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“Stoic on the outside, shattered, I think, beneath that. She’ll be glad to see you in the morning. Want to share a nightcap?”
Anastasios instantly rejected the idea. He wanted to be alone. So why had he come here?
“No.” Too harsh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He stalked through the house, into one of the guestrooms, and lay down on the bed. Even here, she pursued him.
His mood didn’t improvein the morning. He went through the motions with his mother, hearing about Leonidas’ recent visit, ignoring the barbed looks Thanasi was shooting him. It was only later, when the two brothers were alone, that Thanasi spoke.
“I don’t know what the hell has gotten into you.”
“What do you mean?” Anastasios was in no mood for this. He barely looked at his brother.
“First Leo, then you. I expect this of Dimi, but you two are supposed to be here, with me, helping her. Where the hell did everyone go?”
“Our father just died,” Anastasios said. “People deal with grief in different ways.”
“Some people seem to think they have the luxury of sticking their heads in the sand. What about mom? You’ve all but deserted her.”
Anastasios couldn’t argue that. Nor could he fight the sense of responsibility. But Thanasi was on a roll.
“I’ve been messaging you. I’ve left voicemails. You haven’t responded to a single one. What did you think was happening back here, Anastasios? You’ve completely disappeared, forgetting all about her and our family.”
“That’s not true,” he was forced to defend himself, jerking to his feet and moving towards the window. He stared out, unseeing, at the dark ocean and milky moonlight. “I might have been absent, but I’ve been very much focused on this family, believe me.”
Thanasi crossed his arms over his chest, his features showing skepticism. For a moment, Anastasios was struck—by how shitty it felt to be speaking the truth and be disbelieved. A powerful sense of guilt almost felled him.
“Listen, Thanasi, we need to speak. There’s something going on that you should know about.” He heard the words and realized where he was going, and felt a strange bubble of apprehension. But he couldn’t keep these secrets forever. He needed to share the load. Telling Cora had helped, but she was a cousin. No matter how close they were, she had her own parents and siblings; it wasn’t the same. Thanasi understood more closely what this would mean to Maggie.
Anastasios poured two generous measures of scotch then carried them across the room. Before Thanasi had begun to drink, Anastasios began the story. Of Annie, of Ophelia and finally, of Phoebe. He discovered that talking about her felt good. That in the absence of being with her, and being able to touch her, simply saying her name and describing her to his brother sent his insides into a tailspin.
Thanasi’s glass was empty when Anastasios reached the end, and the brothers stared at one another.
“That’s a lot to take in.”
“Yes.” Anastasios winced. “So you see, I might have been absent, but my mind has been engaged in how to handle this, how to protect our mother from the media speculation. It couldn’t come at a worse time.”
“And what have you decided?”
Anastasios looked away. The truth was, since Phoebe had left the yacht, his mind had been running at about an eighth of its usual speed.
“Annie Westbourne is on hold, for now. I’m in negotiations, via Georgios. I can string those out a while. So long as there’s the question of her inheritance, she seems willing to stay quiet.”
“And the younger mistress?”
“I was wrong about her,” Anastasios admitted, frowning. “Tommy told me the source of the story had retracted their report. It was a cash grab, nothing more.” His stomach sank to the ground. All of the ways in which he’d let her down came back to him. All of the things he’d said. The way he’d treated her. He saw it as if from a different perspective and he wanted to shake himself, to reach back through time and somehow alter what he’d done, how he’d acted.
“So there’s no possible harm from her?”
“No.” The word was a guttural admission, heavy with emotions.
Thanasi watched his brother with care. Anastasios was, of all of them, the most like Konstantinos, in many ways. He was famously in charge of his emotions, steady and level-headed, focused on business to the exclusion of all else.
But what if something had changed for him? What if the woman he’d sought to silence had changed something fundamental within Tasso?
“Tell me what happened,” Thanasi said, gently. He saw now what he’d missed at first. His brother was broken, altered. Beyond the grief they all felt, the wheels had come off for Anastasios, and Thanasi knew that the woman on the yacht must be at the heart of that. “Tell me about this girl.”
Anastasios fought temptation for a moment, finishing his scotch then holding the glass in the palm of one hand. He was tempted to excuse himself, to disappear to his room, but something inside of him snapped, and it was then that Anastasios understood: he’d come here because he needed to talk to someone. To have someone help make sense of what had happened. He just hoped Thanasi wouldn’t stand in judgement of Anastasios for too long. Though God knew he deserved it…
