A Shameful Consequence(35)

‘What time are the fireworks tonight?’ She looked up from the jigsaw and he saw how much more readily she smiled these days.

‘Fireworks?’ Nico frowned.

‘Well, it’s morning in Australia,’ she pointed out, because just as night fell here, Nico would head out to the garden with his phone. Just as Australia’s working morning struck, so, too, did Nico, placing angry calls to the developer, furious at the lack of response to his questions and offers, clearly not used to being ignored or not getting his way. ‘I want the jetty to be mine,’ Nico said. ‘It belongs to the next block of land. But I’ll just have to go on wanting. He’s knocked back my offer. I refuse to call again.’

‘Till next time.’ Connie grinned, and then it faded. ‘I’ve got a difficult phone call to make, too. Not tonight,’ she added, as they naturally moved from the table to the lounge. How much more comfortable she felt to sit beside him now. She looked out at the sea and thought for a quiet moment before speaking. ‘But I have been putting it off.’

‘To your parents?’ Nico asked, but Connie shook her head.

Until she had sorted things with Nico, she could not stand to talk with them. She was injured, too, on behalf of Leo, the grandson they had made no effort to contact. ‘I want to know how Stavros is.’

‘Why?’ Nico asked.

‘Because,’ Connie answered, ‘I worry about him—I want to know how things are going …’

‘After the way he treated you?’ Nico shook his head. ‘Why would you care for someone who hurt you?’

‘It wasn’t all his fault.’

‘His part in it was, though,’ Nico pointed out. ‘He chose not to tell you the truth, he chose to deceive you.’ He made a slicing gesture to his throat. ‘Gone!’

‘Just like that?’ Connie challenged, and she wasn’t defending Stavros, more she was defending herself. ‘Sometimes things are more complicated—’

‘Not really,’ Nico interrupted. ‘He lied to you, and in my book that means you don’t have to worry about him any more.’ He flicked his hand and said it again. ‘Gone.’

She didn’t like this conversation, didn’t like learning the rules of relationships according to Nico, painfully aware that very soon it might be she who was gone, dismissed with a flick of his hand, for not telling what she knew.

‘Anyway, let’s not talk about it now,’ Nico said, because tonight he could not accept just wanting. ‘Let’s just enjoy tonight.’ And it wasn’t what he said, more the way he said it that brought something back, that had her remember there was so much more to this man. He turned to face her on the sofa and smiled a smile she had seen before. With just one look he could melt her worries, with the merest lilt to his voice it was only them in the world. He leant over to pour her some wine, but she put her hand over the glass.

‘Not for me, thanks.’

She couldn’t quite work out what had happened, how the sofa had suddenly become the most dangerous place in the house.

‘I’m going to bed. I’ll just clear the bench.’ She stood because Nico was stretching out on the sofa.

‘Leave it,’ Nico said. ‘Despina will do it in the morning.’

She laughed, for the first time in … she honestly could not remember how long, possibly a year, but for the first time in ages Connie threw her head back and laughed. ‘You were almost perfect there,’ Connie explained. ‘I thought you were going to clear it yourself.’

‘Why would I?’ The thought had never entered his head and she watched as he stretched out fully, and somehow she wanted to join him, to look out toward the darkened sea, to talk and, yes, perhaps laugh again, and maybe something more. ‘Goodnight, Constantine.’

‘Connie,’ she corrected him, as she did so often, but Nico shook his head.

‘Not to me.’ She turned to walk toward the bedroom and his voice followed her. ‘And by the way, I am.’

‘Am what?’ It came back to her then—a something that made her dare not turn around, and she stood holding her breath in the hallway, closing her eyes as she heard his response.

‘Perfect.’

She walked to her bedroom, checked Leo and then climbed into bed, trying not to think about the something that had happened, but it was rippling through her body like a tide with no return. A mother, yes, she would always be a mother, but the wave was growing stronger, dousing her, as the woman she also was returned.