He never had a chance to dissect it as the doctor came into the room.
‘I have good and bad news,’ he said in Greek, addressing Xander. ‘The arm is broken but it’s a clean fracture.’
‘Will I need an operation?’ Loukas asked.
‘Yes, young man.’
‘But I want to go home.’
‘If we get the operation done today there’s no reason you can’t go home tomorrow.’
Elizabeth was watching this exchange intently, a puzzled look on her face.
‘The doctor says I need an operation,’ Loukas told her forlornly in English.
‘Cool! You’ll get your arm put in plaster and everyone will draw silly pictures on it.’
To Xander’s complete amazement—as if the past ten minutes hadn’t provided enough of it—Loukas cheered up.
The doctor raised his clipboard. ‘The anaesthetist’s on her way. The rest of the team’s ready. We’ll do the operation in around an hour, so shall we get the paperwork signed?’
* * *
Sitting in the family room while Loukas was being operated on was tantamount to torture. All Xander could see was his nephew’s brave little face as the mask that would put him to sleep was placed over him.
He knew it was only a routine operation but Loukas had looked so vulnerable and pale on that theatre bed.
He’d wanted both Xander and Elizabeth there and had made them both promise to be there when he woke up.
It had been Elizabeth’s breeziness about the whole thing that, he was certain, had stopped Loukas’s nerves. Judging by her wan complexion now, it had all been an act put on to stop a little boy’s fears. She was just as worried as he was.
‘Did Loukas tell you what happened?’ he asked quietly.
‘He was hiding.’
‘Who? Loukas?’
‘Yes. His classmates were all playing tag. He didn’t want to play so he hid in the tree.’
‘Why didn’t he just say he didn’t want to play?’
‘He thought they would laugh at him.’
‘He told you this?’
She nodded.
A nurse came in with another coffee for them.
‘Did you have anything to do with this medical centre?’ Elizabeth asked after more slowly turning time had passed.
‘What makes you ask?’
She smiled. ‘The main general ward is called the Trakas Ward, plus in the waiting room there’s a plaque on the wall with your name on it.’
He laughed with as much humour as he could muster. ‘The islanders raised the bulk of the money for the building. I just paid the remainder and gave the cash for the equipment.’
Her eyes widened. ‘All of it?’
He shrugged. ‘Diadonus is my home. My family are fortunate enough to be able to afford any medical intervention we need. The rest of the islanders aren’t so lucky.’
‘Did the rest of your family contribute?’ Elizabeth was awed at his generosity.
‘Yanis and Katerina made a donation.’
‘Your parents?’
He raised a brow that quite clearly said she’d asked a stupid question. ‘My family have lived here for generations but have never contributed to life here. Yanis and I wanted to do things differently. Loukas is the first Trakas child to attend the local school and not to go private. His parents wanted him to have friends on his doorstep and not have to fly hundreds of miles for a play date. We have enormous wealth and it’s time we started putting something back into the place we call home.’
‘How did your parents take the decision to educate him here?’
‘Badly.’
That one word was enough. She’d only met Mirela the once but Elizabeth could well imagine her disdain at her only grandchild being educated with ‘normal’ children. It would have been a huge black mark against Yanis and Katerina’s names.
But it was a welcome reminder that, despite their addictions, Yanis and Katerina loved their son and had done their best for him. She just hoped they both recovered enough to do their best for him in the future too.
If they didn’t...
Well, Xander would always be there for him, loving him as fiercely as if he were his own.
But all this was speculation. They had the court case to get through first. Mirela and Dragan couldn’t win. They couldn’t. If she had to pledge her whole life to stop that happening she would give it gladly.
Elizabeth was so lost in her thoughts that at first she didn’t notice the nurse come back in the room.
She was smiling as she spoke to them.
Xander got to his feet, relief all over his face. ‘The operation’s done and Loukas is in the recovery ward. He’s expected to start waking any moment.’
‘It was a success?’
He nodded. ‘They’re confident.’
She smiled and expelled air she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.
* * *
Xander wished Loukas a good night and closed the bedroom door behind him. The nanny had moved into the next room so she could keep an eye on him throughout the night.
Elizabeth was waiting for him in the corridor.
‘I have a confession to make,’ she blurted.
He studied her exhausted face, wondering what could cause her to look and sound so tense. They’d both spent the night at the hospital with Loukas and the majority of the day there waiting for him to be discharged. He doubted either of them had got more than a couple of hours’ sleep in all. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I pranged your car.’ She sounded so miserable he had to bite back a laugh.
‘Is that all? I thought you were going to tell me something really bad. Are you hurt?’ She didn’t look hurt, only tired. Her gorgeous curls were starting to frizz.
‘It happened when I was driving it back from the hospital.’
He’d driven himself there in his Lotus, doing the return journey with Loukas beside him and Elizabeth following them. Now he thought about it, he remembered losing her and getting back a good ten minutes before her. He’d been so concerned with making sure his nephew was comfortable he’d forgotten all about it.
