by Lucy Monroe
That was a good question. When was the last time Polly had even tried to stand up to the mother-in-law from hell? Before they’d moved to this house, before the birth of her daughter. Once Polly had realized just how little positive motivation lay behind Athena’s machinations and how incredibly blind to that truth Alexandros was, Polly had shifted to oblique maneuvers to avoid rather than confront what she saw as something that could not be changed.
So why confront now?
Was it that watch this space from her husband that had felt so much like a promise?
Or was it simply that Polly was fed up?
“I have said what I needed to say to both of you.” Polly encompassed both her husband and her mother-in-law with a look that Helena could have told them meant Mommy wasn’t joking around here.
Then Polly turned to go inside and find the rest of their guests.
Stacia was pacing restlessly outside the drawing room from which the sounds of the movie could be heard. “Oh, Polly, there you are. Is my mother ready to go?”
“I do not know.”
“Well, I am. This coming to the country once a week is so inconvenient. I do not know why you had to go and convince Alexandros to change our family’s traditional weekly get-together.” Stacia gave Polly a less than pleasant look.
Polly just shook her head. “Alexandros already told you. The change was his idea, but you know something, Stacia? I’m just wondering, when are you going to stop sniping at me? Your brother and I are married, we are staying married and acting like a spiteful cat all the time isn’t going to change that.”
“He deserves better than you, and he only stayed married to you because of Helena.”
“I didn’t even get pregnant with Helena until after we’d been married a year. I don’t know how you worked that one out.”
“He was going to leave you. The move to this house was just the first step, but then you had Helena and he couldn’t leave. A Greek man doesn’t leave his children.”
“An honorable Greek man does not leave his wife, or his children,” Alexandros inserted into the conversation. “I have no idea where you got the idea that us moving to this house was in some way an indication I was finished with my marriage.”
Polly met her mother-in-law’s cool gaze. “I bet I can guess.”
It was Alexandros’s turn to shake his head. “This entire conversation is distasteful to me, and after my warning earlier I wonder, Stacia, how you thought you would get away with staging it.”
“I don’t think she can help herself,” Polly offered. “Sniping at me has become so ingrained in her behavior, I don’t think she knows how to react to me like an equal.”
Alexandros made a sound of disgust. “That is not acceptable to me.”
“You never cared before. I don’t understand why you’re acting like the fact your wife and I don’t like each other matters to you now.” Stacia’s petulant attitude wasn’t going to do her any favors with the man who was already angry.
Didn’t his sister realize that?
He turned to Athena. “It is time you and Stacia left. Next week, do not bring her with you. She is no longer welcome in my home and I have paid the last installment of her allowance that she will receive from me.”
“You can’t do that!” Stacia screeched. “You’re the head of this family. I am your responsibility.”
“And if you ever manage to find someone willing to marry a shrew, I will pay for the wedding, but I’m done financially supporting a woman who treats my wife with such a lack of respect.”
“I’ll sue you!” she shouted.
“On what grounds?”
“Father left the company to you so you could take care of the rest of us.”
“Father left each of us, including our mother, monetary assets as well as shares in the company. The fact that you ran through the lump sum you were awarded already is not my problem. The fact you cannot access your shares or the income from them until you are thirty is something you have to take up with your trustees.”
“Of which you are one!”
“And not one who is going to argue for early dispersal,” he said with freezing calm.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Stacia, you are twenty-six years old, you have a university degree. Get a job,” Polly told her sister-in-law.
“Just because your family is happy to grub for a living, doesn’t mean I’m going to stoop to doing so,” Stacia seethed. She glared at her brother. “I will sue you. You just wait.”
“You will not cause that kind of scandal, Stacia.” Athena only despised one thing more than her daughter-in-law. Scandal. “Your brother gave you clear warning, and now you are paying the price for not listening. Perhaps if you apologized politely to Anna, Alexandros would see clear to continuing your allowance.”
Polly bit her lip, because she had no doubt that an apology would not cut it.
Once Alexandros got to a certain point, he was immovable. Unfortunately for Stacia, she had not realized that he’d reached that place before he’d issued the warning before lunch.
“I’m very sorry if something I said might have offended you,” Stacia said to Polly with one of the volte-faces Polly had grown accustomed to over the years.
Stacia could be in the middle of a spite-filled rant at Polly and turn up all smiles as soon as Alexandros was within hearing distance.
“You offended me,” Alexandros made clear. “Your words were meant to hurt my wife and your apology is not accepted. It is time for you to leave.”
Both Stacia and Athena objected then, but Alexandros would not be moved. Petros came out, closing the door to the drawing room behind him. “What is going on? You are making so much noise, I could hear you over the movie.”
Polly went toward the door, needing to make sure Helena wasn’t upset by the altercation in the hall, but Petros put his hand up to stop her. “She’s fine, totally enthralled by her warrior princess and singing along. How does she know all the words?”
