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Or he could be wrong. Sofi´a could be telling the truth. The medication may have affected the efficacy of her birth control pills. But allowing himself to believe that, that she was that honest, different woman he hadn’t been quite ready to let go of in New York wasn’t an alternative he could allow himself to consider. He wouldn’t be made a fool of a second time. Not when his last mistake with a woman had produced a scandal that had rocked his family. Not when now, of all times, his head had to be clear, something it evidently hadn’t been up until now.
What they needed, he decided, was a fresh start. With neither of them bearing any axes to grind. Which, he conceded, involved developing a healthy relationship between them as Sofi´a had said. Which he could do. He liked her. He admired her strength—the survivor in her. He appreciated her vulnerability—her soft underside that would make her a great mother. They had been good together in New York. If they could both move on from this, they could make a great team.
Tonight, he decided grimly, he was solving this impasse.
The helicopter banked and followed the coast, bound for Akathinia. An impulse took hold. He leaned forward and shouted an instruction to the pilot. The pilot nodded and changed direction. Fifteen minutes later, they landed on a flat patch of green halfway up the southern Carnelian mountain range.
Nik stepped out of the helicopter, walked across the field and hiked the half mile down to the treacherous, winding road that dropped away to the pounding rocks and surf below.
The site of his brother’s accident was marked by the masses of flowers that lay at the side of the road, once a vibrant burst of color, now withering and dying.
Soon they would disintegrate into nothing.
For the first time since he’d been informed of the accident in that mind-numbing conversation with Abram, he acknowledged his brother wasn’t coming back. Wasn’t ever coming back. That this all hadn’t been the horrific nightmare he’d wanted it to be. Just because they hadn’t managed to find his brother’s body when they’d pulled the car from the sea didn’t mean he wasn’t gone.
Hot tears slipped down his cheeks, scalding in the whip of the wind. You need to give yourself permission to grieve. He hadn’t done that. Just as he’d suspected, it was a dark tunnel he had no desire to travel through.
Athamos smiling that wicked grin of his at him as they’d cut the sails in the America’s Cup and declared victory for Akathinia. His brother’s fierce countenance when they’d fought tooth and nail over their beliefs. His big grin when they’d made their peace with one another.
It was lost to him now. There wasn’t any time left to tell him how he’d truly felt. To mend the fences that had risen between them. To ask his brother what the hell he’d been doing in that car racing Kostas that night. Answers he would never have. Answers he would have given anything to have.
In that moment, as he stared into the gray, stormy surf below, he had to believe all of this had happened for a reason. That there was some sense in this.
* * *
As the minutes ticked closer to Sofi´a and Nik’s first official appearance together, Sofi´a’s general demeanor vacillated from a numbness that shielded her from it all to a stubborn defiance that this media frenzy wouldn’t get to her.
“It doesn’t matter what I wear,” she told Stella, who was putting the finishing touches on her hair. “They wanted a countess. They’re going to crucify me regardless of what I show up in.”
“Give them time,” Stella soothed, wrapping a wayward strand of Sofi´a’s hair into the sophisticated updo she’d engineered. “Once they get to know you, they’re going to love you.”
She already had that in New York. Her friends appreciated her. Her clients appreciated her. And yet in her first public appearance here, a visit to a youth charity with Stella, she’d been pegged as lacking in charisma. Stiff.
What did they expect? They had spoken of her as a foreigner from day one, incapable of understanding the nuances of Akathinian society. Nik’s scandalous acquisition rumored to be pregnant. A far cry from the countess they’d been teased with, and the influence the Agieros exercised across Europe.
Was she supposed to have walked into that charity event and shone under that criticism? Under the barrage of it that seemed to come daily—when all she really wanted was to be back at the boutique, where business was booming as her face became a household name. The only upside that seemed to be coming from all this!
Stella eyed her in the mirror. “I was skeptical about you in the beginning, you know, like everyone else. Women have treated Nik as a prize to be won for so long we’re all a bit jaded about it. But I can see that you care about him. That you are true, Sofi´a, in everything that you do. And that’s exactly what Nik needs after that piece of work he was with.”
