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She pulled her sunglasses down her nose just enough for him to see her eyes and stared at him. ‘Theo, it isn’t a weakness to talk to people about emotional things, you know. And bottling things up isn’t good for you.’
‘I don’t—’ he began.
She held up a hand and made the kind of noise parents made to tell their children to stop talking right that second.
It worked. He shut up.
‘Theo, you know you bottle things up. You’re like all the other men in our family—you think that being strong and silent is a good thing. I’m telling you, it isn’t. So either you talk to me, adelphos mou, or I’ll nag you stupid until you go back to England.’
He knew from past experience that his sister was perfectly capable of carrying out her threat.
‘Your choice,’ she finished, folding her arms.
He sighed. ‘All right. Her name is Madison. Maddie, for short.’
‘And?’
‘She works with me. She’s a registrar.’
Sophronia nodded and pushed her sunglasses back up to their normal place. ‘Good. She understands your work and you have things in common. So what’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t a problem.’
‘Then why didn’t you bring her home to meet us? Are you scared we won’t like her?’
‘You’d all love her,’ Theo admitted. ‘She’s bright and lively and good to have around.’ And he missed her—shockingly, to the point where it was like a physical pain. He ached for her to be there, next to him. ‘She orders her meals backwards—pudding first; she likes dancing to old-fashioned music; and she spends her spare time organising fundraisers for the hospital.’
‘So she’s fun and has a good heart. Exactly the kind of woman I’d want for my brother. Then what’s the problem?’ Sophronia asked again.
It was a long, long time before he answered. ‘I’m the problem.’
‘How?’
He sighed. ‘I suppose I’m scared.’
‘Scared?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘My big brother, who’s not scared of anything and who’s always told me to forget about the spiders and reach for the stars—and Meli, Thali and Stefanos too—scared?’
Theo waved a dismissive hand. ‘This is different.’
‘How?’
‘It’s a risk. Putting your heart in someone else’s hands.’
‘Yes,’ Sophronia agreed. ‘But it’s a risk worth taking, in my considered opinion. Theo, to know you is to love you, and you’ve had women dropping at your feet for years.’ She frowned. ‘Or is that it? She’s unavailable?’
Theo smiled wryly. ‘No. She was married—but it ended a long time ago. Not her fault,’ he added firmly.
‘Does your Maddie know how you feel about her? Have you told her?’
‘Yes and no. She knows why I’ve avoided marriage and babies.’
‘You told her about your mother?’ Sophronia blinked hard.
He shrugged. ‘I wanted to be honest with her.’
‘Hmm. Do you know how she feels about you?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess she likes me.’
‘Theo.’ She cuffed his arm. ‘You know what I mean. If you love someone and they love you back—if they’re The One, you know. Just like when I met Andreas. I knew the second I met him.’
Just as Theo had known, the second he’d seen Madison. ‘She’s The One,’ Theo said softly, ‘and it makes me freeze in panic.’
‘It sounds to me as if you’re in love. Really in love. For the first time. Yes, it’s scary.’
Yes. But it wasn’t the real problem. Theo took a deep breath. He also knew why he’d come home. Why he’d sought out the oldest of his siblings for a quiet chat on the beach. Because he knew he needed to get this sorted out in his head, and he had no idea where to start. And his sister was very, very good at sorting things out. ‘I’m scared of losing her, Sophie,’ he said quietly. ‘What if it goes wrong, the same way it did for my mother?’
Sophronia glanced around, as if to double-check everyone was out of earshot, and lowered her voice. ‘What happened to your mother wasn’t your fault, Theo.’
Strictly speaking, Theo thought, it was.
‘And it wasn’t Dad’s either. It was a tragedy, desperately sad, but it happened and you can’t do anything to change the past.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get the chance to know her. But you do still have a mother. Mine—and she thinks of herself as your mother. We all think of her that way.’
