chance to make her see, he thought. To make her understand how wonderful it could be. To see how right it was.
The castle was three storeys high, with the ‘Eagle’s Nest’, a tower with parapets, as the fourth floor. The kids were whooping from room to room on the second floor, choosing bedrooms.
‘This one’s ace,’ Nicky breathed as he discovered a vast bedchamber with a huge four poster bed amid a decor that was pure medieval, right down to a set of armour on either side of the windows. Nicky leaped onto the big bed, Oscar and Christa gamely followed, Nicky tugged the gold tassels holding back the curtains and they were enclosed in a vast velvet tent. The adults were left firmly on the outside.
Oscar shoved his nose out to look at his mistress, checked she was still there and then dived back to join the kids.
‘Can we sleep in here please, Mama?’ Nicky breathed from behind the velvet. ‘Can we, can we, can we?’
‘I guess we can,’ she said dubiously. ‘It’s a pretty big bed. We’ll both fit.’
Nicky’s head emerged, astonished. ‘I didn’t mean you, Mama. I meant me and Christa and Oscar.’
‘So take that, Mama,’ Nikos said at her side, and found himself smiling. For him too, the fears of the morning were dissipating. He should have brought them straight here, he thought. But then…she’d had to go to the palace. She’d had to turn into a princess so she could lay claim to this place.
‘I’ll sleep next door,’ she said, sounding desperate, and both kids launched themselves out from behind their canopy and onto further exploration.
‘Don’t choose before you’ve looked at them all,’ Nicky ordered, grabbing his mother’s hand and tugging her from the room. ‘There might be another one as good as this one.’
There wasn’t. Not on this floor. Nicky checked them all and declared them ordinary-bedrooms with French windows and terraces that overlooked the sea, with beds big enough to fit a king and half his courtiers, all were rejected as being not as cool as the one Nicky and Christa had claimed.
‘I guess we could share,’ Nicky said with magnanimity.
‘Nicky, I’ll take the one next to yours…’
‘There’s upstairs,’ Nikos said, and Nicky beamed.
‘See, Mama, there’s upstairs. I like this place. Come on, Christa.’
They were flying upstairs, hand in hand.
Christa had a brother, Nikos thought, stunned, and glanced at Thena and saw she was as stunned as he was.
‘I thought this might take years,’ he said.
‘I didn’t…I can’t…’
‘Though maybe they’re like us,’ he said. ‘We met when we were eight years old and we knew right then that we were going to be best friends. Friends for ever.’
‘Don’t…’
‘We were, Thene,’ he said softly. ‘We still could be. Surely your career can be redirected. I don’t mean give it up entirely. But you’ve given so much for it already…’
‘Don’t,’ she said again and she was close to tears.
He wouldn’t push. He mustn’t. He had her here. He had time.
And then there was a whoop of absolute joy from above their heads.
‘We’ve found your bedroom. Come on up. Mama, Papa, come on up.’
Mama, Papa…Nicky had shouted the words as naturally as breathing.
It took their breath away.
‘Shall we go take a look?’ Nikos said and put his hand out to her.
She took a deep breath. She stared down at his hand.
And then, deliberately, she put her hands behind her back and walked up the stairs.
There was still so much between them. How did you learn to trust again? No matter how desperately you wanted to…how did you take that leap?
But then she reached the top of the stairs and the door to the third floor bedroom, and she stopped thinking of anything else.
The third storey was part of the tower, narrowing to the nest itself on the fourth floor. The top of the tower was a circular fortification on top of the building where one looked over the parapets to see the entire island. Or that was what she’d imagined. She’d just never imagined what lay beneath.
All her childhood she’d seen this part of the castle-a stark white tower seemingly growing from the crags of the northern highlands. The tower could be seen from all over the island, from out at sea, maybe even from the far islands of Sappheiros and Khryseis.
It was almost dusk. The islands, all white stone cliffs and blue-green mountains, glittered like jewels reflecting the tangerine rays of the setting sun. The sea stretched out in every direction, reflecting the sunset. Below them were fishing boats, heading for harbour, heading for home.
She could see everything, because, apart from the tiny vestibule allowing access, there was nothing between them and a three hundred and sixty degree view of sea and sky.
She was on top of the world.
There were no lights, she saw. Instead there were candles. Hundreds of candles, set into wall embrasures. But they weren’t lit yet-they didn’t need to be. The setting sun gave a tangerine glow to the whole world.
Beneath her feet the carpet was lush and deep, but apart from the view the focus of the room was the bed. How had they ever got it up here? It must have been built on site.
It was a full circle, a great island in the centre of the room. As big as two king-sized beds, it was made up with vast antique quilts of deep crimson and lovely faded silver. The silver and the crimson were caught up in cushions, hundreds of cushions, soft, squishy. Nicky had already picked up an armload and was tossing them indiscriminately at Christa and at Oscar.
Christa was giggling and tentatively tossing a cushion back.
But then Nicky realised Nikos and Athena were at the door, staring in with stunned amazement. ‘Look at the sky,’ he demanded and grabbed Christa’s hand, and they clambered onto the great bed, lay on their backs and gazed upward.
Thena gazed up as well.
And gasped.
The ceiling was a vast glass dome, sweeping upward as part of the great central tower. It was one enormous window, built of hundreds and hundreds of lead framed glass panels forming one magnificent window to the sky.
The setting sun was glittering in from the windows so Athena’s attention had been distracted to the lower level. But now…She gazed up in awe at a vast expanse of sky, the soft scudding clouds of sunset and the first hint of the evening star.
‘This is so cool,’ Nicky breathed. ‘It hasn’t got a tent like our bedroom but it’s cool anyway. It’s like flying.’
She could see the simile. In this room she was on top of the world. She was almost floating.
‘Will you and Papa sleep in here?’ Nicky demanded and she came down to earth fast.
‘I…no. I’ll sleep next to your bedroom.’
‘It’s okay, Mama,’ Nicky said magnanimously. ‘Christa and Oscar and I don’t mind if you sleep up here. I won’t be scared if I have Christa. And you won’t be scared if you have Papa.’
Papa. The word was part of his vocabulary already.
That was enough to choke her right up, to make her world twist from its axis. Nicky had a papa.
She glanced at Nikos and his eyes were hooded and enigmatic. But she knew this man. She knew this expression. It meant he was struggling hard not to show emotion.
He wanted his son. He was falling in love with her Nicky.
Her son had a father.
Her son was telling her she had to sleep with Nikos.
‘Nikos and I don’t share a bedroom,’ she said, too curtly.
‘Why not?’ Both the children were gazing at them now. They’d found this room for them. For a moment Athena
