Xenakis's Convenient Bride

by Dani Collins

  “Do you know him?”

  “Do you?”

  “We cross paths sometimes.” He didn’t give her back the phone. The silence became deafening.

  “I knew him a long time ago.” She wiggled her fingers.

  “Have you been in contact with him?”

  “No.”

  He looked at the screen as though deciding whether to check her messages.

  “I haven’t,” she insisted.

  “This is it, isn’t it? The reason you wanted to come to New York.” He tilted the screen. “He’s the tourist. The one who got you kicked out of your home. You’re still carrying a torch? You seriously married me to get to him?” His voice tightened. “That’s beyond obsessive.”

  “It’s none of your business, Stavros.” She held out her hand.

  “You’re my wife.”

  “By contract. You got what you wanted. Now give me what I want.” She pointed at the phone, even though the phone had nothing to do with it.

  He let his hand drop to his side, keeping the phone while he looked at her like some kind of veil had been pulled away and he didn’t even recognize her.

  It made her squirm, but she brushed aside whatever he was thinking of her. Her palms were sweating with anxiety. Tonight was her night. She would have it.

  “I have to smile at your past lovers every time we go out. You can get through one night seeing mine.”

  “Like hell I do. He’s engaged.”

  “I just want to talk to him.” She stepped forward to take her phone.

  He pulled back, yanking on her heartstrings with the movement so every part of her stung.

  “Give me that.”

  “No.”

  He’d bought it for her, so she could hardly protest that it was hers. Tears smarted behind her eyes. She shrugged, trying to keep her control from shredding while her inner trembling grew worse.

  “Fine. Keep it.” She moved to pick up her handbag and made sure her credit card was in it. “Are we going? Or am I asking the doorman to call me a cab?”

  “We’re not going anywhere. You lied to me, Calli. That was your rule. No lies. You didn’t tell me why you wanted to come to New York.”

  “Because it’s none of your business.”

  “It is literally my business. My grandfather would love an excuse to back out of the handover. I’m not watching you hook up with your old flame while putting my control of my business in jeopardy.”

  “Stavros.” She turned to face him, elbows snapping straight at her sides as she turned her mind from anything but the tiny bridge she had glimpsed, the one that should take her to her son. Why was it starting to look like a mirage? Like the more she tried to reach it, the farther away it became. “This is not negotiable. I’m going to see Brandon tonight. That’s happening.”

  It was the uncompromising tone she had developed as Ophelia’s nanny, but Stavros was no adolescent girl.

  He pocketed her phone, voice steely. “No. You’re not.”

  “Watch me,” she bit out, and turned to the elevator.

  “Don’t bother calling a cab. One word from me and you’re off the guest list at the dinner. You won’t be allowed in.”

  It was a slap. Yet another door slammed in her face before she could take two steps on her quest. She turned.

  “Don’t. You. Dare.” Her ears rang, like they were straining for the sound of Dorian’s cry. She could almost hear him. That was why she had woken, that last morning. She had heard him, but it was a distant sound and growing fainter. He wasn’t dead. He was moving beyond her reach. Was that the thump of helicopter blades? Or her panicked heart?

  She would not go through this again. Not when she was so close this time. Desperation pushed her forward, right up into his space.

  “Do not stop me seeing Brandon or I will go directly to your grandfather and tell him what a sham this marriage is.” The words tripped and hissed, stumbling over a tongue growing thick in her mouth.

  “Well, you’ve tipped your hand, haven’t you?” He clasped her arms. “If you’re going to make those sorts of threats, I’ll put you on a plane back to Greece right now, and tell my grandfather whatever the hell I want.”

  “Oh, will you!” She slapped at his touch, shaking him off. “Like I haven’t been there before. For the same reason. How dare you try to stop me? How dare you?”

  “Calm down,” he growled.

  “Throw me out, then!” Fury erupted from the pit of her being, rising to consume her, just like that midnight confrontation with her father. “You want to tell me my baby is dead, too? Then blacken my eye? It adds a nice touch of ugly desperation when you offer to prostitute yourself. Go ahead! I’ll need it out there.” She pointed wildly to the window and the bleak streets below.

  He recoiled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She wanted to smash him in the face.

  “What baby?” he ground out.

  “My baby,” she cried, hurling the words like hand grenades.

  She stood outside herself. She’d been out of control in those early hours of the morning, too. Years of toeing the line around a father who was quick to correct with a swing of his arm had disappeared. She hadn’t cared that she was pushing him past his limits. She had only wanted her son back. She had wanted her father to quit saying those awful words about Dorian being dead.

  “Brandon took him. I’ve been trying to find him for six years and I finally have a chance to confront him, but you—”

  She swiped at an irritating tickle on her cheek. Her trembling fingertips came away smeared with black. She was crying. That was why her throat felt like it was made of broken glass. Her chest was under a piano, so tight she couldn’t draw a breath that didn’t hiss.

  Her makeup was ruined and when she looked down, she saw little dots of charcoal had dripped to stain her dress. Even if she somehow pulled her appearance together, she couldn’t confront Brandon with her emotions in tatters.

  This latest chance was dissolving, just like all the rest. How had she let herself believe this time was different from the others?