“She’s got her father’s memory.” And Helena had seen the movie multiple times.
With Polly. She could sing all the words too and would rather be doing that right now than arguing with Athena and Stacia. Not that Polly was arguing at all. She’d just been trying get calmer heads to prevail. No such luck though.
Alexandros was in pure head-of-the-family, my-word-is-law mode and his mother and sister, unused to him telling them no about anything were in screeching, this-can’t-be-happening mode.
Athena and Stacia tripped all over each other to tell Petros what was happening, both women somehow managing to make it sound like Polly had started it all, when in fact she had started nothing. Alexandros took immediate exception to the implications and the argument raged again.
Polly looked longingly at the closed door.
At one point, Athena said, “If you ban Stacia from family lunches I will not feel I can come either.”
“You will have to do as you think best,” Alexandros replied without hesitation, shocking everyone, including Polly.
She stared at her husband, feeling like he’d been taken over by aliens. Since when did he do or say anything that would upset his mother? Okay, today. But it had been a first.
Not fulfill the family tradition of the weekly get-together? That was simply not possible.
“Alexandros—” Petros started, his tone conciliatory.
But Polly’s furious husband cut in before his brother could say anything more. “What, Petros? Would you allow either of them to speak to, or about, your wife the way they’ve been with Pollyanna?”
Petros’s mouth snapped shut and then he shook his head decisively. “No, I would not.”
“Corrina is everything a wife should be,” Stacia said with umbrage. “She’s beautiful, has been educated at the best schools. She’s Greek, from a good family and she has her ow
n fortune.”
“While I am none of those things and come from a middle-class American family,” Polly said with no shame. Because she was not and never had been embarrassed about her upbringing.
Her parents were good people. Her siblings were amazing, and not one of them would ever treat someone the way Stacia and Athena had since the first day Polly had stepped foot in Greece.
Polly had been all set to be the best daughter-in-law she could. She’d had all the sympathy in the world for a woman who had lost so many important people in her own life in too few years, but Athena had not wanted an American upstart as part of her family. And she’d made sure Polly knew it.
Stacia’s jealousy and spite had only added to Polly’s discomfort.
“You are beautiful. You are educated,” Alexandros said to her now. “You are American, but have adapted amazingly well to living in my home country and I don’t need you to have a fortune to know that mine has never been much of a draw to you.”
Polly’s eyes filled with tears. Darn pregnancy hormones. “I just wanted you.”
“And I only wanted you. I don’t need a wife with a pedigree. I need you.”
She’d always had something that outstripped a pedigree for him. Her body. He could not resist her and the feeling was mutual. It might not be the love she’d believed she’d had when she got married, but it wasn’t anything to dismiss either. The kind of passion they shared was rare and very precious.
Both her sisters were deeply in love with their husbands and loved in return, but both had shared with Polly that their sex lives were adequate. While hers? Was spectacular. And she didn’t dismiss that as nothing of importance.
“I need you too,” she said in a wobbly voice.
He jerked his head, like her words had touched a live wire inside him. Then he pulled Polly into his arms and against his chest. “Petros, please escort Mama and Stacia out to the helicopter.”
Simply ignoring his mother’s and sister’s continued protests, Alexandros guided Polly into the drawing room, settling them both on the sofa with their daughter and even contriving to sing along to some of the songs with Polly and Helena.
As if the big argument had not happened.
Polly paused just inside the drawing room. “You might consider giving them a break.”
“What?” He stared down at her like she was the one who was acting out of character.
“Your mom and sister are used to getting their way. Maybe give them a chance to adjust to the new family normal before you ban them from family lunch and stop giving your sister an allowance.”
“You told her to get a job,” he reminded her.
“Honestly? It would do her good, but I think you could ease into it. Give her a month to find something she’s willing to lower herself to do. You know?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And your mom?”
“Made her own choice about not coming for the family luncheon.”
Polly couldn’t deny that. “But if she changes her mind?”
“I will welcome her to my home as always.”
Petros and Corrina stayed the night, flying back into Athens with Alexandros the next morning.
Polly found her more relaxed schedule a lot more pleasant than she’d expected it to be, and she loved having as much time as she wanted to play with Helena.
When her daughter went down for her nap after lunch, Polly relaxed with a book. She didn’t remember the last time she’d been able to read just because she wanted to.
Curled up in her favorite lounge chair in her room, she was surprised when the door opened.
Beryl was attending a meeting on Polly’s behest and Dora had already left for the day. Of course, any one of the other servants could have decided they needed to talk to Polly about something, but she was rarely interrupted when she was in her sanctuary.
She looked up, waiting to see who needed her and was startled at the sight of her husband.
“I didn’t hear the helicopter.” Had he told her he was coming home early?
