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“We have a reception to get to, of course.”
“Why bother with the show of a wedding?”
“Because we have an old family, because many in attendance are family, and I am making a show of this union.”
“Yes. Clearly. And I made the wrong show of it, didn’t I?”
“You did not make the right one, that is for certain.”
“Yes, I feel terribly sorry for that.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you do.”
“Well, you will have to survive the indignity.”
The reception venue was a series of large tents out in an open field. And it was even more beautiful than the spectacle that had been inside the sanctuary. And there were more guests there than had been at the church.
“All business associates and extended family. Here in Greece, of course that number is legion.”
“I see.”
“And many of Alex’s... Mourners.”
“Ex-lovers, you mean?”
“In a fashion. He had many friends.”
When they arrived, people stared at them. But Constantine held her hand and took her to a banquet table, where they sat next to one another. His parents sat down at the end of the table, and guilt lurched inside of her. She couldn’t do this. She simply couldn’t do it.
Not without telling him.
She had been wrapped in fear, so much fear it was hard to sort out exactly what scared her most. But she had to be better than that. Stronger. And she felt it now.
“Constantine...”
“Yes?”
“I have to tell you... I have to tell you. They’re not Alex’s children.”
“I know you think they might not be...”
“No,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “I know they are not.”
“How is it you know that?”
“Because I never slept with Alex. Constantine, I was a virgin when I came to your bed.”
A hush fell inside of him. She could be lying. But why? They were married already. It made no earthly sense for her to tell him this now.
The children were his. And she was his wife.
They were not Alex’s.
She had never slept with Alex.
And of course all the world believed that the children were his brother’s, because that was what had been reported. Because nobody knew that the two of them had ever been together. But apparently, he was the only one she had ever been with.
It seemed impossible. Almost laughably so.
