Maybe she did need to accept the throne. Maybe she had a duty to make these islands safe-for Nicky.
He should inherit from his father, she thought. And then, she thought, maybe he will. He loves boats. Maybe he’ll own a fishing fleet like his father.
Maybe he should grow up here. Maybe it was her duty to keep him here.
There were too many maybes to take in.
They rounded the bend on the headland and Nikos’s home was in view. And here was another gut wrench.
Nikos’s family home was a cottage, tucked into the cliff tops, surrounded by scores of craypots in various stages of building or repair. Two wooden boats, both decrepit, lay upside down. Tomatoes were growing between the boats and runner beans were climbing over them. A big wooden table lay under straggly olive trees and a couple of faded beach umbrellas were giving shade to hens. It should be a mess-but Athena drew breath with delight.
Home.
And when Nikos opened the back door and ushered her in, the feeling of home became almost overwhelming. The door opened straight into the kitchen. Annia was at the table, her hands covered with flour. She glanced up as Athena entered and gave a cry of delight. Athena was promptly enveloped in a floury hug, as wide as it was sincere.
How long since she’d been hugged like this? She hugged Annia back and felt tears sting behind her eyes.
These were her people. This was her island. How could she have walked away ten years ago and not look back?
She hadn’t had a choice. She’s known it then and she knew it now. But it felt so good to be here.
‘She needs feeding, Mama,’ Nikos said. ‘Look how skinny she is. How goes it, sweetheart?’
For Christa was at the table. She had a pile of dough and was shaping it into balls.
‘I’m cooking,’ she told her father proudly. ‘You will like my cooking.’
‘I will.’ He swung her out of her chair, hugged her and set her down again, then straddled a kitchen chair and snagged a taste of whatever was in his mother’s mixing bowl.
Athena looked blindly down at him, still fighting tears. Everyone trusted this man. He loved his family. He could never betray them.
How could he have betrayed her so badly?
Something of her emotions must be showing, for Annia was suddenly pulling out a chair and pushing her down.
‘You’ve had a terrifying morning,’ she said, peering into her face. ‘Word’s gone right round the island. That Demos…’ She shook her head but she was still looking at Athena. Searching for trouble-and obviously finding it. ‘You’ve had a hard time, my Athena. Ten years of hard time?’
And then she moved straight to the big question. The one Athena had known would be asked. ‘And…I have a grandson?’ she said tentatively. ‘That’s what they’re saying here. Everyone’s saying it. That your son is also Nikos’s son. I’ve asked Nikos and he says I need to ask you. So I’m asking you. Is your Nicky my grandson?’
There was no way she could answer this except with the truth. ‘He is,’ she said and she didn’t look at Nikos. She couldn’t.
‘Well,’ Annia said, and put her floury hands on her hips. Her bosom swelled with indignation. ‘You bore my grandson and didn’t let us near? You were alone and you didn’t tell us? I would have come. In a heartbeat I would have come.’
No, you wouldn’t, she thought. You would have been helping Marika with Christa. Two grandchildren within three months. She wanted to yell it at Nikos. Scream it at him.
But Christa was there, happily moulding dough, and neither she or Annia deserved to be hurt.
Annia held a special role on the island-royal but not royal. She was Giorgos’s sister. There’d been twenty years’ age difference and mutual dislike between brother and sister, she’d married a fisherman and she’d stepped out of the royal limelight, but she still knew more than most what royalty meant to the islanders.
She’d have made a good Crown Princess herself, Athena thought as she sat at the kitchen table she’d sat at so many times before. With her earthy good sense-and with her fabulous son who could have stepped into the role as his right.
‘Leave her be, Mama,’ Nikos said shortly. ‘It’s past history. I’m taking Thene and Nicky and Christa…to the Eagle’s Nest.’
Annia’s face stilled. She looked from Athena to Nikos and back again. And then she smiled.
‘To the King’s love nest?’
‘Mama…’
Her smile was broadening. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll forget it’s other name. So…You’re going to the Eagle’s Nest- why?’
‘To keep Thena safe until we find a way to control Demos.’
Her smile faded for a moment. ‘A good idea,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be safe there.’ And then her eyes twinkled into another smile. ‘And maybe while you’re there you can enjoy it. I was there as a child, with my father, the old King. My Mama showed me their bedroom. It was the closest place to heaven a woman could get, she told me, and it’s one of the only regrets I had in marrying your father-that I never got to sleep in that bedroom.’
Then, as Nikos looked bemused, she took Athena’s face in her floury hands and kissed her. ‘You make sure you enjoy it,’ she said. ‘And enjoy my oh-so-serious son and make him less serious.’
‘I…I’m only staying…’
‘Until the island is safe,’ Annia finished for her. ‘How long is a piece of string?’ She smiled. ‘You and Nikos…You and Nikos. I suppose the answer to your problems hasn’t occurred to you?’
‘Mama…’ Nikos said again, and his mother kissed him.
‘Enough. It’s occurred to me-ever since I heard Athena was coming home it’s occurred to me. And I’m sure it’s occurred to you too, for I’m sure neither of you is stupid. But I will say nothing. So Athena…you want some baklava? It’s almost cooked.’
‘I…no.’
For she was starting to feel overwhelmed. The domesticity. The gentle, loving teasing. The innuendoes of a relationship with Nikos.
The feeling of being on the outside looking in. She’d hated it all her life and she hated it now.
Once upon a time she’d thought she could find her own place within this circle. It wasn’t possible, and Annia’s tentative suggestion that she might still was threatening to break her heart.
Annia and Christa-and Nikos-were gazing at her now with various levels of interest and of concern. She didn’t want their concern.
She didn’t know what she wanted.
Or she did but there was no way in the wide world she’d admit it.
‘I need to go back to Nicky,’ she said, standing so fast she almost tipped her chair.
Nikos stood and caught it as it fell. ‘Problem?’
‘I…no. I shouldn’t have left him.’
‘You know he’s not awake yet.’ He gestured to the phone on his belt. ‘They’d have contacted me.’
‘I still need to go.’
‘Without baklava?’
‘Without anything,’ she said and she sounded desperate, she knew, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. It was like claustrophobia, only worse. This kitchen table, this man, this family…They were a dream she’d had since she was eight years old, and twenty years on she wasn’t one step closer to achieving it. And now she’d be trapped on this island for heaven knew how long, still on the outside looking in.
She felt sick and sad and empty.
‘Thena, don’t look like that,’ Nikos said, and her eyes flew to his and held. He looked…He looked as if he really cared.
He looked as he’d looked when she’d loved him.
She had to get out of here. Now.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said as she backed to the door. Annia and Christa were looking at her with concern and confusion. They might well be confused, she thought. She was so confused she might as well share.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered to Annia. ‘We messed it, Nikos and I. But please…don’t hope. Don’t tease. It’s too
