by Trish Morey
The principal showed Alexios around the classrooms, where he saw the students, aged from six to sixteen, and all variously engaged in doing their sums or reading the classics, and learning life skills too for the older kids, like how to open a bank account, handle a job interview, even things like how to negotiate a deal.
Then they stopped by the gleaming kitchen, where meal after meal was prepared, to be fallen upon by the hungry students who would otherwise have to beg or steal for food on the unforgiving streets of Athens. They toured the hostel, where sometimes for the first time in their lives, the kids had a bed and a room of their own.
And the more they toured, the more the spiked cannonball that had been rolling around in his gut these past few weeks lost its sharp barbs. The more his mind eased. By the time he left, he knew he wasn’t a bad person, even though that cannonball had been rolling around puncturing his gut ever since he performed his coup and claimed the Nikolides fortune for his own—and leaving a trail that might have been written in Braille, that said bad. Evil.
But today’s visit had proved he wasn’t a bad person. Not really. Whatever Athena thought of him now.
Because it wasn’t as if he’d wanted to relieve Athena of her fortune because he’d envied or lusted after her money and wanted it for his own. It wasn’t because of anything she’d done.
It was because of Stavros, and what he’d done, and the promise Alexios had made to him on his father’s deathbed.
It had nothing to do with Athena herself.
It wasn’t personal.
He just had to keep reminding himself of that.
By the time Alexios returned to his office, the boost in his spirits was already wearing thin. He cursed as he flopped into his chair, spinning away from his desk to gaze unseeing out of the windows. He’d known it wouldn’t last, of course, it never did. That was the trouble he was having lately. Nothing satisfied him. Nothing could take away this lingering dissatisfaction, and the annoying thing was he couldn’t pin it down to anything. He was just unsettled. Unsatisfied. It made no sense given he was busier than ever. He had a new empire to get to know and to oversee. He had a new fortune to manage.
And yet it wasn’t enough.
It felt as though he had achieved a life-long ambition and there was no other reason to go on, no other goal to pursue.
Anton buzzed his phone and Alexios almost ignored him. The man had become unbearable lately. Smug and supercilious, as if he had single-handedly pulled off the coup of the century. But the man had his uses. He picked up.
‘Ne?’
‘There’s news,’ Anton said, and the unveiled delight in his voice was enough to alert Alexios that this was news about Athena.
‘What?’ he snapped impatiently. Because if it was more of the same, more of the news that she looked like death as she shuffled between her squalid apartment and her job at the department, he didn’t need to hear it. He didn’t need the added dose of guilt.
‘She’s got an appointment tomorrow with a doctor. A specialist.’
Alexios sat at attention, his ears pricked up. ‘What kind of specialist?’
‘An obstetrician,’ Anton said, pausing a moment to let that sink in. ‘A baby doctor. It appears that your ex-girlfriend is pregnant.’
Pregnant.
A tidal wave of shock surged up inside him, swamping his senses and his mind, obliterating his earlier funk.
‘A new boyfriend?’
‘Still nobody. She goes to work, goes home, that’s it.’
Blood roared in Alexios’s ears. Because Athena was pregnant and it could only mean one thing. It was his baby.
His child.
He couldn’t stay seated. He had to stand, a feeling like victory flowing through his veins, forcing him to move. To act. It was more than he could have dreamed possible. It was a gift from the gods, making up for stealing his thunder by rudely taking Stavros before Alexios had time to get even.
Because he hadn’t just succeeded in bedding Stavros’s daughter—Alexios had planted her with his seed.
He smiled as Anton filled him in on the details of the appointment, sparing a moment for the man who had done his father so wrong. It was beyond perfect. Stavros mustn’t just be turning in his grave, he must be spinning.
* * *
Bracing herself against the cold wind channelling between the buildings, she dodged awkwardly through the crowds crossing the busy street, wishing she’d not had to drink and hold quite so much water, but both excited and a little bit nervous for her twelve-week scan. This was not the way Athena would have preferred to have a baby, as a single woman negotiating the entirely new learning curve of pregnancy and its associated care by herself.
It felt wrong this way. Incomplete. As if something fundamental was missing from the picture. Like the father.
Her breath hitched, stuck in her throat, as it did too often when she thought of Alexios. Why did it still do that? Why did she still ache for him after what he had done? Why had he even done what he had done? It tormented her, kept her awake at night and uneasy during the day, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. What did her father have to do with anything, as Alexios had hinted, except leave her with the fortune Alexios was so determined to steal?
It was like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing, the vital pieces, so the picture made no sense. But her wanting to understand—needing to understand—made even less sense. Because what did it matter if she had the missing pieces of the puzzle? Would it change anything? Would it fix what had been so irreparably broken?
No.
It was driving her mad, this ceaseless worrying. She had to stop it. She had to forget about him.
