by Olivia Gates
And for the rest of the night, he took her, gave himself to her, with every exercise of possession and ecstasy deepening her sensual enslavement. And his.
* * *
It was dawn by the time Andreas had finished fulfilling his pledge, giving Naomi a wedding night that had surpassed even their most explosive times together. Every touch, every breath, had been pure ecstasy.
Now she lay nestled against his side, knowing for the first time what perfection felt like.
But was it possible for everything to be so perfect?
And remain so?
Life had taught her that any measure of happiness had to exact a terrible price.
What would be the price of all this bliss? And when would fate demand its payment?
Twelve
Waking up in bed with Andreas, after making love deep into the night, and lying there with him, entwined, savoring the echoes of passion, building up to another plunge, all the while talking, had became Naomi’s new addiction.
But that was only one of the delights that abounded in their lives now. A favorite one was not remembering where they were when she opened her eyes every morning, what with the way they commuted between Crete and New York.
It kept everything breathlessly exciting and was the best of all possible worlds. And as if they’d always done this, they’d thrown themselves into their shared life, mixing being passionate newlyweds with being Dora’s parents, and active members of “their” family with running their businesses. Keeping that exhilarating balance was possible only because of the other’s input and support. At least Naomi hoped she was as vital in making all that possible for Andreas as he was for her.
He did insist that he was discovering himself right along with her, and that the discoveries were all thanks to her. She truly hoped she was helping him mine the treasures inside him. She had no doubt she’d keep finding more in his depths, and more reasons to love him. She now believed all the heartache had been a tiny price for the privilege of finding him, of recognizing his truth even against all evidence, and of ending up having what she now had with him.
He raised his head from nuzzling her neck, running a hand heavy with possession and satisfaction down her back, his eyes eloquent with both as they met hers.
They’d been talking about Dora’s first birthday party and how wonderfully everything had come together, and jokingly planning her second one. Or at least Naomi had been joking. She wouldn’t put it past him to be talking seriously.
He sighed with pleasure as he sifted his fingers through her hair. “But I guess we can’t make solid plans now, since by the time she’s two, she’ll probably have her own demands for her party.”
Naomi chuckled. “I was right! You were serious!”
He squeezed her to his length, his leg driving in sensuous playfulness between hers. “Yes, laugh at the man who’s been hurled from one extreme to the other.”
Her hands luxuriated in the depths of his hair, just as her legs did in rubbing his between them. “I only do since you seem to enjoy the excruciating change so much.”
“And how. And excruciating change is right.” As he rose up on one elbow, a serious cast came over his face. “I still remember exactly how it felt at the time, yet I can’t believe I ever feared having a child.”
Her heart convulsed at the memory of the confrontation that had ended her hope of being with him in the past.
She ran her hand down his hard cheek, wanting to absorb any recriminations he might have. “That fear was just you being responsible, when you suspected you might have inherited your father’s coldheartedness. Though if you didn’t have I Kyría’s ax hanging over your head, that fear should have made you realize you were nothing like him. Callous people don’t fear their potential damage to others.”
“I wasn’t about to test whether I would turn out to be my father or not, not with a child’s life on the line.” Andreas shook his head, as if in wonderment. “Then fate delivered me Dorothea.”
The magnitude of emotion he transmitted in those words felt like an earthquake shaking through Naomi.
She took refuge in voicing something she’d been wondering about. “You never call her Dora.”
His lips melted with the profound fondness he reserved only for Dora. “It’s the way I’ve thought of her from the first moment. That little magical creature from a realm I never dreamed I could enter.” Suddenly, he frowned, as if hit by an idea he’d never considered. “But I’ll call her Dora if you prefer.”
Naomi cupped his face in urgent hands, wiping away the frown. “Oh, no, I actually love it that you have your own name for her. I think she knows it, too, and it’s part of the special bond that has developed between you. Something that’s only yours and no one else’s, not even mine.”
“I hope you’re right, on her side. On mine, something inexplicable happened inside me from the first moment I saw her. Even when I was unequipped at the time to realize what it was. Everything that Petros meant to me was mingled with her own delightful cuteness and the way she reached out to me with her curiosity and acceptance. I think she instinctively recognized my involvement and just went ahead and claimed me. I felt overwhelmed by the need to protect her, but my fear of myself was so long entrenched I couldn’t trust what I was experiencing, and I had to be certain it was real.”
“It didn’t take you long to become certain.”
“I was irrevocably involved after that first evening, then the first day in our Manhattan Beach house. But I was still not certain how I’d react in the long run, on a constant basis, if she became a major part of my daily life. But after that month, I became certain. What I felt from the start was real, and it will only become more profound with time. There is absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do for her, and I can’t imagine I could ever love anything as much as I love our precious Dorothea.”
Not even a child of our own?
