safe.
His parents had had disagreements-loud disagreements-but they’d never frightened him. Because they’d always ended in exasperated laughter, in hugs, in his father saying, ‘Your mother is impossible-an impossible woman-how am I to live with such a woman?’-and then cooking his biggest lobster and opening a bottle of wine and playing music his mother didn’t like, too loud.
And his parents dancing and him watching in sleepy contentment until they put him to bed and had the night for each other.
So…so what?
What was between him and Thena…it was a disagreement so enormous that no lobster would be big enough.
But to let that betrayal eat away at them for ever…
Maybe his father would say: ‘So what if Thena left you ten years ago? So what if she didn’t tell you she had your son? You know your actions must have distressed her unutterably, too.’
He couldn’t defend his actions. Was it fair therefore to ask her to defend hers?
What if he could simply say that was past history? Move on.
Move onto family.
To two children. A dog.
To a wife?
Ten years ago he’d asked her to marry him and she’d wept with joy. But things had changed. She no longer trusted him. If he was to ask her to marry him now…she’d assume it was because of the Crown, that he wanted control.
And maybe he did. If he married her he could keep her safe. It would stop Demos in his tracks. He’d be royal himself.
How could he ask her to marry him?
Christa was already fast asleep. Nicky read on, but his voice was starting to stumble. He lifted the book from Nicky’s hands, tucked him under the covers and then thought why not? And he kissed his son goodnight.
Such a little thing-but not small at all. Huge.
How could he ask Thena to marry him?
He left the bedroom and closed the door gently behind him. He turned, and Thena was watching him from the shadows.
He stilled. ‘Hi,’ he said cautiously.
‘Hi, yourself.’
‘I thought you were asleep.’
She was ready for bed. She was in a pale blue wrap, floor-length. Bare toes, though. Her curls were a tangle- had she been trying to sleep?
‘How can I sleep when I keep thinking of you?’ she murmured.
‘That’d give anyone nightmares.’
She tried to smile but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Nikos…’
‘Come up to the tower,’ he said and put his hand out to take hers. She looked down at his hand-appeared to think about it-and then placed her hand in his.
A tiny step…Why it made his heard thud…
It did. His heart definitely thudded. Whoa, he was in trouble here.
He led her up the stairs. On the landing that led to her bedroom he swiftly led her past. It was a bit too soon to face that room.
The stairs grew narrower the higher they climbed. The tower was just that, an eyrie built for a birds-eye view of the whole island. The tower narrowed the higher they climbed, so he was forced to fall behind.
He’d read somewhere-where was it?-that gentlemen always followed their ladies upstairs and preceded them down so they could catch them either way.
Their hands were still loosely linked-she didn’t seem to want to pull away and he’d have rather died-but what he really wanted to do was pick her up and carry her.
She was climbing before him, in her lovely soft robe, her bare feet on the cold stones-if he carried her, then her feet wouldn’t get cold.
But he was aware he was holding his breath. There were so many questions that needed answers, and he thought many of those questions were to be resolved in the next few moments.
He mustn’t push too fast. Picking her up and carrying her might panic her and that was the last thing he intended.
And then they were at the top-a circular walk, built as battlements around the central dome. He didn’t want to think about the dome. The ceiling to Thena’s bedroom.
All around them stretched the warm Mediterranean night. A great moon hung low on the eastern sky, climbing ponderously upward to join the star-filled heavens. The great galaxy of the Milky Way spread above them, stars beyond and beyond and beyond.
‘We used to try and count them,’ Nikos said softly, and her hand tightened in his.
‘It used to scare me-made me feel so small.’
‘And do you feel so small now?’
‘Smaller,’ she whispered. She was leaning back against him as she gazed out in wonder.
To the west was Sappheiros, the largest of the Diamond Isles. North was Khryseis. The lights from the Far Isles glittered through the night, mysterious and beckoning. Closer to home, they could see the lights of boats, riding at anchor; the tiny lights from cottages spread among the mountains; and in the distance the far-off lights of the royal palace. Her royal home?
‘This is yours, Thena,’ he whispered softly into her hair. ‘It’s yours to rule as you will. We always dreamed it would come to you, and now it has. You can’t walk away from it now. It’s your birthright, your heritage…’
‘My duty,’ she whispered back, and he thought he heard the first faint trace of acceptance. ‘Nikos, I can’t do this alone.’
‘You won’t have to, Princess. I’ll be beside you every step of the way. If you can put your career on hold…I know it’s so important to you…’
‘My career is not important.’
For a moment he thought he hadn’t heard right. She was leaning into him, her spine curving against his chest, her dark curls just brushing his chin. She was the loveliest creature. His Thena.
But he had to think past her body. He had to think past what her touch was doing to him.
‘You mean…your career isn’t important any more?’ he asked cautiously.
‘It never was.’ And then, reluctantly it seemed, she pulled away from his grasp. She turned and leaned on the parapet, as if she needed to see him to make him understand what she wanted to say.
‘Don’t get me wrong; I always wanted to be a writer,’ she said, and he knew she was struggling against the emotion of the moment to make her voice prosaic. ‘I always did and maybe I always will. When I was twelve I wanted to be a cutting edge crime reporter. Then I wanted to be a poet. By the time my mother died I wanted to write a history of this island, an expose of Giorgos’s corruption. I wanted to use my writing to save the world. But then…’
‘But then you were offered a cadetship on a fashion magazine in New York.’
‘No,’ she said, tightly now, as if it was desperately important. ‘I was given the cadetship. It was paid for. I was told it had been arranged that I start work in Manhattan in two weeks. I was told my accommodation was paid for. I was given a one way airline ticket and enough money to keep me for a year. and I was told to get off the island and never come back.’
He stared at her. Disbelieving. All the breath seemed to have been sucked from his body. ‘By?’ But he didn’t need to ask.
‘By Giorgos, of course,’ she said.
‘But you didn’t have to take it.’