She waited on a crowded corner for the crossing lights to turn green, impatient to get to the clinic. All these people around her, jostling her, as they shuffled their feet and rubbed their hands together to keep warm, and never had she felt more alone.
But at least today she would see her baby.
Twelve weeks already. It was hard to believe, nearly the end of her first trimester, but perhaps, more importantly, slamming shut a door where she could have quietly dealt with this on her own.
And while a termination had never been a serious option for her, somehow, taking it away was a whole new ball game. There was no going back now. She was one hundred per cent committed to this pregnancy. To this baby. And the knowledge simultaneously excited and terrified her.
The lights finally changed and the crowd surged across the crossing. At least she had her bursting bladder to take her mind off things. If the technician was late, she’d explode.
The clinic was only a couple of doors from here. Soon she’d be laid out on that bed and a few minutes after that, she’d be able to empty this overfilled bladder of hers. Bliss!
Even better than that, she’d have a photo of her baby.
She was reaching for the door handle when she sensed him—a movement behind, of someone tall, large. Someone that drizzled ice-cold slime down her spine.
‘Going somewhere, Athena?’
Breath hitched in her lungs as every nerve receptor in her body screeched in alarm. Alexios!
How did he know she was here?
She wouldn’t turn around. She wouldn’t look back, forcing herself to keep moving forwards, her hand reaching for the door handle and escape, when his hand locked on her arm, a five-fingered manacle, and once again she tasted bile in her throat, reminding her of the day she’d thrown up outside his offices. The bitter taste of it incensed her, spinning her around.
‘Let me go!’ She tried to stay calm, to keep the rising panic from her voice. Because if he knew she was here, he must surely know why, and she was suddenly, terribly, afraid. His jaw was set, his eyes were unrepentant, and they scanned her now, as if looking for evidence, taking inventory of any changes. There weren’t any, not that an
yone else might notice, though she’d felt her jeans grow more snug just lately, the beginnings of a baby bump.
‘We need to talk.’
‘No!’ She twisted her arm, breaking free. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she said, rubbing the place where his hand had been, still scorchingly hot as if he had used a searing brand against her skin, rather than just his fingers.
‘No?’ His eyes flicked up to the brass plate near the door, to the name of the doctor in obstetrics. ‘You didn’t think I might be interested to hear that you’re pregnant with my child?’
Athena flinched, the beginnings of a headache stirring behind her eyes. It was as bad as she thought. ‘This has got nothing to do with you.’
‘It’s got everything to do with me. Do you think I would leave the fate of my child in the hands of anyone with the name of Nikolides?’
She was too shocked to speak, any residual warmth she’d been harbouring about her time with Alexios evaporating in the heat of his open hostility.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’
‘Because if I never saw you again,’ she hissed, ‘it would be too soon.’
‘Bad luck.’
The door opened and a couple emerged from the clinic, happy and smiling and clutching a photograph between them as they bustled by, oblivious to the toxic cloud hovering on the doorstep.
Athena took advantage of the distraction and angled past, squeezing through the door before it shut.
Alexios was right behind her, of course he would be, but at least she was inside. He wouldn’t make a scene here, surely? She checked in at Reception, aware of the thunderous cloud hovering at her shoulder, feeling his anger rolling off him in waves. What was that crack regarding her name about? What did that have to do with anything? She didn’t want to know. She just wanted Alexios gone.
The waiting room was only half occupied, a television propped up in a corner playing a daytime soap oozing melodrama that didn’t come close to what was happening in real time. People glanced at them as they sat down, and then looked back at their magazines and screens, too wound up in their own reasons for being there to pay attention to the newcomers.
He leaned closer and said low under his breath, ‘How long have you known?’
She glared at him, remembering the excitement of her discovery, and of wanting to share it with him. But that was before...
She looked away, picking up a discarded magazine from the seat alongside. Alexios was too close, too big, and he smelled too much of the man she once thought she’d loved, and the pain in her bladder was suddenly no match for the pain of her broken heart.
‘It was never going to stay a secret. I was always going to find out.’
So he’d had his goons watching her? She turned and glared at him, lips tightly pursed so she wouldn’t unleash and tell him how much she hated him right here in the middle of the waiting room, no matter how much she was tempted.
A woman called her name, and she sprang up as quickly as she could, eager for escape. He got to his feet behind her. ‘No,’ she said, but his eyes narrowed.
‘It’s my baby too.’ His voice was low and menacing and it was no consolation at all to know that he was right.
She didn’t bother to answer. She just gritted her teeth and followed the technician.
* * *
So she thought she could get away with not telling him? Alexios seethed as he folded himself into the visitor chair in the corner of the tiny room. He hadn’t planned on being so confrontational, but seeing Athena again had flicked a switch in his head. She looked the same as he remembered, but with drawn, dark circles under her eyes. She was clearly not taking care of herself. The woman might be stubborn, but he would fix that.
