Pascal had learned how to work less, but Cecilia worked more. That first year, unable to remain idle, or any kind of ornament, she had started her own charity for orphans and foundlings all over the world.
Sometimes that meant Pascal got to be the trophy on her arm, which he found he greatly enjoyed.
More than that, he found it nothing but entertaining to watch her innate grace up against dedicated sharks like his board members. Or against the inevitable slings and arrows of the mercurial press, who loved them one day then hated them the next.
Cecilia handled them all the same. With that quiet steel of hers that had brought him to his knees once. And always would.
She had made him far better than he deserved to be. And he worked every day to make sure she never regretted her choices.
Last night at midnight mass in the church down on the valet floor, Mother Superior had smiled at him the way she did these days. Fondly. She clasped his hands in her old, gnarled grip, and she’d called him child.
Pascal would die before he admitted how much he liked that.
“Fear is always a liar. Love is always the truth,” she’d said, that same ring of steel in her kind voice that she’d bequeathed to his wife. “I cannot tell you how it delights me to watch you live that.”
“Every day,” he’d said, like a new vow. “And always.”
Because every day he remembered all those things he’d thought he wanted when he’d stood on the edge of the field that he could see from his windows here on a clear day. When he’d looked at the little boy who didn’t know him, running heedless on the frozen grass, and wanted more than he’d ever been given himself.
He remembered the notion he’d had that he was looking at something huge, and how desperately he’d hoped he could find a way to cram it all inside him. To make it work.
God, how he’d wanted it to fit.
Because he hadn’t understood then. The things he’d taken for tears were oceans, too massive to be crammed inside him or any one person. There was a vastness that couldn’t fit anywhere, and that was the point.
Love grows and grows and grows, he thought as Cecilia lay beside him. It got better all the time. Especially when she tipped her face to his and kissed him.
She smiled against his mouth as he ran his hands along her sides, then over her sweet belly where she’d carried his babies.
And he knew she was keeping another secret. That she would tell him when she was sure, that it was early days yet. But he knew.
He estimated it would be about another seven months before they welcomed another member of the family. But Pascal was happy to take his time unwrapping her secrets, one after the next, until they were like the mountains he could feel out there in the dark. Standing sentry against the passage of time.
Love and hope, ageless and eternal.
Just as they would be to each other. Come what may.
“I love you,” Cecilia whispered as she moved against him.
“I love you,” he replied.
And it would grow and grow and grow, for the rest of their lives, and on into their children—bright as the light that turned back the night, gleaming on into always, just like Christmas.
* * *
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Claiming My Hidden Son
by Maya Blake
PROLOGUE
THE DRUMMING IN my ears was loud. So loud I had the fleeting thought that I was on the verge of suffering a stroke. Of doing myself irreparable harm and comprehensively ending this debacle once and for all.
But that would be too easy.
And the headline...
I could see it now.
Axios Xenakis Suffers Stroke Due to
Family Pressures!
They would have no clue as to the unreasonable part, of course. Despite the media outlets lauding the story of the Xenakis near-ruin to phenomenal rise on a regular basis these days, they would be swift to jump on past flaws. Old skeletons would be dragged out of closets. I would be deemed weak. Broken. Not quite up to the task of managing a global conglomerate.
Just like my father.
Just as my grandfather had been falsely labelled after that one risky move that had seen all his hard work whittled away to almost nothing.
He’d had to bear that one misfortune all the way to his grave.
Once a titan of his industry, a simple decision to align himself with the wrong partner had decimated him, leaving the Xenakis name with a stench of failure that had lingered long after his death, causing insidious damage.
Damage that had taken back-breaking hard work to reverse, with my refusal to allow my family name to sink without a trace spurring me to seek daring solutions.
The Xenakis name was no longer one to be ashamed of. Now it was synonymous with success and innovation—a global conglomerate that Fortune 500 companies vied to be associated with.
However, the solution being proposed to me now was one set to resurrect the unsavoury ghosts of the past, with their talons of barefaced greed—
‘Ax, are you listening? Did you hear what Father said?’ asked Neo, my brother.
‘Of course I heard it. I’m not deaf,’ I replied, with more than a snap to my voice.
‘Thank God for that—although you do a great stone statue impression.’
I ignored Neo and fixed my gaze on the man seated behind the large antique desk. My father was studying me with a mixture of regret and apprehension. He knew my precise thoughts on the subject being discussed.
No, not discussed.
It was being thrust upon me.
‘No,’ I replied firmly. ‘There has to be another way.’