She didn’t remember him doing so.
He looked at the book in her hand. “When you are lost in a book, a bomb could go off and I am not sure you would notice.”
“I haven’t gotten to really enjoy a good read in so long, I guess I forgot.” She cast a quick glance at the baby monitor, relieved to see the lights indicated her daughter was still sleeping. “I’ll have to rethink reading while Helena is napping if I didn’t hear the helicopter.”
“I’m sure our daughter’s voice would penetrate. Your mother instincts are too strong for it not to.” Alexandros looked around the room like he’d never been in there before. Maybe he never had.
It was her sanctuary, but she never came to this room in the evenings when he was home.
“You’ve put your mark on this room.”
“I redecorated it when I did the nursery.”
“You never said.”
“You never said I couldn’t.”
“Of course you could. This is your home. You could redecorate the entire villa if you wanted to.”
She shrugged. “I spend my time in here and in the nursery. I don’t need to redecorate anywhere else.”
“That my wife, who spends more time here than anywhere else, restricts her living to a few hundred square feet of thousands does not speak well of your comfort in your home.”
He was just now noticing? But she smiled. “I use the pool. And the dining room of course, and the breakfast nook.” She preferred the smaller sunny room, even if the decor was just as generically modern as the rest. “And the terrace. Helena and I spend a lot of time on the terrace.” She’d had a play structure installed at one end for her daughter and her daughter’s friends to use when she hosted the playgroup.
“I noticed you don’t use the media room for watching movies with Helena.”
“It’s too much. We’ve used it to host a movie afternoon for her playgroup.” The parents had been impressed, but the littles hadn’t found the theater style seating as comfortable as piles of pillows on the floor of the still admittedly formal drawing room.
Instead of looking happier at her list of the places in the villa that Polly and Helena used, her husband’s face took on a pained expression. “It’s your home. You should feel comfortable everywhere.”
“Childproofing rooms that were decorated with a then childless billionaire in mind hardly seems worth it when Helena and I are perfectly content to use the areas best suited to her needs.”
“I never considered the childproofing aspect.” He frowned. “You said it was decorated with me in mind, not you.”
“Obviously.” Polly would never have gone for all the marble and neutral shades. And knowing she was pregnant, though not having shared the news yet at the time with him, she would never have put so many expensive objets d’art on display where tiny fingers could reach them.
He winced. “It is your home,” he reiterated. “It should reflect your taste.”
“That is not what you said when we moved in.” He’d been livid she hadn’t appreciated his effort in hiring a popular interior design firm to do the entire house at great cost.
“Perhaps I’ve learned something in three years.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” She’d gotten used to living in a mansion that felt like a high-end hotel.
“The existence of this room says otherwise.”
“I wanted a place that felt like home.”
“And the other ten thousand square feet of the villa?”
“Feels like one of Zephyr and Neo’s hotels.” The property developer duo didn’t socialize as much as others in their position. Both were firm family men with lovely wives that had befriended Polly her first year in Greece.
The friendship had come as a double-edged sword. P
olly loved spending time with the Stamos and Nikos families, but seeing the devoted husbands and fathers that both Zephyr and Neo made was hard when her own billionaire didn’t seem to get how to manage that feat.
She couldn’t just dismiss his neglect and business-oriented priorities as the necessary challenges of a man in his position when she saw others who handled their family lives differently.
Even now she clung to the consolation that Zephyr and Neo had a very different background from Alexandros, and neither had a snooty family to pacify.
Displeasure creased Alexandros’s handsome features. “In other words, transitory.”
She’d never thought of it that way, but maybe he was right. “Maybe.”
“Our marriage is not temporary.”
“Your mother and sister both wish otherwise,” Polly acknowledged wryly.
It was something she would have not have said even before yesterday, but he had stood up for her in a way he never had and she felt some of the confidence she’d had early in their marriage returning.
The grim set of his lips said he got her point. “I should have set them straight about the way they treat you a long time ago.”
“If you had, it’s probable that the schism that happened yesterday wouldn’t have.” Polly might have understood some of Alexandros’s attitude in the beginning of their marriage when his family was still mired in grief, but that didn’t change the truth. “They both got used to saying whatever they wanted to, and about, me. Neither took you seriously when you warned Stacia to watch her tongue yesterday.”
“But you did?” he asked.
She had, as shocking as she’d found his late in the game championship of his wife. “I know that look you get when you will not be moved, and you had it.”
“And yet my mother and sister, who have known me since my birth and hers respectively, did not recognize this look?”
“Maybe they’ve never seen it before. Your usual policy with them is to give them what they want.” He’d once told her he expected peace on the domestic front.
And he’d shown her that the way he ensured it was to give his mother what she wanted like a good son, and to spoil his sister because that was what everyone in that family expected of him toward Stacia.