“Tell me about your relationship with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“You slept with him?”
“Yes. And no,” she rushed on, guessing what he was going to say next. “Not for twenty-five thousand euros.”
“Why did you break it off?”
“Reasons.”
“Don’t be smart, Ms. Brice. I’m your only friend right now. What was the problem? A lover’s tiff? And you helped yourself to a little money for a fresh start?”
“There was no tiff.” He didn’t love her. That was the tiff. He would never love her and she loved him so much. “I’m telling you, the money has nothing to do with him. I have nothing to do with him. Not anymore.”
She was going to cry now, and completely humiliate herself.
* * *
Mikolas was standing at the head of a boardroom table when his phone vibrated.
Viveka’s picture flashed onto the screen. It was a photo he’d taken stealthily one day when creeping up on her playing backgammon with his grandfather. He’d perfectly caught her expression as she’d made a strong play, excited triumph brightening her face.
“Where’s Vivi?” his grandfather had asked when Mikolas returned from Paris without her.
“Gone.”
Pappoús had been stunned. Visibly heartbroken, which had concerned Mikolas. He hadn’t considered how Viveka’s leaving would affect his grandfather.
Pappoús had been devastated for another reason. “Another broken heart on my conscience,” he’d said with tears in his eyes.
“It’s not your fault.” He was the one who had forced her to stay with him. He’d seduced her and tried not to lead her on, but she’d been hurt all the same. “She liked you,” he tried to mollify. “If anything, you gave her some of what I couldn’t.”
“No,” his grandfather had said with deep emotion. “If I hadn’t left you suffering, you would not be so damaged. You would be able to love her as she’s meant to be loved.”
The words stung, but they weren’t meant to be cruel. The truth hurt.
“You have never forgiven me and I wouldn’t deserve it if you did,” Pappoús went on. “I allowed your father to become a monster. He gave you nothing but a name that put you through hell. That is my fault.” His shaking fist struck his chest.
He was so white and anguished, Mikolas tensed, worried his grandfather would put himself into cardiac arrest.
“I wasn’t a fit man to take you in, not when you needed someone to heal you,” Pappoús declared. “My love came too late and isn’t enough. You don’t trust it. So you’ve rejected her. She doesn’t deserve that pain and it comes back to me. It’s my fault she’s suffering.”
Mikolas had wanted to argue that what Viveka felt toward him wasn’t real love, but if anyone knew how to love, it was her. She loved her sister to the ends of the earth. She experienced every nuance of life at a level that was far deeper than he ever let himself feel.
“She’ll find love,” Mikolas had growled, and was instantly uncomfortable with the idea of another man holding her at night, making her believe in forever. He hated the invisible man who would make her smile in ways he never had, because she finally felt loved in return.
“Vivi is resilient,” his grandfather agreed with poignant pride.
She was very resilient.
When Mikolas had received the final report on Grigor’s responsibility for her mother’s death, he had been humbled. The report had compiled dozens of reports of assault and other wrongdoings across the island, but it was the unearthed statement made by Viveka that had destroyed him.
How much difference was there between one man pulling his tooth and another bruising a girl’s eye? Mikolas had lost his fingernails. Viveka had lost her mother. He had been deliberately humiliated, forced to beg for air and water—death even—until his DNA had saved him. She had made her way to a relative who hadn’t wanted her and had kept enough of a conscience to care for the woman through a tragic decline.
Viveka would find love because, despite all she had endured, she was willing to love.