by Caro LaFever
As if he heard her thoughts and wanted only to confirm them, he handed the baby back to its mother with a twitchy, hurried motion.
Then, he turned.To look at her.
The performance was about to begin. She knew she’d fail. She wasn’t an actress. She couldn’t pretend to like this man, much less love him.
But what choice did she have?
All of the dozen or so Greeks surrounding him turned to stare at her.
Her skin turned to ice and her muscles turned to glass. The play began whether she wanted it to or not.
“Éla edó.” His words might be foreign, but his intent was clear. He waved at her, a flash of irritation crossing his face when she didn’t immediately move.
She couldn’t move. Frozen flesh did not move.
So they moved to her.
A wave of humanity surrounded Natalie in seconds. Pats on her shoulder and back, laughing smiles, loud, happy voices ringing in her ears. A short, stout woman, who looked to be a hundred years old, pushed her way through the crowd and without a moment of hesitation, engulfed her in a tight, loving embrace. “Kaló̱s í̱lthate , kaló̱s í̱lthate.”
“She says welcome.” A young teenager smiled through her braces. “Giagiá doesn’t speak much English, but most of the rest of us do.”
The old lady tightened her grip. The wiry, gray hair at the top of her head brushed Natalie’s chin and she abruptly realized: she stood out in this crowd as much as Zenos did.
Tall, blond, uptight.
“Den si̱maínei gia esás agnooún, Natalie. Eímaste óloi synklonisménoi aplá na dei ton Aetos metá dekaeptá chrónia.” The older woman cuddled into Nat’s arms.
“She’s apologizing for ignoring you,” the helpful teenager said. “We’re just a bit excited to see Aetos after all this time.”
The old lady lifted her head and smiled. Rough, gnarled hands slid across Nat’s cheeks and a coo of delight came from the withered mouth.
“This is actually the first time I’ve ever met him,” the chatty teenager continued.
The girl looked to be sixteen. The first time?
“He’s been busy.” An older man, mustachioed, with dark eyes flashing, wagged a finger in reproof. “Making his fortune.”
The old lady patted Nat’s cheek as her wise black eyes gleamed.
“A fortune he shares with all of us,” piped in the young woman who held a now squirming baby in her arms.
Surprise, surprise. Apparently, Zenos did have at least some connection to this tribe. Some degree of loyalty.
“Seventeen years is far too long for anyone to be away from family.” The blunt statement came from another older lady. She frowned, a dark wedge of brow emphasizing the long blade of her nose.
Suddenly, Nat detected one lone family trait Aetos Zenos shared with his relatives.
The family nose.
Following rapidly behind, came the words the older woman had said.
Seventeen years.
Seventeen years?
She must have tensed because the old lady in her arms patted her cheek again and tut-tutted in wordless comfort. Yet it wasn’t Natalie Globenko who needed comfort, it was this family. Who appeared to have been deserted by a family member in every way except for money. It seemed as if he genuinely thought money was the same as love. Or even worse, he thought money was more important than love. More important than kin.
Like her father.
“He has returned.” Another older man nodded in sage wisdom. “Returned to the Kourkoulos clan as we knew he would eventually.”
A chorus of Greek agreement swirled around the room.
Kourkoulos? Not Zenos? This must be his mother’s family. Where was his father? His father’s family?
A thousand and one questions pinged in her brain. Nat assured herself it was merely her natural journalistic curiosity raising its head one more time. This was not about falling instantly in love with this gregarious group. This was certainly not about any need to know what made Aetos Zenos tick.
She was playing a part. Playing his game. Nothing more.
Glancing over the dark heads, she caught his gaze. She wanted to reach out and ask questions, demand answers, and more than anything, tell him he had such a treasure here in this loving family. But it wasn’t her place, it wasn’t her part.
Without acknowledging any of them, he walked away.
Leaving her with his family.
Chapter 7
“Epézi̱se apó ti̱ cheirourgikí̱ epémvasi̱ . I̱ prógno̱si̱ eínai kalí̱.”
His grandfather had survived the surgery. The prognosis was good.
The prognosis was unexpected.
For a moment, Aetos let the surgeon’s words sink into his skin, into his muscles, into his gut. For a moment, he nearly thought he’d stagger.
For a moment.
The light-green eyes of the female surgeon stared at him as if she expected more reaction. Some yell of relief or sob of gratitude. Or perhaps she expected him to clap or jump or even hug her.
She waited in vain. None of those responses were part of him now. Or even in the distant past.
“Ef̱charistoúme.” His thanks were gruff and stilted. It was the best he could do.
The surgeon’s dark brows rose and then fell into a frown. “Oi epómenes eíkosi tésseris ó̱res tha eínai krísimes.”
The next twenty-four hours. Critical.
His pappoús was not out of the woods yet.
The chug of fear twisted in his stomach. He blanked his mind, froze his jaw.
She continued, her frown deepening, annoyance flashing in her eyes. “Tha í̱tan kaló an í̱tan episkéfthi̱kan tous agapi̱ménous tous. Míli̱se akómi̱ kai an eínai narko̱ménos.”