The tension in the room elevated, but this was too serious for me to mince my words. Too serious to let the elephant that always loomed in the room on occasions like this cloud my judgement.
I simply couldn’t allow the fact that my grandfather had chosen me as his successor instead of my father to get in the way of this discussion. Nor could I allow the resentment and guilt that had always tainted my relationship with my father to alter my view on what was being proposed.
What was done was done. I’d turned the tides and restored the fortunes of my family. For that even my father couldn’t object.
Which was why I was a little surprised when he emphatically shook his head.
‘There isn’t. Your grandfather was of sound mind when he made the arrangement.’
‘Even though he was judged otherwise in other areas?’
Barely fettered bitterness filtered through my voice. The injustices dealt to my grandfather and mentor, the man who taught me everythi
ng I know, still burned like acid all these years after his untimely death.
‘Now is not the time to reopen old wounds, Axios,’ my father said, jaw clenched.
My quiet fury burned even as I accepted his words. ‘I agree. Now is the time to discuss ways to get me out of this nonsense.’
And it was nonsense to expect an arrangement like this to hold water.
‘A sweeping agreement where the other party gets to call the shots whenever they like? How come the lawyers haven’t ripped this to shreds?’ I demanded, striving to keep a tighter rein on my ire.
My father’s lips firmed. ‘I’ve spent the last month discussing it with our counsel. We can fight it in court, and probably win, but it’ll be a protracted affair. And is now really the time to draw adverse publicity to the company? Or drag your grandfather’s name through the mud again for that matter?’
My own lips flattened as again I grimly accepted he was right. With Xenakis Aeronautics poised for its biggest global expansion yet, the timing was far from ideal.
Which was exactly what Yiannis Petras had banked on.
‘You mentioned you’d offered him ten million euros and he refused? Let’s double the offer,’ I suggested.
Neo shook his head. ‘I already tried. Petras is hell-bent on Option A or Option B.’
The breath left my lungs in a rush. ‘Over my dead body will I go for Option A and hand over twenty-five percent of Xenakis Aeronautics,’ I replied coldly. ‘Not for the paltry quarter of a million his father bailed Grandpapa out with, while almost crippling him with steep interest repayments!’
The company I’d spent gruelling years saving was now worth several billion euros.
My brother shrugged. ‘Then it’s Option B. A full and final one hundred million euros, plus marriage to his daughter for minimum term of one year.’
A cold shudder tiptoed down my spine.
Marriage.
To a bride I didn’t want and with a connection to a family that had brought mine nothing but misery, pain and near destitution.
During the formative years of my life I witnessed how a fall from grace could turn family members against each other. Clawing my own family out of that quagmire while other factions sneered and expected me to fail had opened my eyes to the true nature of relationships.
Outwardly, the Xenakis were deemed a strong unit now, but the backbiting had never gone away. The barely veiled expectation that everything I’d achieved would be brought down like a pile of loose bricks and that history would repeat itself was a silent challenge I rose to each morning.
While my extended family now enjoyed the fruits of my labour, and even tripped over themselves to remain in my good graces, deep down I knew a simple misstep was all it would take for their frivolous loyalties to falter.
I didn’t even blame them.
How could I when my own personal interactions had repeatedly taken the same route? Each liaison I entered into eventually devolved into a disillusioning level of avarice and status-grabbing.
It was why my relationships now had a strict time limit of weeks. A few months, tops. Which made the thought of tying myself to one woman for twelve long months simply...unthinkable.
My chest tightened, and the urge to rail at my grandfather for putting me in this position seared me with shame before I suppressed it.
He’d been in an equally impossible position. I knew first-hand what the toll of keeping his family together had cost him—had watched deep grooves etch his grey face once vibrant with laughter and seen his shoulders slump under the heavy burden of loss.
Yes, he should have told me about this Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. But he was gone. Thanks to the ruthless greed of the Petras family. A family hell-bent on extracting another pound of flesh they didn’t deserve.
‘The hundred million I understand. But why insist on marriage to the daughter?’ I asked my brother as his words pierced the fog of my thoughts.
Neo shrugged again. ‘Who knows how men like Petras think? Maybe he just wants to offload her. The clout that comes from marrying into the Xenakis family isn’t without its benefits,’ he mused.
I shuddered, the reminder that, to most people, my family and I were nothing but meal tickets sending a shock of bitterness through me.
‘And did you meet this woman I’m to tie myself to?’
He nodded. ‘She’s...’ He stopped and smiled slyly. ‘I’ll let you judge for yourself.’ His gaze left mine to travel over my grey pinstriped suit. ‘But I’m thinking you two will hit it off.’
