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‘You’ve never been alone, Dimitri—you have me and Antonio.’
‘It’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because...’ He searched for a way to express his feelings without hurting his friend and failed. He could only find an honest reply in the deepest part of his heart and hope that Danyl would understand. ‘I could survive without you both. I don’t think I could survive if she left me.’
‘So you pushed her away?’ Danyl asked, no hint of anger or hurt from Dimitri’s easy dismissal of the fellow members of the Winners’ Circle.
‘I had to. Look at what I did to her, Danyl... Blackmailing her into marriage, holding her and her daughter hostage to my whims. All my talk of protection, and the one person they should have been protected from was me. She is better off without me.’
‘I do not believe that. Not for one second. And neither does she.’
Danyl placed a small package on the table, and Dimitri stared at it, frowning at the stack of letters, unable quite yet to reach out and take them. He studied Danyl as he poured two rather unhealthy measures of amber liquid into two glasses and didn’t say a word as Danyl placed one in front of him before heading back into the house.
Hesitantly he reached for the small shoebox packed full of letters, each envelope bearing his name, each one headed with a date. He ran his fingers over the fine spines, the last letter dated only weeks before.
‘This will take me years,’ he tossed over his shoulder to his friend, who had retreated.
Tentatively he reached for the first one, pulling it free from the sealed envelope, and his heart stopped when he read the first line.
Dear Dimitri,
I gave birth to our daughter today and it was the most incredible thing... The moment she was placed in my arms I knew the most overwhelming kind of love. A love that I never thought was possible. It was full and bright and so very powerful.
Powerful enough, I hope, to help me on this path without you.
The day after you left my bed I read in the newspapers that you had been arrested for fraud. Not just any kind of fraud but stealing millions and millions of dollars from your own business.
I can’t imagine how you could have done such a thing. How I could have taken you into my arms, into my bed and even into my heart in such a small space of time. I still can’t.
So I’m choosing not to. I’m choosing to write to the man I spent one incredible night with. To share all the wondrous things about our child in letters written not to the man I read about in headlines, plastered there for the world to see, but the man who gave me such pleasure, such joy, and who unknowingly fathered the most precious child with her mop of dark-as-night curly hair and midnight-blue eyes that are far too knowing for one so young.
And it’s because of that beautiful little girl that I cannot tell you—the you that was arrested, imprisoned in the last few weeks, the you that was found guilty. How could I expose our daughter to such a man? The you that I write to—and will continue to write to—will understand.
I hope. I feel.
It will not be easy, raising her on my own, with Ma to deal with and the bed and breakfast to manage, but I’ll find a way. I have to. Because it isn’t just about me any more, or even about you.
It is about our child.
Dear Dimitri,
Today our daughter took her first steps...
Dear Dimitri,
Today was...awful. It’s so hard doing this by myself. My mother... No. You don’t need to know that. But Amalia—she’s growing so strong. Like you, I imagine.
Goosebumps rose on his arms and his heart pounded in his chest as each word echoed in his mind with Anna’s voice, the hope, the love, the sadness, the emotions that she had poured into these pages, bringing them to life in his mind for him, despite his absence and despite her doubts of him. He saw each event through her eyes and felt each one through her voice and words. And he realised that she’d always kept him as a part of his daughter’s life, even when she’d thought him cruel, even when she thought he’d rejected her, or was unfit to parent Amalia.
Dear Dimitri,
Our daughter has a will of iron! She’s refusi
ng almost every single piece of food I put in front of her, apart from hummus and breadsticks!
Dear Dimitri...