‘Did you hit another car?’
‘No. But there’s a barrier along the coastline with a fresh dent in it.’ She stared at the ground. ‘The road was really narrow and there was a truck coming towards me. I didn’t think there was enough room for the two of us so I pulled over to let him pass and scraped the barrier.’
‘As long as you’re not hurt, I couldn’t care less.’ Thinking of her hurt or injured...
‘But it was your Porsche.’
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, swallowing back the constriction in his throat. ‘It’s a car and I’m sure it’s repairable. If not, it’s replaceable. You’re not.’
She never had been...
She rested her head against his chest. ‘Will your parents know about Loukas’s arm?’
‘Probably. They seem to know most things. It doesn’t matter. It was an accident.’
‘If they try and twist it I’ll put them straight.’ She said it with such venom he was taken aback.
The events of the past two days had opened up an understanding between his wife and nephew. A bond. Loukas had put aside his fears and opened his heart to her, something Xander knew had taken an enormous amount of courage from the little boy.
And Elizabeth had opened her heart to Loukas, something that had taken an enormous amount of courage from her.
Thinking of his investigator’s report on her, he now considered it with a fresh perspective.
The life she’d lived had, on the surface, been glamorous and filled with friends if not lovers. But all her friends predated their first time on St Francis. Apart from her employees, for whom she clearly retained a deep affection, she hadn’t made a single new true friend in a decade.
Was it possible she hadn’t dated in that time too?
He didn’t know how he felt about that possibility. The reasoning for
it led to too many different avenues, none of which sat comfortably with him.
If she didn’t date, how could she ever be a mother?
They’d spoken of having kids together. Hell, they’d even chosen names for them: Samuel, Giannis, Imogen and Rebecca.
Where had that memory come from? And why did his heart twist with it?
He was comfortable with the idea of never being a father. He had Loukas in his life. That was enough.
‘Do you want to get something to eat?’ he asked, more to break the darkness of his thoughts than out of hunger.
Her chest jerked against his. ‘I’m so tired I’d probably fall asleep in it.’
He drew back to take her face in his hands. ‘What do you say we take a shower together and go to bed? Stay the night with me.’
Xander knew he was being selfish asking this of her but, after the stress of the past two days and the additional stress of the coming day, he didn’t want to be alone with his own thoughts. Elizabeth had a way of soothing the stress so it was more a dull ache than a thudding beat.
Besides, he was sick of them sneaking between the two rooms. They weren’t furtive teenagers. They both knew where they stood with each other. Neither of them would mistake comforting the other through the night with anything more meaningful.
Her amber eyes held his as if she was searching for something. Then a small smile curled her lips and she nodded.
They slept in a tangle of limbs until his alarm clock woke them.
It was time to go to court.
CHAPTER TWELVE
XANDER’S KNUCKLES WERE WHITE.
When Elizabeth met his gaze, she realised it wasn’t nerves causing it but contained anger.
This was a court battle he had no intention of losing.
It was a battle she was determined to help him win.
In the courthouse they were taken to a private hearing room with Xander’s team of lawyers.
His parents were already there with their own team of lawyers.
It was the first time she’d met Dragan, his father. First glances did not inspire optimism.
Like his wife and son, Dragan was impeccably groomed. A little shorter than his wife, he kept himself in good shape and a thick mop of dark hair on his head made him appear younger than his years. It occurred to her that it was too dark and thick to be natural, and she had to bite her cheek not to laugh. It was the only thing she could find to laugh about.
They’d left Loukas behind, a day of watching movies and eating ice cream with Rachael on his agenda, oblivious that his future would be determined that day. If his grandparents won, he would be uprooted from his home and everyone he loved and forced to live, probably permanently, with people he barely knew.
If Xander won, he would soon be able to return to his own home with his father, if not his mother. If Xander won, Loukas would always be able to call his uncle’s home his home too.
Xander’s love for his nephew was not in doubt. It saddened her that he wouldn’t have a child of his own. He would be a brilliant father but he had no intention of making a proper marriage and so had discounted having a child. Just as she had done...
But now was not the time to think of this.
Mirela and Dragan had written a statement. As Xander had predicted when they’d discussed the case, they were portraying themselves as innocent victims who’d been deliberately pushed out of their only grandson’s life by his addicted parents. Their second son, Xander, was an enabler. If he cared about his nephew he would have insisted his brother go into rehab much sooner and it was a sign of his short-sightedness due to his inherently selfish nature that this had only happened when he’d realised his parents weren’t prepared to be bystanders in their grandson’s life any more.
Elizabeth watched Xander’s reaction as this statement was read out. She was quite certain that if she put a pin in him he would explode with rage.
She wanted to explode with rage too. How dared his parents tell such lies?
Then it was time for Xander’s statement. He’d spent hours drafting it and a copy was handed to the judge. Instead of one of his lawyers reading from it, Xander rose to speak for himself, without notes.
