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Nicky was squirming in her arms, defying her attempt to lay him back down again.
"Who's that man?" he demanded.
"Just someone visiting Mummy. Lie down, poppet." Desperately she urged him back down on the pillow, but he struggled upright.
"I'm not a poppet," he said distinctly, "I'm Nicky. And I'm not three, Mummy. I'm four!"
There was a rasp, a sharp intake of breath behind her, and then the room flooded with light. She blinked, blinded by the brightness. Footsteps, rapid, urgent, a hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from her son so that his face was visible.
His face — with his dark, Andreakos eyes, his black hair, his Mediterranean skin tone. Only the shape of his face was hers.
"Thee mou —"
Leon's voice shook. His brother's eyes looked up at him out of his nephew's face.
* * *
Alanna stirred the coffee in her mug round and round with the teaspoon. She wanted to drink it, was desperate for the caffeine — desperate for anything that might act upon her savaged nerves — but it was too hot. On the far side of the kitchen table, palms square on the surface, leaning menacingly toward her, Leon loomed like an unholy presence.
Alanna hunched into her chair.
"Give me one good reason why you hid him! One!"
His voice cut at her, and the teaspoon jerked in her grip.
One good reason? She could give him a dozen!
"I'd have thought it was obvious," she said tightly. She lifted her eyes, like dead weights, to Leon's.
He was glaring down at her. There was anger in his face — but more, much more. She could not tell what it was. She had never seen such emotions in him before. She was used to only three emotions: amusement, enjoying her naïveté as he had at the beginning of their relationship when she'd been so impressed by him and the world he lived in; alternating with desire, when his eyes had taken on an expression she learned to know well, sending tremors through her, liquefying her.
And then, at the end, anger. Nothing but anger.
Anger that had slain her.
It was slaying her again…but this time she had an answer. The only one she could give.
"Do you think," she said leadenly, "that it would have been good news? Knowing that I left Greece pregnant? Do you?"
Something flashed in his eyes. Then it was gone.
"It would have been consolation to my parents —"
She gave a harsh, ugly laugh.
"Fine consolation! With me as their grandson's mother?"
"They'll accept you. For their grandson's sake."
Her mouth fell open as the import of what he had just said hit her.
"What do you mean — they will accept me?"
His lips pressed together.
"We shall be flying to Greece without delay."
Alanna stared.