  Why did it always end like this?

  She lifted her gaze, letting Stavros see how shattered she was. How betrayed she was by his refusal to compromise. His imposition of his will.

  His act of cruelty.

  “I got you what you wanted, but you... You’re just like Brandon. Your precious life has to be protected at the expense of everyone else’s, doesn’t it? I knew what you were when I saw you, but I still—”

  He jerked his head back, expression stunned, like she had punched him in the face.

  She might have wondered how her words had struck so deeply if she hadn’t been so devastated herself.

  “I hate you. I hate myself.”

  * * *

  He followed her to the bedroom. She had black tears dripping off her chin, and she yanked at her stained gown. Wisps of her hair were coming out of its upswept knot.

  “Calli—”

  “Leave me alone.” Her voice was thick with rejection.

  His heart lurched. He was at an utter loss. What the hell? Was this even real? A baby?

  “Are you going to make me beg? You love it when I do that, don’t you? Fine. I’m begging you, Stavros. Please leave me alone.”

  Her broken words were the flash burn of a Molotov cocktail to the chest, leaving a hot, gaping hole where his heart resided. He stared at the traumatized woman before him and the look in her eyes snapped something in him. Something that had been golden and bright, something he hadn’t even realized had come to exist between them, or even how precious it was.

  It was gone now. Incinerated.

  He could hardly breathe, but he made himself turn and leave. He made himself give her this one little thing she wanted. Had begged for.

  Your precious life has to be protected at the expense of everyone else’s, doesn’t it?

  His father had told him to swim for shore. He had said he would be right behind Stavros.
But he hadn’t been. The waves had been three feet high. After one glance back, Stavros hadn’t risked another. His life vest had been the only thing that saved him, buoying him to the surface each time the waves plunged him under.

  Calli couldn’t know that she had scored such a mortal blow with her words, but Stavros reeled under the denunciation. He was to blame for his father’s death. He knew that.

  He was still as selfish as that boy who had saved his own life at the expense of his father’s. Just look at his reaction tonight. He knew what he had with Calli was more than he had a right to. He kept telling himself it was a quid pro quo arrangement. That was how he justified enjoying her. How he justified playing house in a way he had long written off, not feeling entitled to it.

  He poured himself a glass of the red wine that was open, bottle clinking against the glass as he relived that moment of seeing her interest in Brandon. Jealousy had seared through him. The depth that those talons had sunk into him unnerved him and he took a quick sip, wishing it was stronger, strong enough to burn the tension from the back of his throat.

  He had ruthlessly shut down their evening because he had felt, yes, that his precious time with her was threatened.

  He was still jealous. She had a son. With Brandon Underwood.

  Once again he found himself wondering how his life would have been different if he had stayed on the island. Would that boy be his?

  A fresh snap sounded and his palm stung. Red wine soaked past the shards of glass in his skin, changing shade as blood rose to mingle with the dripping liquid.

  Stavros swore and went to find the first-aid kit, leaving bloodstains on the tile.

  * * *

  There had been days over the years when Calli had let herself hope. Times when she had a little money saved, or Takis sent a letter, or some other thing happened and she would let herself believe that her time of waiting was coming to an end. She would see Dorian again. Soon.

  Then the other shoe would drop. Her dreams would be dashed and she would be overcome with grief all over again, crying so hard she was sure her lifetime allotment was used up.

  Each time, once the storm passed, she was left hollowed out and desolate. Then, very slowly, she would gather herself and make a new plan.

  So she knew it wasn’t over. It would never be over. If she didn’t have another chance tomorrow, she would make one for herself the next day, or someday far in the future. She had done this before, too many times to count.

  It took courage to work herself up to taking action, though, especially when the disappointment was so profound when it didn’t work out. So she didn’t try to make a new plan tonight. Tomorrow she would figure out how to proceed. Tonight was for accepting she had lost.

  Again.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs to the loft. She remembered where she was, curled up in the corner of the settee in the dark of Stavros’s penthouse bedroom. She had let her gown fall to the floor and stepped out of it, then wrapped a blanket around her while she cried. Now she was aching in the aftermath, filled with despair, blinking to focus her swollen eyes on the lights of the city laid out like a carpet of stars below her. Her heart weighed heavily in her chest.

  Stavros had threatened to send her back to Greece, she recalled, which didn’t sound so bad, actually. Takis would take her in. She could see Ophelia. At least she had that. She was terribly lonely here.

  She glanced burning eyes toward the closet, wondering what she should pack. Her brain conjured nothing.

  “It’s late. I thought you’d be asleep,” Stavros said.

  She was tired. So tired.

  So sad.

  “I just wanted to ask him where Dorian was taken.” Her voice barely functioned beyond a whisper, flaky and dry. “Where he is now. That’s all.”

  She heard his breath hiss in, like her words had struck and hurt, but what did he know about pain?

  “It wasn’t about sex or getting back together with him. I would never see Brandon again if I had a choice, but he’s the only one who can tell me what happened. His lawyers have been saying for years that nothing even happened between us, but a baby isn’t nothing.”