He laid the facts out in chronological detail, starting with his and Yanis’s own wretched childhood at the hand of their parents and explaining that it was for this reason Yanis and Katerina had been determined to protect their only child from the influence of two people incapable of showing a child affection. The statement ended with a request for common sense to prevail and a copy of the report from the facility where Yanis was being treated—successfully—was produced for all to read. All being well, Yanis would be home in a month.
His parents had no legal or moral basis to take away a loved child from the people who had cared for him since his birth. If Yanis and Katerina felt they were unable to care for their own child any more, then they should be given the chance to determine who could do so in their absence, just as they’d done in this circumstance when they’d left Loukas in Xander’s care.
‘That only goes to show how the drugs and alcohol have affected their judgement,’ Mirela said. ‘Our youngest son is an exceptional businessman, we concede that, but he doesn’t know the first thing about raising a child. He’s a pleasure seeker, a sex addict who has brought shame and scandal on the Trakas name, just as his brother has with his substance addiction. Children need two parents. My daughter-in-law is very ill; Yanis is not fit to care for Loukas on his own. The wife Xander has produced is a stooge, brought here so you forget he’s not fit to raise a child—if you allow Xander to continue his guardianship, she will disappear as soon as the paperwork is signed.’
The lawyer to Elizabeth’s left, who was translating for her, explained what she’d said.
She clenched her hands into fists, her brain burning.
If she weren’t in a courthouse she might very well launch herself at Mirela and scratch her face.
‘Am I allowed to say something?’ she asked.
The lawyer asked the judge, who nodded her consent.
Speaking slowly so her words could be translated, Elizabeth said, ‘Forgive me my lack of preparation but I didn’t expect to speak today.’
The judge nodded her understanding.
‘My husband is not the man the papers have portrayed him to be. Even if he was, it doesn’t affect his relationship with his nephew. Loukas adores him and respects his authority over him. Xander is his one constant. He’s comfortable and happy with him, but he doesn’t know his grandparents. They’re strangers to him...’
‘Strangers because Yanis has never let us be in his life!’ Dragan interjected heatedly.
‘And that’s because Yanis doesn’t want his son under your influence.’ She focused on staying calm, knowing if she were to raise her voice any valid points the judge might think she was making would be nullified. ‘Yanis has addictions, there’s no disputing that, but it’s hardly surprising when you consider he never felt you, his parents, loved him and that to receive your approval he had to marry a woman he didn’t love when he was twenty.
‘The only reason Xander hasn’t turned out the same is because he watched his brother go through it first and determined not to be like him. To do that he had to defy you and all the plans you’d made for him, and you have never forgiven him for that, and you’ve never forgiven him for taking control of the business from you, and you’ve never forgiven Yanis for raising his son differently from how you think he should be raised. Because that’s what this is about, surely? Revenge on your sons. If it was about what’s best for Loukas we wouldn’t be sitting here.’
Now she looked directly at the judge. ‘I don’t know if Yanis will stay clean from his addictions and I don’t know if Katerina will recover, but I do know that Xander will be there for them both and, most importantly, he will love and care for Loukas as if he were his own.’
Although there were thousands more words she wanted to say, Elizabeth figured she’d gone far eno
ugh. She could feel Xander’s eyes boring into her but didn’t dare look at him. Would he be angry with her for speaking out? She couldn’t have kept her mouth shut a moment longer if she’d tried.
The rest of the hearing flew by until they were excused by the judge and filed out while she contemplated her judgement.
‘Let’s get something to eat,’ Xander said in an undertone that, she was relieved to note, didn’t sound angry. If anything he sounded pleased.
As soon as they were outside the courthouse, he grabbed hold of her and kissed her, a huge passionate kiss that took her by such surprise she clung to the lapels of his jacket to stay upright.
‘You are brilliant,’ he said when he finally unlocked his mouth from hers.
‘You’re not angry with me?’
He shook his head, incredulity in his eyes. ‘Elizabeth... What you said...’
‘All I said was the truth, as I see it.’
He kissed her again then led her to a cramped restaurant around the corner from the courthouse. No sooner had they been shown to a table when his parents strolled in. They took one look at him and Elizabeth and walked straight back out.
‘I think you were right that this is all about revenge,’ he said after they’d ordered.
‘Having met your mother, it was the only thing that made sense to me. You refused to do as they wanted when you reached adulthood and wrested control of their own company from them.’
He’d told her the story of the deal he’d made with them for control of the business while Loukas had been sleeping in the hospital.
‘They taught me too well.’
‘When this is over, you should make your peace with them,’ she said softly.
That killed his good mood. ‘To find peace one has to acquire forgiveness. They don’t deserve that.’
Her gaze was steady on his. ‘Maybe not, but hasn’t there been enough revenge and punishment within your family?’
His parents had neglected their sons, forced Yanis into a loveless marriage and played a part in Ana’s state of mind before her death. Who could forgive that?
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