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‘Tell me.’
He hesitated, then said, ‘My grandfather started the business from scratch. He was a dustman before he scraped together enough drachmas to buy a bit of property, and he built it from there. We’ve always been so proud of how we came from nothing. How we built this empire with our own hands. First my grandfather, and then my father...’
He trailed off, frowning, and Margo dared to fill in, ‘And now you?’
‘Yes. But it didn’t happen as seamlessly as that.’
‘Your brother...?’
‘Yes, my brother.’ His face tightened. ‘Antonios was my father’s favourite. The oldest child and his heir...I suppose it was understandable.’
‘It’s never understandable,’ Margo countered. ‘If we have more children I won’t favour one more than the other.’
He gave her a swift, blazing look. ‘Do you want more children, Margo?’
‘I...’ She swallowed hard. More children to love. More children to lose. And yet a proper family—the kind of family she’d always longed for but had been afraid to have. Was afraid she didn’t deserve. ‘I don’t know.’
He kept staring at her, his gaze searching and yet not seeming to find any answers, for eventually he looked away and resumed his story.
‘Well, understandable or not, Antonios was the favourite. I didn’t accept that, though. I tried—Theos—how I tried to make my father love me. Trust me—’
He broke off then, and Margo ached to comfort him. But she didn’t, because everything about Leo was brittle and tense, and she had a terrible feeling—a fear—that he would shake her off if she tried to hug him as she wanted to.
‘To make a long story short,’ he continued finally, his voice brusque, ‘he never did. He had a heart attack and he sent for Antonios—told him the truth about the business. He’d been involved in dodgy dealings for years, trying to make back the money he’d lost on bad investments. He was a hair’s breadth away from losing everything. He made Antonios swear not to tell anyone...not even me.’
‘And did he tell you?’ Margo asked.
Leo shook his head. ‘Not for ten years. Ten years of my not understanding, feeling cut off and kept in the dark. Well...’ he shrugged and then dug his hands into his pockets ‘...I don’t suppose I should have been very surprised. My father never trusted me with anything—why would he with the truth?’
‘But your brother...?’
‘Antonios didn’t either. Not until I pushed and pushed for him to say something—and then I think he only did because of Lindsay, his wife. She wanted an end to all the secrets, all the acrimony.’
‘And has there been an end to it?’ Margo asked.
‘I...I don’t know. We get along—more or less. Antonios resigned as CEO, as you know, and is happier working in investment management.’
‘Are you happy?’ Margo asked, and the question hung there, suspended, encompassing so much more than just the business.
‘I don’t know,’ Leo said again, and he turned to look at her, his face more open and honest and vulnerable than she’d ever seen it before—even when he’d asked her to marry him. ‘I don’t know,’ he said again, and it seemed like more than an admission. It seemed like a revelation...to both of them.
They started walking again, back towards the gates, neither of them speaking. This time, however, the silence didn’t feel strained, Margo thought, more expectant. Although what she—or Leo—was waiting for, she had no idea.
The gates loomed ahead of them and Margo had the strange sensation that once they passed through them things would change. The spell of intimacy and honesty that had been cast over them amidst the trees would be broken.
She turned to tell Leo something of this—something of herself—but before she could say anything her foot caught on a twisted root and she pitched forward. The moment felt as if it lasted for ever, and yet no time at all, no time to try to right herself, or even to break her fall with her hands.
She fell hard onto her front, her belly slamming into the ground, her face and hands and knees scraped and stinging.
‘Margo—’ Leo’s voice was sharp with alarm and even fear as he knelt at her side.
She got onto her hands and her knees, her heart thudding from the fall.
Leo put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right? Let me look at you.’
Slowly, wincing from the bruises and scrapes, she eased back into a sitting position, the ground hard and cold beneath her.
‘I think I’m okay,’ she said, and pressed one hand to her belly, her fingers curving around her bump, willing the baby to give a little comforting kick in response to the silent question her hand was asking.
