‘You know his first wife died?’
Alice nodded. She’d read about it at the time, and had heard of it again once she’d started temping at Stathakis. Murdered, along with Leonidas’s son Brax, in a vendetta against Dion and his criminal connections. A shiver ran down Alice’s spine.
‘Leonidas closed himself off after that. He just took himself out of life; he became a shadow of his usual self. It was hard to watch.’
‘But understandable,’ Alice murmured.
‘Perhaps at first. But after four years, I was worried he would never wake up again.’
‘And she woke him up?’
Thanos’s smile was spontaneous. ‘Yes. She fell pregnant—unexpectedly—and Leonidas had no choice. If he wanted to be a part of their baby’s life, he had to open himself up to Hannah.’
‘Their little girl looked adorable.’
‘She is.’ His smile turned to something more serious as he studied Alice’s face. ‘I cannot imagine what was going through your father’s mind, to choose not to be a part of your life.’
Alice shook her head. ‘Nor yours.’
‘But I was a nightmare,’ he said, his voice light-hearted despite his pronouncement. ‘And you were, I’m sure, a delight.’
She pulled a face. ‘Hardly.’ Then she leaned forward, so her legs brushed his beneath the table and her fingers could lace through his. ‘And you don’t really think there’s any justification for choosing not to be a part of your child’s life, do you?’
His eyes glittered but he didn’t answer.
‘I came to accept, a long time ago, that my father was a person lacking in moral fibre. That his choices weren’t a reflection on me. You must see the same is true of you and Dion?’
‘I think I was not an easy child to love,’ he said carefully, no longer wishing to continue the conversation. He pulled his hand away with an apologetic smile, and lifted his drink. He angled his face towards the ocean, wondering at the way his heart was slamming hard against his ribcage.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t be. I became used to being completely alone in the world a long time ago. I like being alone, Alice. It’s how I’m meant to be.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN ALICE WOKE with a start that night, she knew exactly why. The panic attack that was roaring through her was intense and impossible to ignore. A fine bead of perspiration had broken out on her brow, and her breathing was ragged. She shifted a little, casting a glance over Thanos before pushing the covers back and slipping from the bed. The silk negligee she wore moulded to her skin as she moved from their bedroom, down the wide, curving staircase and into the kitchen.
It was the middle of the night, the witching hour, when dark thoughts were at their zenith and hope seemed to have ceased to exist. The view through the kitchen windows was all black, save for a milky line of moonlight that trembled across the ocean.
‘I like being alone, Alice.’
His words had woken her. They’d been rushing through her, jamming her sleep, blocking her dreams, filling her with a sense of desperation, because they were wrong. They had to be.
He’d chosen to be alone to protect himself, and more than anyone she understood that. She’d done the same thing, hadn’t she? Sure, she’d moved around a lot, but choosing not to make friends was a way of staving off hurt. Loss was something Alice had seen as a way of life, a necessity, and so she’d closed herself off to any hope of happiness and friendship.
The one time she’d let herself believe that maybe there was someone out there who would choose to love her, she’d been forcibly reminded of how completely unlikely that seemed.
So she’d gone back to choosing solitude, loneliness, and a lack not just of companionship, but of everything.
She’d fallen into a track of being on her own and it had taken this sham marriage to pull her out of it, to realise how incredible it felt to let yourself share with someone, to be vulnerable with them, to enjoy their company and crave more of it.
Her heart gave a funny thump and she sat down on one of the kitchen stools with a little gasp of understanding.
Because she hadn’t just come to rely on Thanos.
She’d come to think of him as a part of her, or maybe that she was a part of him. Just that they were wound together, woven as if made of cloth, and no divorce could dissolve that. And this marriage wasn’t the reason this had happened. It was something much bigger and more important than that.
She’d fallen in love with him.