Family should be with his grandfather, talking to him and loving him, she explained. Bringing him back from the brink of death. But the gaze of the surgeon said it all. She didn’t think Aetos Zenos was capable of doing this. He might have found her in England and called her back to her homeland as a result of her being regarded as the best. Might have paid her an enormous sum to come and operate. However, in the critical art of loving someone back to life, she clearly thought he fell short.
She was right. Exactly right.
“Thélete mou na symvouléf̱sei ti̱n oikogéneiá sas apó af̱tó?” Her question ricocheted in his gut. The slight edge of contempt and hostility frosted his skin.
Immediately, anger welled to heat away his frozen concentration. He might not be able to love, but he was capable of informing his family of his grandfather’s condition without this surgeon’s help.
At his gruff response, her eyes widened. Next, she jerked around and strode down the hospital hallway in an offended snit. Which reminded him of another woman who held much the same opinion of his manners.
The mágissa.
The woman who was currently in the waiting room down the hall, weaving her spell over his emotionally fragile family. For the last eleven hours, as they waited for the surgeon’s arrival and then news of the surgery, she’d been there in the midst of them. Not shying away or walking away or running away.
Not like him.
Aetos stuffed his hands in his pockets because they were shaking. He suddenly noticed the slight shivers coursing through his body. Stiffening his entire form did no good. The shivers became worse.
He took a deep breath.
The smell of antiseptic filled his mouth and nostrils, calming him.
He’d been busy with other things. More important things than comforting his kin. Things like getting the best damn heart surgeon to operate on his grandfather. Things like arranging for the caterer to come in with warm food and cool drinks for the waiting family.
Two nurses walked by, the squish-squish of their shoes echoing in the deserted hall of the critical care unit. The best critical care unit in southern Europe.
Another thing he’d done while his relatives wept and she dared to judge him. While his plane had zipped across the
sea, he’d spent hours finding out what was the best medical clinic for heart surgery. He’d arranged for his grandfather’s transfer from the small hospital in their hometown to this internationally known clinic.
He didn’t care what the surgeon thought. What the witch thought. What anyone thought.
The nurses passed. Preened at him. Batted their eyelashes.
Nothing, as always. Nothing. Women’s wiles were useless with him.
The knowledge chimed in him. A deep chord of surety, of safety.
He could not be touched by anyone.
He’d done what was essential for his grandfather. Anything else was superfluous. Let her take care of the excessive emotions. Ultimately, she owed him and his family, and it wouldn’t be for much longer. No more than a few hours and she could also walk away.
Just like him.
Aetos straightened and took a step towards his grandfather’s room. This would be simple. He would look in on his grandfather and assess his condition. After that, he would go down to his waiting family and announce the news.
Then, he would go back to America with the witch by his side.
And then. Then he would get rid of her using his money. As he did with everyone else who dared to impinge on his life.
The door was closed. He stared blankly at the solid gray barrier blocking his path.
The shivers returned with a vengeance.
The woman had wormed her way into his family’s hearts. She’d patted the babies’ backs until they slept in her arms. She’d chatted with his nieces until they forgot where they were and laughed and joked instead of cried. She’d teased his uncles and hugged his aunts.
More importantly, she’d held his giagiá’s hand while she wept and eventually, slept.
He should be relieved she was performing well. He should be thankful she was taking on his family and their scattered, overwhelming reactions to the current situation and dealing with them so he didn’t have to.
Instead, the only emotion he felt was a simmering jealousy. A bitter, gushing roar of fury.
Which made no sense.
Aetos was not in the habit of contemplating his emotions. In fact, he knew himself incapable of figuring out anything about his heart or soul. Kólasi̱, he didn’t have a heart or soul. Those had been stolen from him a long time ago and frankly, he’d come to the realization this had been a gift.
He didn’t want to feel. Ever again.
So why the hell was he standing here contemplating…?
Twisting his cufflinks so the face of the lone eagle pointed toward his hands, he switched his focus to what was important. He needed to go in. Look at his mother’s father for the first time in seventeen years. Look at what the years had done to him. What his grandson’s absence had done to him. What his heart attack had done to him.
He couldn’t seem to move. Except for the shivers.
“What is it?” The witch’s whispered words wrapped around him like a charm. A curse. “What’s happened?”
Before he could stop himself, he glanced over into her eyes. A dark, deep velvet well of amethyst calling to him, pulling him down and down into her allure. Nothing, his non-existent soul said, you feel nothing. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” One of her finely-drawn, blonde brows rose. “You look like you’re about to fall over and you say it’s nothing?”
Stuffing his shaking hands into his pockets once more, he blanked his mind. “He survived the surgery.”
Her violet eyes deepened, sparks of gold shone in them as relief flashed across her face. “That’s wonderful.”
Joy? That was certainly joy in her expression. She didn’t know his grandfather. Yet she felt joy at this news. A coil of distrust entwined with his inexplicable rage. And the string of ongoing, unwanted, incomprehensible fear tightened around his gut, making it hard for him to breathe.
“What?” The mágissa, damn her, sensed what was going on inside him. Her gaze turned wary. “What else?”
