“Why are you standing there?”
Erianthe’s sweet voice reached over his shoulder and bade him turn around. She stood at the base of the stairs, several feet away, and she had changed for the wedding too. She wore a flowing, strappy peach dress that looked made out of sunshine. Her years in England showed in the paleness of her naturally tanned skin, and that gauzy peach number left her looking like some kind of confection.
Like a dog eyeing a particularly tasty treat, he felt his mouth instantly watering. No matter how many times he reminded himself that he had no right to have that reaction to her, that she wasn’t his anymore, his body kept arguing the case.
He was supposed to say something. Explain why he was loitering halfway up the stairs. And he was just too far from caring even to try to concoct a cover story. “Hate weddings.”
“It’s not your baba getting married.”
Leave it to Erianthe to shoot right at the heart of it. She apparently didn’t have it in her to dance around subjects she didn’t like either. At least they had that in common.
“Thank all the gods,” he muttered. But somehow acknowledging it—or maybe just speaking to her about something that wouldn’t hurt her—helped the tension ebb from his shoulders. “Not my mama either. She gave up getting married after divorce number six.”
“At least she learned. Eventually.”
She walked up the stairs toward him and he knew he should step aside. A gentleman would step aside. She wasn’t coming to him—he was just in the way of where she was going.
But she looked so lovely walking toward him. Her hair had been coiled up high on top of her head in a thick bun that left her slender neck bare, as well as her delicate collarbones and her shoulders in that pretty, sun-worshipping dress. But it was the hairstyle that drew his gaze up. To her ears. Her ears had always tickled him. They were smaller than average, but they stuck out from her head in a way he couldn’t help finding totally adorable, which she’d always hated.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Am I?” he asked, and shrugged.
A lifted brow was all that answered him as she came to rest on the same stair as he, taller than he’d become used to seeing her due to her high-heeled footwear.
“Just thinking how cute your ears are with your hair up.”
All semblance of being cool and collected evaporated with the blush that stole over her cheeks. She fumbled with one ear, as if she could mash it into her head or will it to lie flat. “Don’t make fun of my ears. I’m trying to look sophisticated and ladylike.”
“I’m not making fun of them,” he argued, offering her his elbow.
The sleeves of the relaxed linen tunic he wore would keep them from accidental skin-to-skin contact, but she still took several seconds of pondering before she wrapped her little hand over it.
“I’ll be staring at your ears during the ceremony.”
“You’d better not.”
They took the remaining stairs at a casual pace.
“Have you learned to wiggle them yet?”
Teasing her made it easier to enter the building.
“Shut up, Xenakis.”
There it was—the first hint of amusement in her voice toward him in ten years. A smile he couldn’t control split his beard.
He couldn’t resist more teasing. Since he’d come home, he hadn’t felt even an ounce of the warmth he felt now, playing with her.
“I think those little dangly earrings would dance delightfully if you did.”
She dipped her head forward, in a way he’d have liked to call fond or affectionate, but when she lifted her chin again, her black eyes had become wet obsidian. Sad. Tearful.
Her hand relaxed and fell away outside the building’s entrance. The warmth that had infused him and given him the will to walk in evaporated with the lost touch.
He’d taken the teasing too far. Fallen back on the affectionate playfulness he’d given up all rights to when he’d gone against her wishes to talk to her father.
His knees locked up, and he would have abandoned all plans to attend his best friend’s wedding if Erianthe hadn’t opened the door and held it for him, not commenting on that final tease.
Their pact to act normal hung in the air, and for once she didn’t look away from his gaze. She knew he saw the tears, knew he knew what they meant—she was mourning for what they had once been to one another, what they could have been.
“This isn’t the start of the downfall of their relationship. Theo never gives up on anyone,” she said as he reached for the door to hold it for her instead.
Theo might never have fully given up on anyone so far, but there was still the potential for it, or she wouldn’t bother about telling him that. If anything could push Theo to doing it, it would be finding out about Ares’s betrayal of his much-loved little sister.
In a little more than a week and a half his supervisor would call him and Ares could turn his promised three months into three weeks and fade out of her life again. Let her life normalize. Remove the danger of an explosion. If he stayed, it would only be painful for her for longer. Or, worse, he’d lose the battle with his desire and make it much worse.
Erianthe headed inside and broke away immediately, leaving him to find the guys and act normal. He could do that. He’d done this wedding thing at least a dozen times before. What was one more?
* * *
After a stop for directions, Erianthe found herself standing outside the solid wooden door to where she’d been told Cailey and Lea were getting dressed.
She took a moment to catch her breath before she knocked. It hadn’t been physically arduous to traverse the hallways—it was something else that had made her breathless. Being close to Ares excited her almost as much as it hurt. Talking to him. Playing with him. Anything besides what ate at her all the time was easy. Playing with him gave her a thrill, made her feel warm. Loved.
Expelling a final centering breath, she knocked. A second later Lea peeked out and then waved her in.
