‘I’m not saying my father was blameless,’ he said. ‘Far from it. He’d been brought up to believe he was some kind of god—the son of one of the wealthiest ship-owners in the world. He was what is known as a player, in every sense of the word. At a time when free love was common currency, there were always women—lots of women. From what I understand my mother decided she couldn’t tolerate his infidelities any more and told him she’d had enough.’
‘Right,’ she said cautiously. ‘So if that was the case, then why didn’t she just divorce him?’
‘Because he came up with something much more attractive than a messy divorce. He offered her a king’s ransom if she would just walk away and leave us alone. A clean break, he called it. Better for him. Better for her. Better for everyone.’ His mouth twisted. ‘All she had to do was sign an agreement saying that she would never see her two sons again.’
‘And she...signed it?’
‘She did,’ he affirmed grimly. ‘She signed on the dotted line and went to live a new life in America, and that was the last we ever saw of her. Pavlos was...’
There was a pause and when he spoke it was in a voice devoid of all nuance. A voice, thought Keeley, which was enough to break your heart in two.
‘Just a baby,’ he finished.
‘And you?’
‘Ten.’
‘So what happened? I mean, after she’d gone.’
He stood up, picking up his papers and stacking them on a nearby table, carefully aligning all the corners into a neat pile before answering her question. ‘My father was busy celebrating the completion of what to him seemed like the perfect deal—being completely rid of an irritant of an ex-wife. In his absence he employed a series of nannies to look after us, but none of them could take the place of our mother. Even though I was a child I suspected that most of them had been chosen on account of their looks, rather than their ability to look after a confused and frightened little baby.’
He stared into space. ‘I was the one who took care of Pavlos, right from the start. He was my responsibility. I wasn’t going to risk anyone else getting close to him and leaving him again. So I bathed him and changed his nappies. I taught him how to swim and to fish. I taught him everything I knew—everything that was decent and good—because I wanted him to grow up to be a normal little boy. And when the time was right, I insisted he go to school in Switzerland because I wanted him as far away from my father’s debauched lifestyle as possible. That’s why I encouraged him to become a mariner afterwards, because when you’re away at sea you don’t get influenced or seduced by wealth. There’s nothing around you but the wind and the ocean and the wildness of nature.’
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And suddenly Keeley understood a lot more about Ariston Kavakos. What had seemed like an overprotective attitude towards his younger brother and his need to control now became clear, because as a child he had seen their lives dissolve into total chaos. That explained his reaction when he’d seen her with Pavlos because for him she had been her mother’s child, and a harmful influence. He must have seen all his hard work threatened—his determination that Pavlos should have a decent, normal life about to go up in smoke.
And she understood why he had threatened to fight her for their child too, no matter how ruthless that might seem. Because Ariston didn’t actually like women, and who could blame him? He was under no illusion that women were automatically the better parent who deserved to keep the child in the event of any split. He had seen a mockery made of the so-called maternal bond. He’d fought to protect his own flesh and blood in the shape of Pavlos, she realised—and he would do exactly the same for their own son.
Yet could his mother have been all bad? Wasn’t he in danger of seeing only one side of the story? ‘Maybe she couldn’t have withstood your father’s power if she’d attempted to fight for custody,’ she ventured.
His voice was like stone. ‘She could at least have tried. Or she could have visited. Wrote a letter. Made a phone call.’
‘She wasn’t depressed?’ she said desperately, casting around for something—anything—to try to understand what could have motivated a woman to leave her baby behind like that. And her ten-year-old son, she reminded herself. Who had grown into the man who stood before her. The powerful man whose heart was made of stone. Had everyone been so busy looking out for the motherless little baby, that they’d forgotten his big brother must also be lost and hurting?
‘No, Keeley, she wasn’t depressed. Or if she was she hid it well behind her constant round of partying. I wrote to her once,’ he said. ‘Just before Pavlos’s fifth birthday. I even sent a photo of him, playing with a sandcastle we’d built together on Assimenos beach. Maybe I thought that the cute little image might bring her back. Maybe I was still labouring under the illusion that deep down she might have loved him.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. The letter was returned to me, unopened. And a couple of weeks later we found out that she’d taken a bigger dose of heroin than usual.’ His voice faltered by a fraction and when he spoke again it was tinged with contempt. ‘They found her on the bathroom floor with a syringe in her arm.’
Keeley rubbed her hands together, as if that would remove the sudden chill which had iced over her skin. She wasn’t surprised when Ariston suddenly walked over to the window, his powerful body tense and alert, his broad shoulders looking as if he were carrying the weight of the world upon them. She wondered if he was really interested in gazing out at the tall skyscrapers, or whether he just didn’t want to expose any more of the pain which had flashed across his shuttered features despite his obvious attempt to keep it at bay.
‘Poor woman,’ she said quietly.
He turned back to face her; his habitual composure was back and his eyes were as cold as a winter sea.
‘You defend her? You defend the indefensible?’ he iced out. ‘Do you think that everybody has a redeeming feature, Keeley? Or just if it happens to be a member of your own sex?’
‘I was just trying to see it from a different perspective, that’s all.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you and to Pavlos.’
‘Save your words.’ He began to walk across the vast sitting room towards her. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted your sympathy.’
‘No?’ A shiver ran down the length of her spine as he approached. ‘Then why did you tell me?’
He had reached her now and Keeley’s breath caught in her throat because he was close. Close enough to touch—and she wanted him to touch her. So much. He was towering over her and she could detect the anger simmering darkly from his powerful frame.
‘So that you recognise what is important to me,’ he husked. ‘And understand why I will never let my child go.’