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“Like a baby,” she confirmed with a nod, carrying the book towards the kitchen bench and placing it down, checking carefully first to ensure there were no spills or crumbs.
He nodded towards the espresso machine. “Coffee?”
She nodded. “I can make it.”
“It’s no bother.”
He turned and went to the machine, so she stared at him shamelessly, drinking in the sight of his strong back and defined arms as he ground coffee, filling the basket, then flicked the switch. The aroma made her stomach clench.
“Why would you hide books under your bed?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, you said you would borrow books from the library, then hide them. Why?”
His memory was impressive, so too his attention to detail. “My father didn’t approve of reading.”
“Is that so?”
“Unfortunately. If he found us with a book, he’d –,” she clamped her lips together, the familiar sense of shame creeping through her.
“Yes?” Anastasios prompted, bringing the cup over. But rather than placing it down, he walked around to her side of the bench, standing directly beside her, so the heat of his body was palpable.
She shivered. “Be angry,” she mumbled, reaching for the cup as a distraction technique.
“He’d yell at you for reading?”
The coffee scalded her throat a little. “He’d yell at us?” Her laugh was brittle. “I wish that’s all he’d do.”
Anastasios stiffened visibly, his eyes burning her face with the intensity of his gaze. “He’d hit you?”
She flinched, pained at the thought of reliving those hellish years. The fear, the pain. “I learned how to avoid his anger, for the most part. It was my brother who copped the worst of it.”
“Is he older? Younger?”
“Older,” she whispered, clearing her throat. “He passed away.”
Anastasios was quiet, mulling over that, his eyes roaming her face. “Your father beat him.”
“Yes.” Another shudder. “Mercilessly. Whereas I knew dad’s triggers, Dale was stubborn and almost seemed to relish goading him.” Her eyes were huge as she recounted those terrifying years. “I tried to protect him, but I’m not exactly an imposing figure, and as a girl, I was very small.”
Undersized. Undernourished. She remembered with stark clarity the words the school nurse had used, a frown beetling her brow, as she’d described her concern to Phoebe’s father. Phoebe had been beaten for that, for bringing embarrassment on the family, and for interrupting his afternoon of gambling on the horses and throwing back long necks of beer, all to be dragged to the school and lectured by a matronly woman.
She wrapped her arms around her chest.
“He thought books were for snobs, that being smart, or trying to become smart, was just a way of showing off. He’d had to drop out of school when he was eleven, and I guess always had a chip on his shoulder about it.” She looked up at Anastasios, curious as to how he’d respond to this, even as she was almost having an out of body experience, the words erupting from her of their own volition.
“But you are very intelligent,” he surmised thoughtfully.
Her eyes widened. She didn’t bother to deny it. “I always got good grades in school,” she admitted. “But—,”
“But?”
She shook her head, the admission that she’d dropped out and run away too hard to admit to this man, who’d achieved so much. Konstantinos had been so proud of Anastasios; he’d told her all about how clever he was, how gifted. But Konstantinos had been proud of her, too. He’d admired her for her tenacity—a trait they shared. Their childhood had much in common; he’d seen her as she was. Not a victim, but rather a survivor, and survivors, Kon used to say, were stronger than steel.
“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed back from him, coffee cup gripped in her hands. “It’s another beautiful day out here. So far as prisons go, this isn’t so bad.”
He watchedher sunbaking with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Was this what it had been like for Konstantinos? Had he tried to fight his attraction to Phoebe? Tried to focus on the reasons they couldn’t and shouldn’t be together, only to have her effortlessly work her way in past all his defenses?