Lea was dressed up, wearing a pretty gray-and-pink floral maxi dress with a bandeau neck.
“You look wonderful.”
“Thank you. I haven’t really got a full wardrobe yet. Luckily this was delivered yesterday and it fits right.”
Did these two women understand the strange family they were being drawn into?
“Where’s Cailey?”
“Back here!” Cailey answered from a small adjoining bathroom, prompting Erianthe to peek through the open door.
Cailey looked in the mirror and swiped on some pale lipstick, then turned toward Erianthe. “What do you think?”
Her sea-foam-green dress might have graced the cover of some 1940s-era Vogue—sleeveless chiffon, with a deep V-neck in the front and the back, and a wide band beneath that kept the flowing material close to her curves.
Erianthe hurried to her childhood friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law, giving her a tight hug and babbling, “You look amazing. Theo’s head is going to explode. When did you find time to go dress-shopping? Was it before or after you decorated that room out there? All those flowers and ribbons—you’d forget this was a registrar’s office.”
“I didn’t, and I didn’t.” Cailey stepped back, looking radiant and happy.
Erianthe felt a twinge of envy—she was the only true singleton in the room with these happy women. It was going to be a miracle if she managed to make it through the ceremony without turning into a blubbering basket case. The only thing in her favor was knowing her parents were still on holiday and would be absent from this impromptu ceremony.
“My mother had the dress from ages ago, and we decided it was perfect for this occasion. And the decorations? That’s the mayor’s people.”
Cailey’s voice was pure champagne—bubbly, celebratory, so happy... What did happiness that acute even feel like? Eri
anthe couldn’t remember.
“They went all-in. Coming in after hours, decorating...” Lea said, looking as astounded as Cailey looked happy.
Cailey sobered. “The mayor told Theo he wanted to arrange everything as thanks from the whole island. We only did what anyone would have done after the quake, but he insisted.”
Erianthe knew that the mayor was also a friend of Mopaxeni Shipping, and kissing up to that kind of wealth was still a thing—even if she’d been so far removed from that lifestyle for so long now that it felt truly bizarre to witness it from the outside.
But they had done a lot for the people in their time. Painting the mayor with a Dimitri-shaped brush did nothing good for anyone.
She swallowed and offered, “Anything I can do?”
Soon enough the bride was ready, and they all exited the tiny office—Lea and Erianthe hurrying ahead so that Cailey and her mother, Jacosta—who’d come to inform them that everything was ready—could make the traditional, escorted entrance together.
As soon as Erianthe was through the door, Ares took her arm and wordlessly pulled her back into a corner. With all eyes on the door, waiting for the bride, she couldn’t do anything but let him. He didn’t steer her to a seat—there were no seats, standing room only in the office—but stopped at the back edge of the crowd, his tall frame blocking her vision.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tried to whisper, but the flash of heat she felt at being cornered by Ares messed with her volume control.
“Stopping you from running into your parents without warning.”
The wall was now at her back, and Ares and his intense stare wiped out her ability to see anything else. And her ability to think went with it. She heard her heart in her ears—at least a dozen beats before his words made sense.
“But they’re on holiday in Switzerland.”
“Looks like they returned for their son’s wedding.”
A rush of acidic sourness in her throat had her wondering if she was going to be sick. But it never came to that—just stopped at that stomach-churning place.
“Where are they?”
Did she have time to leave? Would anyone notice? She wasn’t ready for them.
“Front of the crowd, where they can get the best view.”
She was expected to stand in the front with Cailey, and they’d be right there, next to her.
“Look at me.”
He still had hold of her arms, but it didn’t make her feel worse right then. It was his calm, confident voice and the way he’d made himself a barrier for her that gave her the spine to resist running.
She locked her gaze to his. Even with that Wildman beard, he was still the most beautiful man she’d ever seen—which was a large part of why she tried not to look at him so much. But she looked now.
“When we’re up there, you look at me. Don’t look at them during the ceremony. Keep your eyes on me.”
In that moment the idea of doing exactly what he’d ordered was so appealing it brought a cascade of feelings flooding back. Good feelings. Dangerous feelings. The feelings of someone who’d been taking care of herself for so long the temptation to let him support the weight almost buckled her knees.
“You’re not much better,” she said, as much to remind herself as him.
He accepted that with a nod. “No, I’m not. But I’m not asking anything of you. Just think about what an ass I am and be less upset about them. I kidnapped you and took you on a boat, made fun of your ears...”
A hush fell on the crowd, denoting Theo’s move to the front. Her heart stopped cold, then began hammering against her sternum.
“It’s time.”
Ares folded her hand over his arm and led her to the front, his purposeful locomotion enabling her to walk. But then he let go and took his place beside Theo, opposite where she waited for Cailey—they were the only two people not watching and waiting for the bride. She might see them if she looked away from Ares.
Not that she needed to actually see her parents. There was such a dark awareness shrieking its warning in her mind that it conjured their images for her.
