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“But do you have another man back in the States, Angelika?”
She loved the way he said her name, but she laughed, softly and a little bitterly. “There’s only been my husband. He divorced me a year ago. I haven’t wanted anyone else.” Except Xandros.
“I’ve been divorced for ten years.”
She didn’t want to know, yet it was the only thing she could ask. “In ten years, you must have had other women in your life. Is there one now?”
It was a yes or no answer. She didn’t want to know all the women he’d been with since his divorce. She wanted only to know about this moment.
“There is no other woman.”
It was all she needed to hear.
But it wasn’t all she needed to say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here that day.” She didn’t ask if he’d come. There would be too much pain, too much loss either way.
Their pretty young waitress arrived then, bringing her a second café au lait and a deep black coffee for him.
He smiled. “Thank you, Eleni.” Then he said, “I came here that day.”
Angela closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the pain in his or feel the sorrow in her own heart for what she’d done.
“But I was engaged to another woman.”
Her world crashed and burned, her heart squeezing tight until she was afraid tears would leak out. She’d dreamed of a joyous reunion that day even as she’d told herself it could never have happened. Her mother was right. He had a girl in every port. And he’d come to this café already engaged to another woman. Oh, but she’d dreamed.
“Why did you come then?” she asked.
He smiled gently, his eyes closing in a slow blink. “I was hoping you’d save me from a marriage I didn’t truly want. It was a business deal.” He shrugged. “Her parents, my parents. If you were here, I thought I’d find the courage to break my engagement.”
“But I wasn’t here,” she whispered, wrapping her numb fingers around her hot coffee.
“But you weren’t here,” he echoed. “And I married her.” Then he added softly, “I have no regrets about that. I have four beautiful children I adore.”
“I have two children. I love them with everything in me.” Even if they didn’t feel the same way. But she didn’t tell him about Sienna. She wondered if he would hate her. She wondered if in telling him, she would hate herself.
“Did you marry him?”
She hadn’t lied to Xandros back then. She’d told him about the engagement, about Donald, that she’d realized she wasn’t in love with him, but that her mother was a forceful personality with high hopes. “I married him. I couldn’t stand up to my mother.”
He nodded, a slow, knowing move of his head. “It seems that neither of us could stand up to our parents. I suppose that is the way of things. But because I did not have courage, I have four children I love, a business I enjoy, and after twenty years of marriage, I have my freedom.” He reached out, didn’t touch her, and finally withdrew. “That’s when I started coming back here every June fifteenth.” His chuckle was soft music. “Though I come here often for my morning coffee. It is the most relaxing way to begin the day.” His smile faded. “But every fifteenth of June, I look for you.” He held her gaze a long moment. “And finally, you are here.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to come back.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to fly to the States and find you.” Then he grinned, his mustache twitching. “I once saw an old American movie called The Graduate. I imagined running up the aisle on your wedding day, just like Dustin Hoffman.”
“But what would your life have been like, cut off from your family?”
He shrugged, very Greek, very nonchalant, what will be will be. “Neither of us will ever know.”
“I only know what my life is like now. Even though I’ve been divorced for only a year, I’ve been alone for thirty-one.” She’d never learned to love Donald, not even before he’d learned about Sienna.
“But you are here now.” This time when he reached out, he pulled her fingers from her coffee cup, linked them with his. “Do you think thirty years have changed us completely?”
“Absolutely.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Yet you came back.”
“Yes.” The problem was the same as it had been all those years ago. Sienna. She couldn’t tell him he had another daughter before she’d even told Sienna.
