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“Yes. As I was saying, the pension doesn’t belong to Yaya. It’s designated for her use during her lifetime and she always earned enough from renting rooms to keep the lights on, but I had to reach out to her nephew when we had some wind damage. Once I explained her condition to him, he got annoyed that I was running it. He claimed I was living off his profits. What profits?” She threw up helpless hands. “Until this year, I worked at the taverna through the tourist season to make ends meet. I had to give that up, though, because I couldn’t leave her home alone anymore. Her nephew said if she wasn’t the one running it, and it would cost him money to keep it, he wanted to sell it. I asked Julian for advice and he sent a letter to buy us some time. That was last month. The next thing I knew, he and Khristos were on the doorstep, asking me to marry you.”

“And you said yes? Just like that?” He snapped his fingers.

“It seemed urgent,” she said pointedly. “Khristos said your stepfather would try to use your accident to take control of your company. That he had done it before.”

“He did.” Twenty years ago, Lambros had married their mother and had her vote him in as CEO before their father’s body was cold. Lambros had greased palms as necessary with the board while systematically erasing Spiro’s father from their lives, shifting properties into his own name and bleeding the shipyard of cash. The company had been hanging by a thread when Spiro had taken the helm at eighteen.

“As a last resort, Khristos was prepared to give up his work commitments and fight Lambros himself,” Alia said. “He had your power of attorney, which is how he was able to approve the proxy marriage, but he said that Lambros has your mother on his side and would drag him through the media and courts in whatever ugly fashion he could think of. He wanted to avoid that if he could.”

Khristos was strong in his own way, but he was a lover, not a fighter. He’d battled through a debilitating depression in his youth, one brought on by grief and exacerbated by Lambros picking on both of them. Khristos had finally found a good medication, but he still suffered downturns and guarded his mental health with vigilance. He would have been distressed over Spiro’s accident and would have known that a war with Lambros could put him into a tailspin.

Lambros would have known that, too.

“Khristos said that, for better or worse—” Alia tilted her lips at the turn of phrase “—a wife’s claim carries more weight than a brother’s or a mother’s. Especially if—” she cleared her throat “—that wife was expecting.”

“You’re not,” Spiro growled, then was compelled to ask, “Are you?”

“No.” The word was both exasperated and incredulous. After a beat, she leaned forward with amusement dancing in her eyes. “We did have one brief, hysterical conversation about artificial insemination, though.”

“Don’t make light of this,” he snarled.

She pulled back, injury flickering behind her eyes.

“What is the alternative? Fold up and cry?” Her gaze hit his like a missile, no humor there at all, only angry futility. “I learned a long time ago that crying does not solve my problems.”

“No, it would seem that marrying a stranger, lying to him about it and moving into his home is the way you solve your problems.”

“I’m here because my friend asked me to do this. As a favor.” She stood and threw her napkin over the yogurt she’d barely touched. “I need to sit with Yaya while the morning nurse comes to see if you have a working heart or a lump of coal in your chest.” She walked out.

* * *

Alia had barely had a chance to catch her breath since the night Julian and Khristos had turned up at the pension.

She had downplayed to Spiro how dire things had been with Yaya by then. Merely seeing Julian’s face had made her break down in relief. Khristos had been equally near tears. His worry for Spiro and the lengths Lambros would go had seemed melodramatic, but Julian had not dismissed his concerns, which had made things even more sobering.

By midnight, their plan was hatched. The following day, the mayor was cajoled into expediting the proxy marriage, overlooking the requirement that her intention to marry should have been in the newspaper for a week prior to the ceremony taking place. They backdated a notice outside the taverna and called it “good enough.”

Nurses and other staff had arrived that afternoon. Within hours, Yaya and Alia were packed and transported to Athens. Khristos took Alia straight to the hospital, where he introduced her to Spiro’s medical staff, including Dr. Gedi.

While she had sat with Spiro, talking nonsense about how much she had missed him, Khristos had had photos altered and procured a list of dates when Spiro had supposedly been with her on the island. He gave her a gold band encrusted with diamonds along with a matching ring that seemed far too extravagant.

“It’s what Spiro’s wife would be expected to wear,” he had claimed.

That evening, not even a full seventy-two hours after Spiro’s accident, when Daphne had arrived to visit her son, Khristos had introduced his mother to her new daughter-in-law.

Alia had thought Lambros would kill her on the spot. He’d been livid.

“Liar,” he kept accusing them. “This isn’t real. It won’t hold up!”

Thankfully, the hospital accepted her as Spiro’s wife. So did the board, once Khristos had a stylist give her a makeover and introduced her to them over a video call.

Alia had ample experience greeting strangers. She was good at remembering names and projecting warmth while giving away little of herself. Her childhood had taught her to endure being regarded as an outsider, and caring for Yaya had developed her ability to maintain a calm demeanor when faced with impatience or suspicion or other heightened emotions that weren’t always pleasant.

The whole experience had been trying, but honestly, the most difficult thing about pretending to be Spiro’s wife was wearing high heels and acting as though she knew what it felt like to be in love. Her dating history was thin. Her favorite footwear was none at all.

Today was the first day she hadn’t had to rise and dress in one of the upscale dresses that Khristos had bought her and rush to the hospital. She wore one of her own dresses and left her sandals outside Yaya’s door.

She sent the nurse to Spiro, then chatted away to Yaya while she made tea, telling her that Spiro was awake and had come home.