  Stavros moved to stand behind her. She sensed his hand gripping the back of the settee near her shoulder.

  “No,” he agreed solemnly. “No, it’s not.”

  “He can’t say he didn’t know how I got pregnant or by who. I called him and told him it was his. He offered to send money for an abortion. When I refused, he offered to pay me off if I kept quiet. He didn’t want his parents to know, but my father contacted them once he realized I was pregnant. He figured they would pay more than Brandon had offered, and I guess they did.”

  She swallowed, recalling how sordid she had felt by it all, how she had begged her father to stay out of it.

  “I didn’t want money, especially when they said I would have to give him up. I thought Brandon loved me, that he would want to get married, but he just wanted me to go away.”

  “But he did want the baby?” Stavros spoke low and level, getting the facts. “He must have, if he took him.”

  She plucked her words from a maelstrom of deep, twisted emotions. Each extraction was agony. “Since he doesn’t appear to have a son, I would say no, he did not want our baby.”

  “But you’re certain he took him?”

  “Someone did.”

  “Who?”

  “Exactly.” Her voice caught and she had to clear her throat. She snugged the blanket higher around her shoulders and neck. “Dorian was two weeks old and I woke up because I heard him crying. He wasn’t in his bassinet. I went to the kitchen and my father was up, even though it was two o’clock in the morning. He said Dorian had died. I mean, really? I ran outside and I could hear a car engine. Our place was near the private airfield and a few minutes later I heard the helicopter. Papa stuck to the story and when I became hysterical, he let loose, then turned me out.”

  Stavros swore, stark and hard.

  “That’s when you wound up sleeping on the beach? For how long? You had just had a baby.”

  “Takis thought my pimp had worked me over. He wanted to take me to the police.”

  “You didn’t go? For God’s sake, why not?” His voice rang with disbelief, making her shrink all the more tightly into the corner.

  “I was scared. Ashamed. My mother was standing by what my father had done. Said Dorian was in a better place. But where was the body? I accused Papa of killing him. That’s when he really came after me. Not a man who will stand for being accused of murdering a baby, but he had no compunction leaving his daughter for dead on his front step.”

  “He abused you? Regularly?” His voice was steely and terrifying, making her tremble. She curled even tighter under the blanket.

  “Mostly we knew how to keep from making him angry. I was just so upset about losing Dorian.”

  “Calli.” The settee creaked as he leaned over her. “Being beaten wasn’t your fault. None of this was.”

  She flinched at the way he was speaking, throwing the words down on her like stones. She leaned away, not really caring about that part of it anymore anyway.

  “Takis took me to the police when I finally told him. By that time, Papa had used the Underwoods’ money to buy a death certificate. The police refused to investigate. Takis had his lawyer send a few letters, but the Underwoods stonewalled. They called me an opportunist and said I was deluded.” She shivered. “They said if I had a baby, it wasn’t Brandon’s. That given the way I was behaving, I wasn’t a fit mother anyway.”

  “So you don’t know for sure that—” He rubbed his hand down his face. “Do you know if your son is alive?” he asked gently.

  “In here.” Her voice broke as she touched above her left breast. “In my heart, I know he’s alive. Just as I’m sure that Brandon knows where he is. That’s all I wanted to do tonight. Ask. But no one wants me to know what happened to my son. Even Takis didn’t want me to know, not really. He didn’t want me to leave him and
Ophelia.”

  Her voice thickened and the tears threatened to come back, burning hotly and stinging the edges of her eyelids, thickening her throat.

  “Calli—”

  “I’m really tired.” She forced herself to stand, numb fingers clinging to keep the blanket around her while she swayed on her feet. “Do you—Can I pack in the morning? I’m sorry. I’m just really tired.” Her legs felt too weak to support her.

  “No. I mean yes. I mean, go to bed.” He spoke in a flat, gruff voice and followed up with a curse that made her hunch protectively again. “Do you need help?”

  “No.” She took the few steps to the bed and let herself drop onto it, eyes closed, cocooned in the blanket as she curled into a ball of misery and escaped yet another dark, hopeless night.

  * * *

  Stavros put on a fresh pot of coffee when he heard Calli stir. He was glad to finally have something constructive to do, having made as much progress as he could and was now just waiting until he would have to wake her.

  She showered and came into the kitchen as he was scrambling eggs.

  She paused when she saw him, face bare of makeup, eyes bruised, mouth pouted. She had slept late, but she looked like she could use another twelve hours. She pulled the lapels of her robe closed, sitting at the island when he set her breakfast there.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  He slid her phone toward her. “Takis would like to hear from you.”

  “Is Ophelia okay?” She picked it up to check her history.

  “She’s the one who called. She had some questions about cosmetics. I asked her to put me on to him.”

  “Why?” Her honey-gold eyes flashed up, deeply defensive and wary.

  His heart flipped over in his chest. There weren’t words sorry enough for the pain he had caused her last night. He swallowed, helpless and furious and perhaps not as regretful as he should be, because she had been going about this all wrong.

  He kept all of that to himself, though. He instinctively knew that any sort of strong emotion from him right now would send her shrinking into her shell.

  “I wanted to know what steps he had taken to find your son.”