AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The noise he made was involuntary as his throat constricted. “But then, he started using again. I didn’t realise for months. He lost his job, and mine wasn’t enough to cover rent. He refused to go into rehab. Two months later, he died.”
Anastasios squeezed her hand. “I’m very sorry, Phoebe.”
“I just wish there was something more I could have done. But addiction is such a fearsome beast, and he was so completely in its thrall. His life had been a disaster. Dad was awful to him. I think he had to do what he did in order to blot his memories.”
“It sounds like you did everything you could, and then some.”
She lifted her shoulders. “I was working as a waitress by then, in a little bar near Fed Square. The money was good, and the customers nice. I became friendly with a woman who told me about a nannying job in London. The annual salary would have been enough to clear Dale’s rehab debts in two years, plus, I’d get a chance to travel. Airfare was all covered, too. It was a dream come true, a truly fresh start.”
“Hmm,” he said, skeptically.
“Yes, well, unfortunately, I didn’t share your wise cynicism. I naïvely believed some fairy Godmother had waved her magic wand. I signed on the dotted line and was whisked over to London and taken to meet my employers.”
“But you didn’t like it?”
She shivered. “There were no children. It was a porn agency. They figured that because they’d paid my airfare and advanced me ten thousand pounds, I had no choice but to star in their movies.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious,” she said, shaking her head.
“What did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I ran away. I hid on the streets—but it was winter, and London is nothing like Melbourne. It was scary, Anastasios.”
Again, that protective instinct fired to life.
“I refused to let myself fall backwards. I’d come so far. I signed up at an employment agency, who got me a job working at the restaurant straight away. I saw an ad for Mrs Langham’s bedsit and went to meet with her. She was very kind, and very supportive, and told me I could pay her rent in a few weeks, when I had the money, so I was, very luckily, able to start working.”
He saw the bedsit through her eyes now, not as a dingy, tiny space, but as a godsend, a sanctuary when she’d most badly needed it.
“I’d already used the ten thousand pounds to go towards the Rehab centre, and they wouldn’t refund it, so I still owe money to the porn company.”
He made a gruff sound of disagreement. “I beg your pardon, you owe them nothing.”
She brushed him off with a tight smile.
“So that’s how I wound up in London. Your father came into the restaurant during my second week. I was wary and angry and sad and somehow, he broke through all that. We became friends almost that first night.”
Anastasios listened without the usual burst of anger. In truth, he was just so glad there’d been someone to support Phoebe emotionally after everything she’d been through. “Your strength of character is a beautiful thing,” he said, simply, and it was.
“I’m flattered,” she said, but she was pushing him away, straightening, perhaps uncomfortable with how much she’d shared.
Being pushed away was the last thing he wanted.
“Dance with me.” He stood, before she could demur, holding out a hand to her.
She looked around. “No one else is.”
“So? I don’t care about anybody else. Dance with me, agape mou.”
She stood then, as if she couldn’t not, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight as they swayed in time to the music, oblivious to everyone and everything around them.
Chapter 10
IT HAD ALREADY BEEN a day that had completely topped her wildest expectations, but when Anastasios’ driver pulled up outside the Piazza Navona and he led her into a stunning Palazzo, the strains of classical music audible over the din of the assembled guests, anticipation lifted inside of her.
“What is this?” She turned to face him, but he was distracted, his attention focused elsewhere.
