“You’re the last person in the world who should believe a press release,” Constantine said tersely, glaring out at London as if his brother’s face hovered there above the Shard.
“I would never believe a press release,” Balthazar returned with a laugh. A laugh. Constantine still couldn’t believe his older brother laughed these days, as if it was an ordinary, everyday thing instead of wholly out of character for the man he’d been until now. “But I’m referring to the expressions I saw on your face. Please remember, I actually know you. And more, am all too aware that you would make an absolutely dreadful actor.”
“You’re confirming my aptitude, then. For I assure you, it was all an act.”
“If you say so.” Balthazar was quiet for a moment, and Constantine could hear the sound of the sea in the background. It made him wish, with a deep passion he would have sworn could not possibly exist within him, to return to Skiathos.
To go back in time, and stay there for far longer than ten days, with nothing to do but appreciate Molly’s sun-kissed limbs. And this time, not to wait.
His fist was clenched so tightly his bones ached. He forced his palm open, scowling as he did it.
“But why do you use the past tense?” Balthazar asked at last. “Do I dare even ask this question?”
“Molly has paid her debt to me in full,” Constantine said. His voice sounded gritty. Rougher than it should have, and he was afraid he gave far too much away.
Surely this is why you rang your brother in the first place, a voice in him said testily.
Constantine rubbed his aching hand over his face, wishing he knew how to do more than want.
On his end, Balthazar made a considering sort of sound Constantine opted not to interpret. “Has she indeed. That is enterprising of her.”
And Constantine had half a mind to throw his mobile across the cavernous great room he had heard described as containing a loftlike vibe. Surely a little bit of destruction would liven the place up. Chip one of the sharp edges of his furniture that was decidedly not made for human habitation. This was a flat to admire from afar, or peer at in the pages of architectural magazines, not live in. Because Constantine did not live anywhere. He traveled between places and personas, always with the same goal in mind—revenge.
But now he had no goal and all his years of plotting vengeance sat heavily in him. He wanted to take the strange overly modern pieces in this flat and hurl them out one of his vast windows. Because it did not escape his attention that he had taken Molly on a tour of only his most beautiful properties. As if he had needed to make sure that a creature as beautiful as she was could only ever be surrounded by similar beauty.
As if he had imagined that he could bask in both. He had.
Now he stood in the reality of his life, such as it was, without her. Without the idea of her that had sustained him for years. And without the live, flesh-and-blood woman who had turned him inside out.
And it was cold. Impersonal. Incomprehensible in places.
He was all of those things.
And here he was on the phone to an older brother who had only ever been another soldier in the same dreadful foxhole. It had never occurred to Constantine that a brother could be—or should be—anything else.
But he wanted...
The mawkishness almost drove him to his knees, but he knew. What he wanted was a friend. Constantine certainly had none of those. If he wanted one, he would have to take his chances here.
And so, feeling very much as if he was flinging himself off his own balcony in lieu of his terrible, uncomfortable furniture, he told Balthazar...everything.
Everything he’d told Molly. And more besides.
When he was done, he felt sick. And something like hollow. And his head pounded so hard and erratically that he wasn’t entirely sure he would hear Balthazar as he spoke.
Or maybe he only wished he wouldn’t.
“A wise woman once told me that the best revenge of all is living well,” Balthazar said. “And I must tell you, I’ve taken it to heart.”
Constantine let out a dark laugh, not at all surprised to find that he was rubbing at his chest. As if he could press his heart back into place. “I live well enough as it is.”
“The key is happiness, brother. If money could buy it, we would have had a far better childhood than we did.”
“Happiness,” Constantine said, pronouncing the word as if he wasn’t sure how the syllables came together. Or if it might sting him while he worked it out.
“We could talk all day about the many sins of Demetrius Skalas,” Balthazar continued. “And in fact, I would enjoy it. There’s nothing about that man I admire and I take it as a personal challenge to make certain that I never hand on any part of him to my children.”
“I will also take this challenge,” said Constantine, who until that moment had never so much as considered the possibility that he would bring a child into this world.
And yet the moment he considered it, he could only think of one woman who could possibly be the mother to those children. His children.
Their children.
The thought of Molly, ripe with a child they’d made, made him hiss out a small breath as if he’d been punched deep in the gut.
“But we must also talk about our mother,” Balthazar was saying, unaware that yet another sea change was sweeping his brother away as he spoke. “Both you and I went to such lengths to avenge her, though our