Alongside him Athena settled herself on the bed, her responses to the technician terse and monosyllabic, her head turned away from Alexios as if to deny his very existence.
Tough. He was very much here and he was not going to be denied.
The technician peeled back Athena’s shirt, baring her abdomen to his gaze. Such smooth skin. Such feminine curves. And that curve there, where the technician smoothed on some kind of gel—was that the beginnings of a bump?
It was impossible not to want to reach out his hand and touch her skin. He remembered the feel of it under his hands. He remembered the taste of her in his mouth. He felt himself stir at the memories and he had to clamp down on his libido. She’d told him she was safe and yet she’d let this happen—there would be no more mistakes. There would be no more secrets. He would make sure of it.
The technician looked at the screen, the transponder sliding backwards and forwards over her belly, the only sound the clicks of the technician’s mouse.
‘Can we see the baby?’ Alexios asked.
The technician barely glanced at him. ‘I’m just doing measurements first.’
‘Why? Is something wrong?’
Athena sighed.
‘Be patient a little longer, please,’ said the technician. ‘It won’t be long.’
He bristled in his chair, unable to get comfortable.
‘Can you tell if it’s a boy?’
‘Alexios,’ Athena snapped, wheeling her head around. ‘Didn’t you hear? Be patient!’
He almost growled. This was not his world, not his domain, full of strange machines and people who weren’t falling over to satisfy him. Full of a woman who would have denied him his own child.
‘Besides,’ she added, directing her comment to the operator, ‘I don’t want to know the sex.’
The technician nodded and Alexios wanted to growl again.
Finally the operator was satisfied and turned the screen. ‘Here is your baby,’ she said, making some kind of sense of the swirling scan by pointing out the heart and the tiny limbs, the even tinier fingers and toes, freezing the frame at one point where the baby put its thumb in its mouth, to print out a photograph.
Alexios was transfixed by the moving shadows. It was all there. The features on its face might be indistinct, the sex might be indeterminate, but it was all there.
His baby.
And something huge, something mind-bending and mammoth, dislodged inside him, to crash down what felt like a rocky mountain into the canyon below.
His child.
And suddenly he didn’t feel purposeless any more. Suddenly he knew what the future held. For he’d made good on his deathbed promise to his father. He’d exacted his revenge and evened up the score.
And now here was his reward—this child—all packaged up in the woman who’d been the vessel of his revenge.
It was perfect.
* * *
‘Things have to change.’
In the seat at the café table opposite him, Athena stiffened. She wasn’t drinking coffee and she hadn’t wanted to extend this uncomfortable meeting, but guilt had forced her hand. Guilt, and the look on Alexios’s face when she’d glanced over at him staring at the screen. The look of sheer wonderment on his features, when she’d realised that he, too, had a stake in this child. Even if she couldn’t bear the man. Even if she wanted to hate him with every fibre of her being for what he had done to her. Even if she tried to hate him.
He was the baby’s father.
‘What do you want, Alexios?’ she asked, rubbing her forehead, the headache that had appeared the same moment as Alexios now thumping behind her eyes. She supposed they could come to some agreement on paternal visits or shared custody. That was probably reasonable. Fair. She sniffed. She could be reasonable and fair.
‘You’re moving in with me. The baby will be better provided for.’
‘What?’ The man was a fool if he thought she would do any such thing. ‘No way!’
‘You can’t stay in your apartment. It’s too small. The area is too rough. It’s not suitable to bring up a baby.’
> ‘It’s fine.’ Okay, so she’d wandered the tiny dimensions of her apartment and wondered the same thing, wondered how far her meagre pay would go in providing for a baby. But this was a first-world problem, surely? Whole families in other countries shared the same amount of space. And the area might leave a bit to be desired, but she’d never had a problem living there. ‘I’ll manage just fine.’
‘You can’t live by yourself. It’s settled. You’re coming to live with me.’
‘I don’t want to live with you.’
‘You have no choice.’
‘Listen, Alexios, just because you happen to be the sperm donor that resulted in this baby, don’t think you can railroad me. I’m its mother. I have rights too, and I do have a choice, and I say I’m staying at home. My home.’
‘No,’ he said summarily. ‘It’s out of the question.’
Athena sat there, momentarily too stunned to speak. Was the man incapable of listening?
‘I’ll organise the furniture removals,’ he said, already tapping on his phone.
She sprang to her feet and banged her fist on the table. ‘No!’
Heads swivelled in the café. People stared. Athena didn’t care if only it got him to listen. ‘It’s not your decision to make. I’ll decide where I live.’
His phone still between his hands, he looked up at her, accusation heavy in his dark eyes. ‘First of all you tell me you are safe, when clearly you weren’t, and then you neglect to inform me I have a child on the way and do your best to lock me out of my child’s future. I think you’ve made enough decisions for the time being.’