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Spiros glared down at her. “You didn’t take lovers while you waited for my brother.”
“I was not waiting for your brother—and, frankly, if I could have taken a lover and enjoyed it, I would have!”
Spiros looked like she had hit him. “You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “And I don’t care, either. Dimitri has a right to happiness, and none of you has the right to try to steal it from him. Not with emotional blackmail or guilt trips.”
She was talking about herself too, but that didn’t matter. Her chance at happiness had been a fleeting thing, and she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life lamenting her lot. Somehow she would help her father save the company, and one day she would get over Spiros.
But right now someone had to stop the two brothers from becoming enemies. And it looked like that someone was her.
“I am not trying to steal his happiness.”
“Aren’t you? Your brother has fallen in love with a woman who carries his child. She’s disappeared because he let his duty to his family supersede his obligations to her. He’s hurting. She’s no doubt hurting.” Everyone was hurting—was she the only one who saw that? “Dimitri needs your support, not your condemnation, and if you can’t give it, you aren’t the man I know you to be.”
Dimitri’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Thank you, Phoebe. I do not deserve your championship.”
“Wrong.” She turned and hugged him fiercely. “You did the right thing, telling your grandfather you could not marry me. I respect that choice and admire your courage. Never believe any different.”
“I cannot believe this,” Spiros muttered with disgust.
Phoebe turned to glare at him.
But he did not look repentant. “You do realize that you just hugged my brother for the first time in my memory? After you have both agreed that you will not marry.”
“So?”
“So I should have seen how poorly suited the two of you are a long time ago.” Spiros still looked disgusted, but maybe it was not merely with his brother. “We all should have.”
“Yes, we should have,” her father said from behind her.
The sound of his voice surprised Phoebe as much as the words. Not that they meant anything.
Two weeks ago those words would have given her joy, but they were nothing but empty syllables now. Her future had not changed from an hour ago. Except for the unknown identity of the man she would have to marry. The company still had to be saved.
Without acknowledging either man’s comment, she returned to the seat she’d practically fallen into earlier. She looked at Dimitri. “How long do they anticipate the surgery taking?”
He answered—and from there the conversation moved away from their failed engagement. Spiros sat down beside her and she took his hand, holding it in silent comfort. He spared her a grateful glance filled with a mixture of other emotions she could not decipher.
Then he turned to engage his brother in a more detailed discussion of his grandfather’s health. Her father asked questions, and was the first to congratulate Dimitri on his upcoming parenthood.
Her mother had gone home with Chrysanthos, which was why it had taken her father so much longer to reach the hospital than Phoebe and Spiros.
“I will have to tell your mother to stop the wedding preparations,” Aristotle said when there was a lull in the conversation.
; “I apologize for not knowing my own mind sooner,” Dimitri said somewhat stiffly.
Her father shrugged. “It is the way of life,” he said philosophically. But as the evening wore on it became obvious it was not only his old friend’s health he was worried about.
The survival of Leonides Enterprises lay heavily on him. And on Phoebe too. As much as she hated being the sacrificial goat, she knew as well as her father that something had to be done. She’d felt responsible before, but now, after working so closely with her father on the recovery measures, the knowledge of how dire was the situation was even more acute for her.
Her family’s livelihood and that of hundreds of employees hung in the balance.
Spiros swung back and forth between civility and borderline hostility with his brother. He had not forgiven the slight on family pride as easily as Phoebe had forgiven his behavior against her.
But she had no grudge to hold onto. Dimitri loved. And if Spiros had been willing to take his place she would have broken her promise without a second’s hesitation. That their kiss had meant nothing to Spiros had nearly destroyed her, but she was honest enough to admit to herself that she would have let Spiros make love to her even when the promise to Dimitri had stood. If he had encouraged her she would have gladly given him anything.
