said.
“I thought I’d made it clear to you that this was to be permanent.” Xander’s voice was hard.
Laurel looked back at Dan. “If we find we like it, we might decide to live there,” she said brightly again.
Dan looked uncertain, and she went on reassuringly. “Only if you want to, Dan. We’ll always have our own little house, Grandad’s house, if you like that better.”
Xander’s expression tightened. His son would never again live in that cramped terraced house in North London. “You can go to a new school too,” he said, changing tack. “Much nicer than the one you’re at now. It’s got playing fields. Great for football. Do you like football?” he asked.
Dan nodded.
“It’s got a swimming pool too,” Xander said. “Do you like swimming?”
Dan looked uncertain again.
Laurel spoke up. “Dan hasn’t had much chance to do a lot of swimming. Our local pool is two bus rides away.”
Xander felt anger in his throat. That his son should have been deprived of what would have been his birthright, swimming in the Aegean on visits to the beach in the pristine pool he’d enjoyed as a child at the spacious home he himself had grown up in on the well-heeled outskirts of Athens.
“Well, you’ll be able to make up for that now.” He smiled at Dan. “And when you come out to Greece—”
He heard Laurel inhale sharply. He ignored it.
“—you can swim in the sea too.”
Dan looked at him. His expression was more uncertain than eager.
“But that’s for later on,” Xander said temporisingly. He must not overwhelm Dan with too many changes all at once. However much he wanted to transform his life instantly, he had to take it at his son’s pace. Deliberately he changed the subject. “Now, where’s our hamburgers? I’m starving! What about you!” he said lightly.
“Me too,” agreed Dan, expression clearing.
Fortuitously, the waitress was heading towards them with their orders, and Dan’s face brightened. As their burgers were deposited and they got stuck in, Xander felt emotion knife through him.
My first meal with my son—
Had it not been for that fateful glimpse of Laurel that day in the department store, if he hadn’t seen the child at her side, hadn’t had her checked out…
I would never have known he existed—my own son…