It had been too soon to bring up even the idea of one, with everything they’d had to achieve during the last two months to create their shared life. Naomi had inserted an IUD the day after she’d gone to his suite and had intended to keep it in place until they made a decision when to have more babies. She’d had no doubt their time would come.
But now doubts were insidiously creeping in. What if Andreas wanted Dora because she’d already existed? What if she was so special to him he wouldn’t want another child?
Naomi debated whether to vocalize her worries. Then he started to make love to her again and every mental process stopped, his passion and the pleasure he gave her short-circuiting them.
But afterward, when she was outside his field of influence, doubts returned with a vengeance.
She was beyond delighted that he loved Dora as if she was his own. Delighted for him and for Dora. But knowing that he’d felt that fiercely for Dora from the beginning unsettled her. It took her back to thinking she’d been incidental to all this. Especially since there was one more thing she couldn’t escape. That he hadn’t been anywhere near this vocal about how he felt for her.
What if he was this wonderful to her only because of his determination to give Dora the best life? What if all his actions were fueled by the bottomless paternal reserves he’d discovered within himself?
But even if that was true, what could she do about it? She had entered this marriage, again, knowing she felt more for him than he’d ever feel for her.
“Stop it.”
She had to hiss the self-admonition out loud to abort the spiral of malignant thoughts.
She wouldn’t fret and invent heartaches. She would be endlessly grateful for the blessing of having him and Dora in her life.
* * *
Two weeks later, they were back in New York, and she’d been clinging to her decision, had been letting their full lives together sweep her on an unstoppable tide.
But in spite of all her efforts, vague dreads weighed down her every waking and sleeping moment. Until the worst of it had manifested last night.
Andreas had had to shake her awake, to drag her from the depths of a nightmare where he and Dora had kept receding, with her running and screaming after them, until they disappeared.
By the time he’d managed to snatch her from the dream’s tentacles, she’d been sobbing and shaking, had remained inconsolable in spite of all his efforts to soothe her. She hadn’t told him what she’d dreamed about.
For it hadn’t felt like a dream, but a premonition.
He’d refused to leave her to go to work, until she’d told him she was going out herself. When he’d insisted on accompanying her, she’d assured him that an ob-gyn office wasn’t the place for him. Still, she’d had to pretend she was fully over her night terror, and swear her doctor visit was only a checkup, before Andreas had relented. Nevertheless, he’d promised he’d be home when she returned.
She’d always had difficult periods when she was troubled. But after she’d given birth to Dora, things had become so much better. Until lately. It had to be something that unbearable for her to go to Dr. Summers. Naomi didn’t want to see the woman—Nadine’s obstetrician and also hers during her pregnancy—for all the memories she’d bring back. She had even gone to a different doctor for her IUD. Now she was wondering if the device was behind her unusually painful period, forcing her to seek the expertise of the doctor who knew her and her history.
An hour later, Miriam Summers grinned at her after she concluded her exam and drew some blood for tests.
“Everything is in order, with the IUD at least.”
Jumping up to adjust her clothes, Naomi followed her out to her office. “At least? What else isn’t in order?”
The woman waved. “Nothing, really. You just have congestion in the pelvic area, and I think this is what’s causing the pain and heaviness.”
“Could it be psychological?”
Miriam chuckled. “Actually, it’s very physiological. It’s a classic sign of sustained and unrelieved arousal. You and your husband don’t have to abstain from sex in all forms while you have your period, you know.”
“Oh. Oh.”
Andreas had been all for alternative methods, but it had been she who’d refused, afraid it might be unappealing for him.
At her silence, Miriam rushed to add, “I haven’t seen you or Nadine since Dora was born, so I have no idea what’s been going on with your lives. I mentioned a husband because I noticed the wedding band, and I hope I wasn’t out of line.”
Naomi stared at her. How could she have forgotten this? Miriam Summers had no idea her sister was dead.
The woman groaned. “Seems every time I open my mouth I make it worse. What did I say wrong now?”
“Nothing, nothing...” Then, after taking a moment to collect herself, she told her about Nadine.
The doctor was evidently shocked. The silence that reigned over her elegant office became more oppressive by the second.
Then Miriam spoke again, hushed and heavy. “I can’t tell you how terribly sorry I am, Naomi. Nadine was one of my favorite patients, and it isn’t every day I see a relationship like the one you two had. I am so sorry for your loss, but...”
She stopped, seemed to be struggling with something huge.
“But...but what, Doctor?”
“I think now that both Nadine and Petros are dead, you should know the truth.”
* * *
The truth.
The truth. The truth.
The words reverberated inside Naomi’s head as she walked New York’s streets aimlessly.
The truth about Dora. And about Nadine.
Nadine had had no viable eggs. But Petros had loved her too much, had known how bereft she’d feel if she couldn’t have that child she’d wanted more than anything in life. He’d begged Dr. Summers not to tell her about her total infertility, but to find an egg donor and let Nadine think the baby was hers.