Don’t look at them. Don’t make a scene.
They wouldn’t make a scene.
Appearances meant everything to her father. Enough to send his daughter to a convent a thousand miles from everyone who loved her so that he could hide her shame from society.
Appearances were everything. He’d always kept up appearances. He’d used to try to talk to her, but she hadn’t listened to a word from him since her eighteenth birthday—the day she’d counted down to since the day she’d lost the child he’d intended taking from her anyway. She hated him. And that was something else that would be ruined for Theo if he ever found out. She knew her brother would never forgive that—at least probably not before the old man died. They’d only recently started making nice officially again after their own troubles, which were bad enough without adding the death of a baby.
Ares coughed lightly, and she realized her gaze had drifted down to the floor. She pulled it back up to him.
Cailey had already walked down the “aisle,” as it were. The sea of people who were watching had separated to let her through. And Erianthe had missed it. But she didn’t even have enough room inside her to feel guilty about that.
She locked her gaze to Ares’s beautiful green eyes, but she couldn’t do anything about the mask of misery she felt her features twisted into. Not crying. There would be no crying. Not here. Not in front of everyone else. Not in front of them.
Ares’s jaw bunched and flexed. He was gritting his teeth, she realized.
She caught the wedding in snippets. Heard the “I do’s,” saw the kiss, remembered to cheer. But she looked away from Ares only in short bursts and always found her way back to him like some kind of base. His grim expression was the only bastion of solidarity.
The ceremony ended and Ares stepped forward, offering his elbow to lead her out behind the newlyweds.
“They’re on the right,” Ares murmured to her.
As if on autopilot her eyes jerked to the right and collided with the coal-black eyes of Dimitri Nikolaides. She was aware of her mother at his side but couldn’t pull her gaze from his. She stumbled and would have fallen if Ares hadn’t flung his arm around her waist at the first wobble and kept propelling her forward.
“Look at me,” he growled, but she couldn’t. The only thing that saved her was his stride moving them past.
The next thing she was aware of was fresh air and early-evening sunshine—and Ares’s strong hand enfolding hers.
“The taverna...”
“No,” he said—one simple word—and turned her down the street toward where he’d parked.
Were they not going to the reception?
“I’m taking you home.”
CHAPTER SIX
“NYLA?” ERIANTHE HADN’T even waited for the patient folder to be handed to her—just entered the room on Monday morning as soon as Petra informed her who was waiting. “What’s wrong?”
She closed the door and crossed to the exam table, where Nyla sat rubbing her belly.
“Not moving. No movement for a long time again.”
Erianthe immediately donned her stethoscope, listening past her own pounding heart while searching for the baby’s heartbeat. That process might never lose its visceral slam for her. When she’d lost her daughter, there had been a lead-up of increased anxiety that she hadn’t been able to explain, and now she couldn’t dismiss Nyla’s, even without specific symptoms to cause alarm.
Unlike last time, the heartbeat came through straight away, normal and strong.
“I hear him,” she said immediately, not wanting to scare her patient again, even though she knew the fear Nyla harbored wasn’t going away just because things seemed okay now.
When her baby had died, s
he’d felt something was wrong for a long time beforehand, and her concerns had been brushed off as teenage whining. Now, even if a patient’s fears were unfounded—not some kind of intuition as she’d come to believe hers had been—she knew they had to be listened to, respected.
Did every obstetrician worry as she did? She’d often wondered if her innate fear made her a better, more compassionate doctor, or if it made her prone to emotional decision-making.
Even if Nyla couldn’t articulate precisely why she was worried so, Erianthe knew through hard statistical data that different external stressors increased the likelihood of miscarriage and stillbirth. The best she could do was investigate.
“What’s going on? How have you been since the quake? Did you have any injuries? Did anyone you love have injuries?”
Still rubbing her belly, still worried, Nyla answered, “Me? I wasn’t hurt. My house is damaged, but still standing. Mostly.”
Mostly? That word more than anything got her attention. And over the next quarter-hour she got to the bottom of Nyla’s fear.
It wasn’t some dodgy intuition that couldn’t be helped or investigated. She had concrete problems—legitimate situations that could hurt her and her baby. Worries had stacked on worries, and now they became a medical concern.
The best way to help Nyla and her baby was to help address her problems. If someone had done that for her, she might not have lost the baby. Her own situation had been in line with the statistics.
She did the best she could in that moment, fetching the ultrasound machine to show Nyla her baby—her sleeping baby—who woke when Erianthe pressed the wand against him.
A knock interrupted the impromptu sonogram, and she called out permission to enter.
Ares popped his head in.
“Dr. Xenakis.” Erianthe paused, the wand held over Nyla’s belly, looking at Ares across the way. “Is everything okay?”
He stepped in, closed the door and gestured. “I heard Miss Sarantos was here, and after the last visit I wanted to check in.”
“He’s sleeping,” Nyla interjected for Ares’s benefit, and Erianthe returned to what she’d been doing.
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