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But Serena had changed things.
The pain that gripped him now as he looked down at Serena was new and far more intense. He fought hard not to feel anything for her. But he couldn’t stop whatever change she’d brought about. Already he knew there was a gap in his life just from thinking of her walking away. And it wasn’t because she’d take with her his child, deprive him of being a proper father. There was something else too—something he just couldn’t accept. Not now she was leaving.
‘That is not what you agreed.’
The words were squeezed out between gritted teeth as he stood, rigid with anger, watching as she got up and walked towards him, her face imploring.
‘I didn’t agree to anything other than going to Athens with you.’
She stopped a little way from him, as if sensing that his anger would burn her as much as it consumed him.
‘You wear my ring.’
He still couldn’t move. Serena had walked away from him once because of his cold words, and now she was intent on doing it again.
‘That doesn’t mean anything, Nikos—not when it was given to me as part of the show you were putting on for your business acquaintances at the party. And let’s not forget the press. All you wanted to do was avoid gossip and press speculation because of your takeover bid.’
She looked at the ring on her finger. Her hair, which glowed with fire beneath the golden lights, fell like a curtain on either side of her face, cutting him out. Despite the bitter anger which bubbled inside him he wanted to reach out, to push it back and tuck it behind her ear as he’d so often seen her do.
She shook her head and her hair shimmered, then she looked up at him, her expression open and pained. ‘You can’t even defend that, can you?’
‘Why should I have to defend it?’
Something snapped and he finally moved—but not towards her. He marched away, into the open-plan kitchen, before turning to face her.
‘Do whatever you have to do, Serena, but remember this. You will never keep me from my child.’
Her head shot up, her green eyes so wide and so dark. She flung her hands out in exasperation, palms up. ‘You never wanted a child—you admitted that much. If you hadn’t lied to me about who you were I would never have come back.’
‘What do you mean, you would never have come back?’
‘An astute businessman can hold his own, but a fisherman eking out a living is different.’ Her eyes were fiercely hot as she glared indignantly at him.
‘Is it? A father is a father, no matter what he does.’
‘Damn it, Nikos, I came back because I thought you had a right to know—that even if you couldn’t or didn’t want to be a proper father to my baby you would know you had a child.’
She paused and he waited for the inevitable.
‘It’s not going to work. I can’t live like this, Nikos. I can’t do it to my child—not when I know how it feels to be the mistake that forced your parents together.’
The passion in her voice struck a chord in his heart, touching something lying deep and dormant within him. But it also angered him. She’d grown up with two parents. How could she stand there and lay the blame on them because she wanted to leave now?
‘The mistake?’ He heard his voice rise and saw her shoulders stiffen, as if to deflect the word. He wasn’t the only one hiding things.
‘Yes, the mistake. My sister is eight years older than me, and by the time she started school my parents’ marriage was already falling apart. They had even separated—not that they ever told me. Sally and I talked about it as we grew up. She became more like a mother to me.’
A pang of guilt plucked at him as he stood taking in this information. ‘But your mother didn’t leave. She didn’t just turn and walk away.’
He couldn’t help but make the comparison. At least she’d had a family—the one thing he’d hungered after all his life. His inability to love or be loved had always managed to destroy his chances of getting what he’d wanted. He’d done it again this evening, when he’d brushed aside those dreaded words of love.
‘No, she didn’t leave. But she made it abundantly clear that she had only stayed with my father because of me. They had separated, and I was the result—or, as you would say, the consequence of an attempt at reconciliation. Because they stayed together, bound in an unhappy marriage, she blamed me for everything that was wrong in her life.’
‘Wouldn’t she have stayed for your sister too?’ He tried to pour rational thought onto Serena’s raw words—something he could never do for himself.