Dora wasn’t what remained to Naomi of Nadine. Wasn’t related to her in any way.
What would happen when Andreas realized she had no claim to Dora, the baby who’d become the daughter he loved above all else, when he’d never once intimated he might want another one with her?
Then, as always when suspicions started, they spiraled from terrible to insupportable.
Maybe he’d known all along. Maybe he was now adopting Dora, but wouldn’t make Naomi her mother officially. Maybe he wouldn’t so it would be mess-free when he eventually had enough of her, and she eventually exited their lives. Maybe he’d only needed her because she’d been his path to Dora, married her because he wasn’t certain Dora would grow attached to him without her help, without the security of her presence, and in the normalcy of a family life that only marriage could provide. But Dora was now more attached to him than to Naomi. Maybe now her use to him was over.
Logic said that if Andreas intended to end her presence in Dora’s life one day, he’d do it while she was young enough to forget Naomi without repercussions to her psyche. Like she had forgotten Nadine and Petros as if they’d never been.
Now Naomi could see only two possibilities.
Either Andreas didn’t know, and when he did, he’d still want to include her in their lives forever, if only for Dora’s sake. Or the worst scenario was true, and she’d exit their lives in the not too distant future. She had no reason to think there’d be a third possibility.
Andreas didn’t love her.
In his new vocal emotionalism, he would have said something if he did.
But he hadn’t.
* * *
Somehow, she made her way to the house that no longer felt like home. Entering it, she felt as she had the first time she’d come here, like a guest reluctantly stepping into a place where she didn’t belong, and might never return.
His presence deluged her even before she saw him exiting his study and striding toward her, his expression anxious.
He caught her to him, swept her off the ground in a tight embrace, before withdrawing to bestow kisses all over her face. “I was just about to go out looking for you!”
She forced her limbs to remain steady as she pushed out of his arms. She’d lived with uncertainty for far too long. Now all she needed was to know. Once and for all.
He was reaching for her again when she stopped him. By two words. “I know.”
If she’d had any doubts, they evaporated in the heat of what flared in his eyes. Admission.
He’d known, too. All along.
Her nightmare, her premonition was coming true.
Both he and Dora had never belonged to her, but now belonged together. They would need her less every day, would recede until they vanished completely.
And she couldn’t wait for this to happen slowly. If she was to die, she’d rather it was in one brutal blow.
“Naomi...”
She talked over him, her voice that of a drone. “Now that I know I am not related to Dora, I realize why Petros didn’t even mention me in his will. He only wanted me to take care of his daughter until you stepped in. And now you have, and my role in her life is over.”
“How can you say that? Dorothea needs you. She—”
Naomi again interrupted. “I know you’d go to any lengths to give her everything you think she needs. But she now has you. She loves you, and she’ll forget me in no time once I’m gone.”
“Theos, Naomi, ne...”
“I will tell Hannah everything, ask her to stay on with you if you want her. Then I will leave. This time, don’t draw things out thinking I’ll change my mind. I won’t.”
* * *
Andreas watched Naomi walk away, déjà vu pummeling him.
But it
didn’t feel like the past all over again. It felt a thousand times worse.
When she’d walked away before she’d looked wrecked. This time she looked...cold. As if there was nothing left inside her. As if the moment she’d found out that Dorothea wasn’t her sister’s child, she’d stopped caring. About her...and about him.
This was like nothing he’d feared when he’d hidden the truth from her from the start.
He’d been unable to take away her comfort in believing she had a physical part of her sister still alive and growing under her eyes and in her arms. The baby she considered her daughter, having given birth to her, and having raised her with her sister, then alone.
But was it possible she didn’t love Dorothea as if she was her own? That all her feelings toward her had only been an extension of her love for Nadine, and therefore gone the moment that connection was shattered in her mind?
And what about him? He’d thought she...felt something real and intense for him. He’d thought she’d come to depend on him as he’d come to depend on her for his very breath.
Had he been mistaken, too, about what they shared?
He wanted to storm after her, tell her he wasn’t letting her go this time. But how could he hope to keep her, if she didn’t love Dorothea?
If she’d never loved him?
* * *
“Are you sure this is about what it seems to be about?”
Andreas stared at Aristedes. Nothing his brother or Caliope had said in so far had made any sense.
In an unprecedented approach, knowing true desperation for the first time in his life, Andreas had reached out for their counsel, before he lost his mind irrevocably.
After he’d told them the little he knew, they’d asked him a hundred questions. This last one didn’t make more sense than any before it.
“What I mean is,” Aristedes elaborated, “Are you sure this is about Dora? As big a shock as it is for Naomi to discover the child isn’t Nadine’s biologically, I don’t see how it would cause such a drastic reaction on its own.”