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‘Free to live your life? What about our son, Calypso?’ he demanded scathingly, his voice ragged. ‘Do you intend to drag him along on another freedom jaunt? Are you so blinkered to his needs that you would rip him from me to satisfy your own needs?’
‘Of course not!’
The searing denial was the final thread holding my emotions together. I felt the hot slide of tears and could do nothing to stop it. So I stood there, my world going into one final free fall, and set the words I despised but needed to say spilling free.
‘He...he’s happy in Athens. He’s a Xenakis. You love him. He belongs with you. You can...’ Keep him. Love him. The way I might not be able to.
The final words dried in my throat, the final selfless act of handing over my precious son unwilling to be given voice. But still he knew.
Knew and condemned me absolutely for it.
Brows clamped in horror, he stared at me. ‘Are you—?’ He stopped, shook his head in abject disbelief. ‘You’re leaving him behind? Your quest for freedom is so great that you intend to completely abandon your son?’
His voice was bleak, his eyes pools of bewilderment.
‘Or it is something else, Calypso? Is it me? Have I not proved I can be a good husband, provide for you and our son?’
There was my chance. Say no and this would be over. Tell him he’d failed me and it would be done. But I couldn’t. Because even if he didn’t love me, he hadn’t failed me.
‘Please, Axios—’
‘Please what?’ he asked urgently, stalking around the table towards me. ‘Make it easier for you to walk away from your child? From me?’
His chest rose and fell in uncharacteristic agitation, his eyes dark, dismal.
‘I watched my grandfather’s world crumble around him. You want me to let you do the same to mine?’ he rasped jaggedly.
I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Please don’t say that.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded, his expression hardening. ‘You want easy? Let me make it simple for you. Take one step out through the front door and you will never set eyes on Andreos again. I will make it my mission to erase your name from his life. It will be as if you never even existed.’
Choked tears clogged my throat and my world turned inside out with sorrow.
‘You would do that? Really?’
He hesitated,
one hand rising to glide roughly over his mouth and jaw before he shook his head. ‘Make me understand, Calypso. What could possibly be out there that you won’t get with me? What could be more important to you than to care for our child? To watch him grow and thrive under our care?’
I pressed my lips together, the agony of keeping the naked truth locked inside me so it wouldn’t stain Andreos killing me. ‘My...my freedom. I want what I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember, Axios. I want to be free.’
For the longest time he simply stared in stark disbelief. Then his breath shuddered out. And with it the last of the bewilderment in his eyes. Now he saw how set I was on bringing this to an end, his jaw clenched in tight resolution.
‘Is that your final decision?’ he grated.
My balled fist rose from the table, rested on my abdomen and the possible time bomb ticking inside me. ‘Yes. It is.’
‘Very well. You’ll hear from my lawyers before the week is out.’
My breath strangled to nothing. It was over. Just like that?
‘Axios—’
‘No!’ His hand slashed through the air. ‘There’s no room for bargaining.’
And in that moment, presented with his bleak verdict, I felt the words simply tumble out. ‘I’m sick, Axios. I have a lump...in my cervix.’
He froze, his eyes widening with shock as he stumbled back a step. ‘What?’ he whispered, his face ashen.
