Was he worried about Nyla and her baby, or was he worried about how she would react to Nyla having diagnosable problems? She couldn’t take the time right now to work it out. She had to just ignore him, so her attention wouldn’t be fractured.
A moment later she got her brain on the right train again and took some measurements, a couple pictures, and printed them for Nyla to take with her. It was all the meager reassurance she could offer right now.
* * *
It was the end of the day when Ares caught Erianthe in the staff room, standing over a table, notebook and pen at the ready, phone pressed to her ear. She spoke fervently about the need to locate an apartment and apparently was having no luck.
“Chris’s house too stressful for you with Evan there?” he asked quietly when she hung up and they were alone.
Erianthe looked momentarily confused and then guilty. “I’m not looking for me. Not today.”
“Who, then?”
“Nyla.” She rubbed her head and laid the cellphone on the table. “She had a great job, doing the accounting for a small local business, but the quake seems to have killed the business and she doesn’t have the funds to do any fixing of her house right now. It’s damaged. She has no family. The father of her child abandoned her. She’s alone—in a home unfit for a newborn or a pregnant woman. Do you think Mopaxeni needs any accountants?”
“Maybe... I don’t know—I’m not involved there at all.”
She was going above and beyond, and jumping from one problem to the next, but she still hadn’t answered the question.
“So you’re trying to find her a job, or somewhere to live? Since the quake, housing is limited.”
“Both.” She drew a line through the fifth item listed on the notepad before her. “Know anyone looking for tenants?”
Although she spoke to him, she still had her gaze fixed on the list. Ares leaned over to read it.
There was one more item on the list: Deakin’s boathouse.
“He’d probably be fine with her living there short-term,” he said. “But it’s really not built for more than a night or two. And the stairs are really narrow and steep for a pregnant woman to safely navigate.”
A quick move and she covered the list with her hand, as if he hadn’t just read it. “Oh, I didn’t realize it was that small and confined.”
“Were you hoping to move there?” He tried again.
She glanced up at him, and the rueful sideways bob of her head said enough. “I can’t. If I tell Chris I’m moving out, he’s going to want to know why. I was thinking of the boathouse so Deakin and Lea could look out for her. Like...all the time.”
“Did you find something to be concerned about when you checked Nyla? I mean, outside of her housing situation.”
“Yes.”
“Symptoms?”
“Not physical symptoms. Well, some physical symptoms. Her blood pressure is a little higher than I’d like—but that might just be because she’s always so anxious when she comes in. But mostly her anxiety is not abating. She doesn’t feel better when she comes here—she just feels relieved that the baby hasn’t died already. She’s worried all the time. Pregnant women without partners or any support system are at greater risk of miscarriage and stillbirth than otherwise healthy women who do have them. We don’t know why, beyond suspecting that cortisol and other stress hormones play a part. But I don’t want her feeling alone.”
A silent warning sounded in his head. The way she said it was so very personal, giving the words a weight and meaning beyond what she’d actually said. She wasn’t just talking about Nyla—he was certain of that.
There were no more patients to see, but there was a chance that one of the guys could walk in if he made her cry again. But he couldn’t not ask.
“Like you did?”
She visibly swallowed, pulling her gaze back to her list. “It’s worse for teenage mothers...the statistics. But she’s still at greater risk than someone who isn’t alone. She’s also afraid the water line to her home is damaged and that the water’s unsafe for her to drink, that it might hurt the baby. There’s more to this situation than me feeling protective just because I identify with her.”
But that was part of it, he knew.
“Chris doesn’t want her at his house?”
“I can’t ask him to do that. He has Evan, and he’s still learning how to be a baba after the surprising way that came about. It’s not right for me to play on his good nature or thrust a stranger into his home when he’s got a baby there and other problems to deal with.”
“Theo?”
“He and Cailey are probably naked all the time right now. And too busy to take in an expectant mother.”
It was right there, hanging in the air. His home was the next logical choice, but she wasn’t going to ask. He glanced at the notepad she still covered, wondering if he’d missed seeing his name there.
“So, you’re waiting for me to offer?”
The grimace twisting her lovely face confirmed it even before she sighed and nodded.
It was an opening—something he could do for her to take one worry away, at least. But maybe...
“She’s welcome,” he said, then dragged out the chair beside her and sat down so she’d look at him. “If you come too—to watch out for her.”
She fidgeted with the paper, bouncing her pencil on her thumb for a long while before she looked at him.
He wasn’t going to be there much longer. She needed to get out of Chris’s house. He could stick them in their own wing and avoid them both, if that was what she needed.
The look on her face was a definite no, but for some reason she didn’t say it—just alternated between looking at him and staring off into space, breathing fast, clearly at odds with his offer.
Time to go.
She needed time to think and he’d give it to her. She’d probably be more inclined to say yes if he confessed about his upcoming recall, but that would just start another fight for a different reason.
