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“I’ve suggested she put her own touch on it,” he said, tone slightly defensive. “She insists this is fine.” But there was so much sadness in the way he said that, as though it really, truly bothered him to have his daughter sleep in this room, that curiosity sparked anew.

“Does she live with you full time?”

“She boards through the week,” he said, face pale beneath his tan. “It’s not my first preference.”

She didn’t completely follow.

“Ellie’s mother enrolled her a couple of years ago. I didn’t want to make any big changes to her life. Not beyond what she’s already experienced.”

Chloe didn’t know the details, but it was easy to read between the lines and intuit a divorce.

“Do you and your ex-wife share custody?” she asked, wondering if Ellie had a picture-perfect, soulless room in another house somewhere.

“My ex—no. Ellie’s mother was not my wife.” He dragged a hand over his jaw, cursing softly. “Of course, why should you know any of this?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry,” she said, taking a step backwards, because somehow they’d come to stand incredibly close, and his breath was warm against her forehead. She could hardly think straight, and she was genuinely concerned she might be about to do something stupid.

“It’s important that you understand,” he contradicted, the fierce control of their first meeting reasserting itself. “Ellie is the daughter of my closest friend, Benjamin, and his wife, Laura.”

Chloe nodded, though she didn’t completely follow.

“Ben died when Ellie was only five years old. It was a short, but futile, battle with cancer. He asked me to take care of them, and of course I intended to.” His features tightened into a mask of pain. “I’ve been in their lives ever since. Not trying to replace Ben, but at least helping Laura to help Ellie remember him.”

“That must have been very hard on you all.”

He grimaced. “Six months ago, Laura was killed in an accident. A lorry crossed onto her side of the road; she died immediately. With her, there was no time to prepare. I was in Athens, in a meeting, when I got the call. I made the decision to live here, at least until Ellie finishes school, so her life wouldn’t be overly disrupted. Benjamin relied on me to protect them; I didn’t do that. But at least I can look after Ellie now.”

“The accident wasn’t your fault,” Chloe heard herself say, and even when she’d put space between them once, somehow it had disappeared again. They were toe to toe once more, and out of sympathy, and only sympathy, her hand lifted to his upper arm, curving around it, holding there for a heavy beat.

His jaw shifted as though he was grinding his teeth; like he didn’t agree with her? Her brows drew together. Was it possible he’d been involved in some way? And was it any of her business?

“I should have been here.”

Her thumb stroked across his bicep. In a quality button-down shirt, she could still feel the warmth of his skin and it made her toes curl. Even now, when they spoke of something so heavy and sad. “But you were in Athens.”

His jaw shifted again.

“You’re from there?”

Another single nod.

“You lived and worked there? And your friend knew that?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think he expected you to uproot your life and move to the English countryside?”

“That’s not the point.”

Chloe was hugely sympathetic toward the man and yet she also felt a quirk of her lips, into something like a sardonic smile. “You’re an obsessive perfectionist,” she hazarded. “You like to get everything right, all the time.”

“I promised him.”

Her hand squeezed into his bicep, feeling the solid weight of it. “Even if you’d moved yourself to the UK, set up home near them, or with them, you wouldn’t have been with her, or Ellie, all the time. Accidents happen, Dimitrios. You couldn’t have stopped it.”

He’d heard the same thing from the psychologist he’d been taking Ellie to. While the words had been said to reassure his ward—now essentially his daughter—he’d tried to absorb them. Yet they’d run off him like water off a duck’s back. Until now.

There was something about this diminutive woman that was unexpectedly loud and impactful. She spoke with measured, considered authority and her words thudded right into his chest, deep into a heart that had been destroyed by so much grief.