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It needed to seem natural. It needed to be perfect.
The word had sliced through her like a knife. Perfect. It had been too close. Too reminiscent of Marc, of her father. It was supposed to be different with Loukis. They had an agreement. She knew the terms. And now he did too. No more lies. She just had to hope that she could live up to her end of the bargain. To be the one thing that she had failed at before. To be...perfect.
Her mouth was bone-dry and she knew she’d not be able to go back to sleep now. She shrugged on her new silk robe and, on bare feet, made her way towards the staircase that led downstairs.
A sound pulled her up short. Startling and rich, Loukis’s laughter cut through her. It was conspiratorial in a way that made her jealous. Perhaps he was on the phone to his lover. And she suddenly felt horrified. They’d never talked about that, and why wouldn’t he have one? He was clearly a deeply sensual man—but he’d kissed her? She rubbed her forehead, her thoughts chaotic after an unsettled brief bite of sleep.
In a fit of unfamiliar pique, she continued down the stairs, not disguising her footfalls on the cool marble. She rounded the bottom of the staircase and saw Loukis through the doorway to the living room, illuminated in the darkness by a shaft of
light from his laptop screen.
The moment she heard Annabelle’s voice echo through the speakers, she felt guilty. Guilty and intrusive. She made to retreat, but the move must have caught his eye, because Loukis looked up, a smile lighting his features momentarily. And then, as if he too remembered how they had left things, how she had stormed off to the room and slammed the door shut on him as if she were a child, the brightness of his smile dimmed.
‘Who’s that?’ she heard Annabelle demand. Almost reluctantly he beckoned her over and Célia, unable to refuse the command, went to stand behind where Loukis sat so that she could see the screen.
‘Bonsoir, ma chérie,’ Célia greeted the ten-year-old, expecting and receiving the peal of giggles that the girl emitted.
‘She calls me Cherry,’ she cried to Loukis in delight.
‘You’re getting quite the collection of names, Nanny. I hope you can keep track of them,’ Loukis said, jokingly chiding.
‘Mummy calls me Annabelle, though.’
She felt Loukis jerk back in the chair as if struck.
‘But mynewdaddy—’ she seemed to roll the words into one ‘—calls me Anna. He’s silly.’
Her statement hit the room with the force of a tornado Annabelle couldn’t even have imagined.
‘Your new daddy?’ Loukis demanded, his voice shaking with anger.
Annabelle looked uncertain for a moment. ‘That’s what Mummy calls him. My new daddy,’ she replied, as if confused and unsure as to why Loukis’s reaction was what it had been.
‘Are you having fun?’ Célia rushed on, trying to cover his discomfort. ‘What have you been up to?’
As Annabelle chatted away about visits to shopping malls, where she was given Jameson, and a trip to the zoo, where she saw tigers, bears and snakes—her favourite was Diego the skunk—Célia was painfully aware of the tension and frustration that filled the air on this side of the world, Annabelle thankfully oblivious to it. Or at least she had been until her voice trailed off a little and her small fingers started to twist in the bright pink fake fur of her toy.
‘But I... I... They don’t have dolphins. Not like the zoo in Greece.’
Célia’s heart ached. For Annabelle and Loukis, both desperately trying to navigate this new dynamic.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dolphin,’ she remarked into the awkward silence.
‘You haven’t?’ Eyes wide and childishly outraged, Annabelle demanded that Loukis take her to see the dolphins right now.
‘Ma chérie, it is nearly three-thirty in the morning. I don’t think the zoo is open here yet.’
‘But it’s still light outside?’
‘Not here, my love. You’re so far away that the sun is in a different place and it’s a different time. What are you doing tomorrow?’ Célia asked, trying to get some of the happy enthusiasm that had filled the little girl’s voice. But sadly it didn’t quite work. Her joy was as dimmed as Loukis.
‘How is Meredith treating you?’ he demanded, his voice rough and begrudging.
‘She wants me to call her Mummy.’
All the man beside her could do was nod.
‘Is that okay with you?’ asked Célia, keeping her tone as light as possible.