“Think it over,” he said instead, standing and turning toward the door.
There, unexpectedly, he saw Cailey—and the woman had no poker face. Her brows had climbed halfway up her forehead.
“Cailey?” Erianthe finally prompted.
“I was just coming to turn the lights out and collect some stuff from the fridge,” Cailey answered, but she looked guilty and suspicious.
How much had she heard?
He did a little mental rewind. Had he said anything about Chris’s house and the baby? Or had he just invited her to his place in order to look after Nyla?
Dammit.
* * *
Ares motored his boat into the docks that sat below his estate, both glad and unsettled to be putting an end to another long, strange day at the clinic.
After he’d made his invitation to Erianthe and Nyla—and after they’d been caught talking relocation by Cailey—Erianthe had waited only about two hours before calling him to accept. Yesterday, she’d taken the day off work to convince Nyla to move, and to help her pack up her small house and decide what to store.
Which had given him over thirty-six hours to get used to the idea that Erianthe would be living there, and yet he still hadn’t managed it.
That morning she’d come to fetch the boat Deakin had gifted the clinic in order to make the move. That had been when his stomach had started churning. And it had continued to do so every time he thought about coming home to her.
It was that phrase that kept tripping him up.
Erianthe was at home.
What would Erianthe say when he got home?
Erianthe... Home.
Home... Erianthe.
He tied the boat off and walked at a purposefully easy pace toward the villa, slowing himself down. If he could slow his step, maybe he could slow down his thoug
hts, slow down the urgency he felt bubbling in him like some primal instinct telling him to run or be eaten by a tiger.
He wasn’t coming home to her. It would never be like that—something he’d ensured, thanks to his mortal sin of going to see her father. And he didn’t really want that anymore anyway—it would only make it worse when it ended. He knew that. He knew it. This strangeness was just some kind of mental blip.
He found Nyla asleep on a lounger in the garden and went inside in search of Erianthe. Just to make sure she’d found everything she needed.
And once again he reminded himself: she was there to babysit a patient and to avoid babysitting an actual baby at Chris’s house. And to avoid causing questions at Theo’s.
Only, she wasn’t actually there.
He prowled the guest wing, knocking on doors and letting himself in when no answer came, but there was no Erianthe. He hit the library, the kitchen, the pool, and the knot in his gut twisted tighter and tighter with every Erianthe-free location.
Fifteen minutes later he found himself outside, staring up at the highest hill on his island.
The island was only big enough for one decent-sized estate. The villa took up the lower hill and plateau, and a much taller hill existed at the rear. Atop the hill sat a small stone cottage, built in the mid-nineteenth century for the brother of one of his ancestors—a man who’d only wanted to watch the sea and tend sheep.
Shepherd’s Cottage was the last place she should be—which was why he knew she was there.
The cottage had been kept in good repair, having been lived in by a groundskeeper until his father had become the master of the estate, and had soon found the need for a place to sleep away from his wife—whoever she might currently be.
It also happened to be where he and Erianthe had used to steal away when they’d been keeping their relationship a secret from everyone. Where he’d first kissed her. Where they’d created life.
His legs and lungs were warm by the time he’d hiked to the top, and he found her sitting at the back of the cottage, overlooking the sea.
The sun hung low on the horizon and it lit her and the sky in an orangey-pink light that took his breath away.
“Just going to stand there?” she asked, not looking at him.
“You shouldn’t be up here.”
“You said to make myself at home.” Boredom dripped in her tone—either with him or at the conversation.
This wasn’t how he’d pictured this going. “I couldn’t find you.”
“I couldn’t find me for a long time either.”
Irritation had crept into her voice, leaving him in no doubt. She didn’t want him there any more than he wanted her to be up here, torturing herself. That wasn’t why he’d invited her to the island.
When had she turned so masochistic? She could just about make him understand why she wanted to help other women deliver healthy babies, but this? No. Just no.
He balled his fists and forced words out. “This is foolish. You’re not going to find anything here.”
“I found that it hadn’t been damaged in the quake. That would’ve been sad.”
She still didn’t look at him, her gaze far out over the horizon. She didn’t look at the kaleidoscope colors in the sunset sky either. Her face was raised to the light, but her eyes had drifted down to the water. Not where the sunset colors were reflected, but closer, where the Aegean had turned midnight blue.
Something dripped off her chin. His heart lurched and then started beating hard. She was crying. Sitting there, staring at the water.
Her voice was level as if the tears had been falling for a long time—long enough for her to get used to it.
“Since I’ve been home I haven’t gone to any of my old places. I thought I’d feel it at your house. Wasn’t really looking forward to it.”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Just because you feel nothing for her it doesn’t mean I’m going to forget her too.”
Her.
His knees buckled and he had to step backward to keep from falling.
Her.
He didn’t have to ask who. He hadn’t ever known the sex of the child, but he knew now, from that one word. His daughter. The daughter he’d lost. The daughter they’d lost.
