A Shameful Consequence(33)

‘I doubt they welcome babies.’ She could be as sarcastic as Nico when she chose to be.

‘So,’ Nico said, ‘Despina stays. And you will not offend my housekeeper dragging a mop around yourself or folding sheets. You are to rest, to relax, recover from the birth and then …’ Black eyes met hers but thankfully he did not complete what he was saying, stuck to his promise that for now any difficult topics were on hold, but it was all there in his eyes, and it was there, too, in the knot deep in her stomach. She was terrified of his reaction, not just to fatherhood but when he found out what her father had done. ‘For now,’ Nico said, ‘we eat.’

It was the dinner she had dreamed of.

Every night as she’d made Henry’s stew and mashed potato and then sat down much later to the same meal for herself, she had wished for this.

Slivers of lamb tossed in tzatziki, and a salad of thick slices of tomato drizzled in Xanos’s olive oil, and surely there were no better olives? Connie closed her eyes as she bit into one, could taste the lemon and garlic they had been marinated in. It was a simple dinner, but completely the tastes she had grown up on and Nico watched as she relished each bite.

‘What?’ She blushed as she caught him watching her.

‘It’s good to see you enjoying it.’ He poured himself a glass of wine, but when he offered, Connie shook her head.

‘No, thanks.’ She took a drink of water and relished it. ‘The water is so much fresher and softer here. I am enjoying my dinner,’ she admitted, and then she admitted a little more. ‘It’s not what I thought it would be. I mean, even as we flew in, I assumed we’d be going to the newer homes, or perhaps to the hotel.’

A year ago, they would have been.

Even a few months ago, that would have been the case.

But after employing the elderly couple to sort out the chaos of the neglected old house, on each trip back to Xanos, when he needed to go through papers, to make calls and go through records, though initially he had stayed at Ravels, each time he had visited he had stopped by at the house. He stayed for dinner when Despina suggested it, then dinner had stretched to staying a night now and then, and now it had been weeks since he had graced Ravels.

‘It is more private here,’ Nico said, but did not offer more. Did not tell her the unexpected pleasure in choosing wine for this dinner tonight, rather than ringing down. The pleasure of books still placed where he had left them, and a lounge by the French windows that looked out to a view that was now familiar in its detail.

‘Here I get to think,’ Nico admitted, ‘and there is a lot to think about.’ He was hesitant, not used to wanting to speak about things, and he had shared this with no one. But somehow here with her and away from it all, Nico did relent and told her about his searching. ‘I don’t know where to look next.’ He stabbed his fork into his dinner. ‘How can I look for a birth record, when I don’t even know my name?’

‘You can’t,’ she said slowly, trying to hide the fear as to her family’s part in this, trying to pretend that she didn’t already know.

‘After the wedding I walked around,’ Nico said. ‘I knew the streets … but I could not know them …’ The bewildered frown on his face was completely out of place because even his forehead seemed to struggle to create the lines. Nico Eliades was a man who always knew the answers, always had things worked out. This, though, he still had not. ‘Of course I can get nothing out of my parents. I have stopped asking for now. I figure if we are at least talking, maybe one day they will tell me.’

For the first time she saw it from his side. She’d seen it from her family’s, had seen it from her own view-point—his wrath aimed at her when he found out the truth. But now she sat and saw it from his—the agony of knowing, and not having it confirmed.

‘Nico …’ She opened her mouth, but she did not know to broach it, how to say it.

‘Leave it,’ he said, because he was tired from it all. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

He did. He walked the beach and back, and then he did it again, did not want to go to a bed that was empty and to the dream of what was waiting for him. He thought of her there in the house, and didn’t like the comfort it brought, for he knew it could not last for long. He could hear the baby crying as he returned much later, saw her standing in the kitchen in a skimpy nightdress, waiting for a bottle to warm.

She turned and said nothing, guilt in her soul and trouble in her heart, because she could see the wretchedness inside him.