“Nothing else,” he managed. “The surgeon said his prognosis is good.”
“Well.” She stared at him. The penetration of her look sliced like a sharp, steel claw right to the core of his dark, forgotten soul. “Well then, what’s wrong?”
“Noth—”
“With you?”
The two words stung and burned.
No one in his life asked this question of him.
Ever.
His employees would never question if anything was wrong with him. There was never anything wrong. He always made the right decisions, always made the right moves. They would find it absurd to wonder whether Aetos Zenos was hurting or scared.
The women who strutted through his life were never interested in him. They were interested in his money. In his power. In getting into his bed. Never once, he was positive, had any of them thought about what went on inside his brain or heart.
His family took his money and loved him for it. They never crossed the line into the personal. Nai, his giagiá worried about his eating habits, his sleeping habits. She wondered about his home life and occasionally asked about his business. But she’d never dared to ask about his soul.
The touch of the witch’s soft hand on his forearm tightened every muscle in his body. The brush of her long fingers flamed straight into the dark spot at the bottom of his core and lit something inside him.
Something he wanted nothing to do with.
Jerking away from her enchantment, he didn’t meet her gaze. Rather, he turned and glowered at his grandfather’s hospital door with narrowed eyes. “Nothing is wrong with me.”
He opened the door and stepped in and away from her.
Aetos focused on the equipment and machinery. A dark monitor was planted solidly at one side, a green blip bumping up and down. The tall IV stand stood by the bed, trailing a line of spindly tubes down to the patient. The ventilator’s white plastic gleamed in the harsh light.
A sudden buzz from the monitor made him jump.
He jumped again when she breezed past him right to the side of the bed to hover over his pappoús. “He’s so frail,” she whispered, her voice soft with dismay.
Finally, he forced himself to look.
The Leonidas Kourkoulos he’d known and remembered was gone.
In his place, in his larger-than-life place, was a fragile, weak, old man. The man he’d carried in his memory across the Atlantic ocean, into a new world, with him through his struggles to succeed—where was that man? The man who boomed out a laugh, who marched through his olive trees and grapevines with masterful vigor. The man who Aetos had once adored silently, once lov—
“Are you sure of the prognosis?” Her worried eyes met his.
“Are you implying I am incapable of understanding what the surgeon told me?” His harsh, caustic words landed in the quiet room with a smack.
The click of the ventilator barely filled the dead silence which followed.
He looked away from her disgusted gaze and back at the old man. Time had aged his entire family. He’d observed the deep lines on his uncle Orion’s face. He’d seen how mature cousin Doris was now, even as he remembered a laughing girl who’d kissed him goodbye years ago. And even though his grandmother radiated her usual energy, he’d noticed her hair was completely gray now, instead of the streaks he’d carried in his memory for these seventeen years.
But time had carved its bitter knife into his pappoús with a much more wicked intent.
The man was merely a shell of what he’d been.
Grief burned on his tongue. Filled his nose. Bit between his eyes.
“It’s all right.” Her words reached out, soft and hesitant.
Aetos reluctantly pulled his gaze up to meet hers again and noticed immediately those eyes of hers had turned to velvet once more.
With compassion.
He stiffened. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I’m sure you heard the prognosis correctly,” she said, a slight smile on her face. Was that pity he saw in her
eyes now? “I’m sure your grandfather will be fine.”
“Of course he will.” He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t stand to be in this room with this remnant of the man he’d remembered. “I need to tell the family.”
Wrenching around and away from the sight, he headed for the door.
Her words stopped him.
“Don’t you want to be with him for a moment?” He heard her move behind him.
She touched him. Touched his rigid back with her gentle hand.
“No,” he croaked.
This time he didn’t walk away. He ran.
Chapter 8
The old woman’s smile could light an entire city with her happiness.
Still, she looked as if she were about to fall over on the sofa she sat on.
Natalie glanced at Aetos Zenos, but he made no move towards his grandmother. Instead, once more, he stood like a marble statue in the middle of the hospital waiting room, with his dark eyes clouded and his jaw tight with grim determination. His announcement of his grandfather’s survival had been filled with all the warmth and joy of an automaton.
What was wrong with him?
Nothing that was any of her business. He’d made it clear moments ago.
A sudden rush of chatter and laughter swept through the waiting room as the family absorbed the announcement; their patriarch had survived the surgery. His grandmother’s smile grew, yet her tired body continued to wilt.
Somehow, during these last draining hours, his family had become Nat’s family.
Winding through the crowd, she passed the automaton and slid herself onto the sofa. She took the old woman’s cold hand in hers and smiled into the wrinkled face. The relatives hugged and cried around them as relief and joy filled the hospital room with palpable emotion. Although she’d known these people for less than a day, she experienced their delight as keenly as if she were a part of them. A part of a big, loving family once more.
“Eímai tóso charoúmenos pou eínai edó̱ mazí mas af̱tí̱ ti̱ stigmí̱.” The old woman patted Nat’s hand as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“She says she’s happy you’re here with us right now.” The helpful teenager’s braces flashed in the light.