“You’re just going to go?”
She laughed—a short, pained, incredulous burst of sound from her throat as she mistook his movement for an exit.
Before he could think of a response, she was out of the chair, thrusting a phone in his face. “I. Won’t. Forget. Her.”
He didn’t want to look. The tingling at the back of his neck told him that whatever was on the screen was dangerous, would hurt. But his eyes tracked to the small screen anyway.
A small marble stone with tiny footprints etched into one corner sat amid green grass. The name on the stone was Ariadne Xenakis.
There were bands around his chest, squeezing, squeezing, and he felt a terrible need to move. He couldn’t breathe.
She’d given the child his name. He’d been the one who’d gotten her sent away, and she’d still given their baby girl his name.
He grabbed the phone, unable to do anything but look.
“Ares...?”
He heard her say his name, coming from the wrong direction, and he realized he had moved away from her with the phone. He stood with his back to her, facing the stone wall of the cottage, unable to take his gaze from the little screen.
“How long?” he croaked, but couldn’t look back at her. “How long did you have to wait before delivering her?”
“A day. They wanted me to wait until birth started naturally, but my father intervened. It’s the only thing I can say in his favor. He made them induce me and she came the next day.”
This time when she spoke she didn’t sound angry. She sounded young. And hurt. And as if she needed to tell him—or needed to tell someone and he was all she had.
She needed to talk and he needed her to get it all out at once. Rip it off like a bandage over a wound that had festered. Mechanical debridement. Tearing the flesh off so the wound could finally heal.
Hers. His. Someone’s.
“You said she stopped moving...?”
“Babies sleep in the womb, so I don’t know when it happened.”
She spoke in a rush, her voice growing steadier instead of more distraught. It was he who was cycling down into a hell he deserved to be in.
“After a few hours of trying to convince myself it was just worry that made me afraid about her not moving, I complained. Told the nuns I wanted to go to the doctor. But I worried a lot. I worried all the time. I went to the doctor so often I was like the boy who cried wolf. The nuns sent me to bed—told me the next day would be better. But in the night my fear hit a peak and I sneaked out. They found me at dawn, hiking up the road for the town, and finally took me to the hospital. But it was already too late.”
And then she’d had to fight to be able to give birth to her daughter, and how many hours had that taken? How long...?
He placed one hand on the stone wall and braced himself, unable to ask the questions that would allow her to get it all out.
Her soft hand curled over his and she removed the phone from his grip—gently, firmly, as if she might take away something that was hurting him.
Then she ducked under the arch of his arm and wrapped her arms around him, up and over his shoulders. He folded down on her, unable to hold himself upright. All he could do to keep from collapsing, crushing her all over again, was to spin them both sideways when his legs buckled.
He landed hard but held her tight, his face buried in her shoulder.
“You loved her too?” she said in his ear.
The surprise in her voice shouldn’t hurt—he’d given her no reason to feel otherwise—but it did.
Her arms
slid up, moving over his shoulders. Her hand found the back of his head and stroked it gently.
He was crying. The realization might have shocked him if he’d had any room left for anything but the pain of the loss of his daughter and knowing he was to blame. Still, he nodded. He owed her that truth. He owed her more than that.
If he’d been with her, he’d have listened. They’d have gone to the hospital immediately.
But Ariadne was gone, she’d never had a chance, and it was all his fault.
And—weak, disgraceful creature that he was—he could only cling to the woman he didn’t deserve but would love forever. Take the comfort of her soothing sounds, her soft hands and strong arms. He should be comforting her. Should have been there to comfort her if he couldn’t have stopped the tragedy.
By the time he’d calmed down, the sky was dark and a sliver of moon had risen high in the sky. She sat sideways across his lap, where he had folded onto the ground, and rocked back and forth, side to side, pulling him with her.
God help him, he wanted to stay right there. Wait for the sun, see the end of what felt like an eternal black, moonless night. But that would be wrong.
He sighed, and she leaned back enough to look at him, but he knew she couldn’t see much. He couldn’t see much more than the outline of her, even right there in front of him. Which meant she couldn’t see how he knew he must look.
Soft and cool, her hand pressed against his cheek, and he closed his eyes against the dark, letting his weakness carry him a little longer.
Her sweet breath feathered against his face, the tip of her nose brushed his cheek—and he turned into the kiss he’d felt coming.
He’d been so emptied by the talk there was nothing but space in his aching chest to fill with her fire.
She’d clearly felt the first pangs of being home at the cottage, and now, with her kiss, he found a homesickness so sharp he’d have done anything to banish it. Devour her or run... They felt like his only options.
Crushing her to his chest, he tilted his head and pulled at her lips with his own. Frantic, fervent, needy. Her fingers twisted in his hair and she pulled his head closer, until there was nothing artful in the kiss. It was all frantic clashing teeth and stuttering breaths, and he knew she needed him too.
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