Before I could demand an explanation my father leaned forward. ‘Enough, Neo.’ My father’s gaze swung to me, steel reflected in his eyes. ‘We can’t delay any longer. Yiannis Petras wants an answer by morning.’
The pressure gripping my nape escalated—the effect of the noose closing round it ramping up my discord. Marriage was the last thing I wanted. To anyone. But especially to a Petras. Both my grandparents and my parents had been strained to breaking point because of the Petras family’s actions, with ill-health borne of worry taking my grandmother before her time too.
There had to be another way...
‘What’s her name?’ I asked my father—not because I cared but because I needed another moment to think. To wrap my head around this insanity.
‘Calypso Athena Petras. But I believe she responds to Callie.’
Beside me, Neo smirked again. ‘A dramatic name for a dramatic situation!’
I balled my fist and attempted to breathe through the churning in my gut. First they’d forced my grandfather’s business into the ground, until he’d broken his family right down the middle by working himself into an early grave. Now this...
‘Show me the agreement.’ I needed to see it for myself, find a way to assimilate what I’d been committed to.
My father slid the document across the desk. I read it, my fingers clenching as with each paragraph the noose tightened.
Twelve months of my life, starting from the exchange of vows, after which either party would be free to divorce.
Twelve months during which the Petras family who, by a quirk of karma—if you believe in that sort of thing—had fallen on even harder times than they’d condemned my family to would be free to capitalise fully on their new status of wealth and privilege by association.
My lips twisted. I intended to have my lawyers draft divorce papers before I went anywhere near a church.
I exhaled, knowing my subconscious had already accepted the situation.
‘Don’t overthink it, brother. You’re thirty-three next month. This will be over by your thirty-fourth birthday. If you bite the bullet,’ Neo offered helpfully.
Slowly, I dragged myself back under control. ‘I’ve worked too hard and too long to restore our family back to where it belongs to lose it to a greedy opportunist. If there’s no other way...tell Petras we have a deal.’
My father nodded, relieved, before he sent me another nervous glance. The kind that announced there was something more equally unsavoury to deliver.
‘What now?’ My patience was hanging by a thread.
‘Besides paying for the wedding, we also need to present the family with a...a dowry of sorts. Petras has asked for Kosima.’
I surged to my feet, uncaring that my chair tipped over. ‘Excuse me?’
My father’s face tightened. ‘No one has stepped foot on the island since your grandfather passed—’
‘That doesn’t mean I want to hand it over to the son of the man who caused his death!’
A flash of pain dimmed his eyes. ‘We don’t know that to be strictly true.’
‘Don’t we? Did you not see for yourself the pressure he was under? He only started drinking after the problems with Petras started. Is it any wonder his heart failed?’
‘Easy, brother,’ Neo urged. ‘Father is right. The h
ouse is rotting away and the land around it is nothing but a pile of weeds and stones.’
But I was beyond reason. Beyond furious at this last damning request.
‘Grandpapa loved that island. It belongs to us. I’m not going to hand it over to Petras. Isn’t it enough that he’s imposing this bilious arrangement on us?’
‘Is it enough for you to drag your heels on this last hurdle?’ My father parried.
Unable to remain still, I strode to the window of the building that housed the headquarters of Xenakis Aeronautics, the global airline empire I’d headed for almost a decade. For a full minute I watched traffic move back and forth on the busy Athens streets while I grappled with this last condition.
I sensed my brother and father approach. I didn’t acknowledge them as they positioned themselves on either side of me and waited.
Waited for the only response that I could conceivably give. The words burned in my throat. Left a trail of ash on my tongue. But it had to be done. I had to honour my grandfather’s request, no matter my personal view on it. Or I’d risk everything he’d built. Risk mocking the sacrifice that had taken the ultimate toll.
‘Tell Petras he has a deal.’
My father’s hand arrived on my shoulder in silent gratitude, after which he exited quietly.
Neo chose more exuberant congratulations, but even then I barely felt him slap my shoulder.
‘Think of it this way. For twelve months you’ll be free of all the scheming socialites and supermodels who’ve been falling over themselves to extract a commitment from you. I’ll happily carry that burden for you instead.’
‘Unless you wish to date one of those supermodels whilst sporting a black eye, I suggest you leave my office immediately,’ I growled.
My brother’s laughter echoed in my ears long after he’d slammed the door behind him.
But long before the echo died I made another silent vow to myself. Petras and his kin would pay for what they’d done to my family. Before the stipulated year of marriage was out they’d regret tangling with the Xenakis family.
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