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She opened her eyes, vision blurred by the tears still matting her lashes. Even so, she could see how grave his expression was. How he was retreating behind his shields.

“I didn’t mean to say that,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Alia. Not ever.”

“I know.” She turned her face and pushed at his shoulder. “We should get dressed.”

He drew a pained breath, then carefully withdrew and sat up, running his hand over his face.

“You have to understand,” he said. “My mother has always used those words like sandpaper. As though saying it could smooth out all the nicks and cuts her husband put into us. They don’t mean the same thing to me that they do to you. They sound empty.”

Empty.

It was an icicle pounded straight into her chest that froze her heart so quickly it shattered.

“It’s okay,” she lied. “I’m just feeling…” Lost. Alone. “Scared for Yaya.”

She walked back into the closet and picked up her gown.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Alia hid her agony behind a smile, forcing herself to listen to someone named Molly tell a story about her sister—which did seem amusing, but it wasn’t reaching her funny bone—when Spiro abruptly rose from his seat.

“You’ll have to excuse us. Alia and I must leave.” He tucked his phone into the inside pocket of his jacket and came to help her with her chair.

Her heart plummeted. Her legs turned to water.

“Yaya?” It wasn’t a guess. She knew by the awful look on his face. Her body went numb and her ears filled with a rushing sound.

“An ambulance is on its way to the villa,” he said with quiet care. “I said we’d meet them at the hospital.”

“Oh, Alia. I’m so sorry. I’ll walk you out.” Alexandra rose as well.

Alia didn’t remember anything else, only the sensation of being pulled apart. Of her body being compressed by a great weight. Of feeling as though frayed threads snapped, leaving her unmoored.

A short hour later, a light inside her winked out when Herena slipped away for good.

* * *

Somehow Julian appeared. Somehow arrangements were made for a service. Somehow Alia found herself back on the island, in Yaya’s home again, where repairs had been made and paint touched up and area rugs replaced. Friendly, efficient strangers plumped pillows and swept floors and made beds while neighbors came and went, bringing food and expressing condolences.

In many ways, Alia had been grieving Yaya’s loss for a long time. She had moved through denial and anger a long time ago. She’d even gone through the bargaining phase when she had married Spiro in exchange for that little bit of extra time with her foster mother.

She accepted that it was better for Herena to be free of the shroud that had descended over her. What she couldn’t accept was that losing Yaya made her feel as though she lost her reason for staying married. She had lost Spiro.

“Alia?”

It was Khristos, joining her in the shadow of the house where she was sitting on one of the two wooden chairs that had been here forever, a round table between them. This was where Yaya had always sat to take refuge from the guests and the heat of working in the garden. Weeds had taken over the fallow ground and a few stakes stood tilted in the dry soil. Tufts of oregano and dill and other herbs poking out of clay pots littered here and there.

“Julian and I will leave as soon as he gets back, unless there’s something we can do for you first?” Khristos asked.

“Where did he go?” she asked blankly.

“Returning a dish to the people next door to his parents’ old cottage. He wanted to say goodbye to them.”

“Right.” So many goodbyes. “Where’s Spiro?”

“Talking to Herena’s nephew.”