Would he have insisted they stay married? And she’d have been trapped in a marriage with a man who didn’t love her, who couldn’t love anyone, who would no doubt come to resent her?
She groaned again, and put her head on her mom’s hand, closing her eyes. She breathed in, and told herself it would be okay, even when she really suspected it wouldn’t be.
* * *
She went to see her mother every day. She needed routine and rhythm, something to do that might distract her, and seeing her mom at least reminded her that she wasn’t entirely alone in the world.
Two months became three.
She still felt no better, but surely one day that would come?
* * *
‘You said it was just for show,’ Leonidas said quietly, looking around Thanos’s office with an expression of disbelief.
And Thanos could see why.
The space that was usually kept immaculately ordered more closely resembled a pigsty.
‘It was.’
‘Pséftis,’ Leonidas drawled. ‘If it was just for show, you wouldn’t be existing on alcohol and coffee three months after she walked out on you.’
‘I have told you a thousand times,’ Thanos snapped harshly, reaching for his Scotch glass—which was disappointingly empty, ‘she didn’t walk out on me. We came to a mutual decision that it was time to end the sham of our marriage. It served its purpose. Kosta is having papers drawn up even now, as we speak.’
Leonidas nodded, his eyes glinting as he studied his brother. ‘Yes? So why are you not celebrating?’
‘How do you know I’m not?’
Leonidas laughed, a sharp sound of rejection. ‘You are wallowing. It is the exact opposite.’
Thanos ground his teeth together, reaching for his Scotch decanter and refilling the glass. He held the bottle towards Leonidas, who curled his lips in a derisive negative.
‘Do you know what I think of, when I look at Isabella?’ Leonidas asked urgently, moving a step closer to his brother’s desk.
‘What?’ A snarl.
‘I think about what a responsibility it is to be a parent, to be a father. I think about our childhoods, about the way our father let us down time and time again. I think about the way my parents fought constantly, so I knew only acrimony in relationships. I think about the fact I almost let Hannah—the best thing to ever happen to me—walk away because I had no idea how to love someone.’ He lowered his voice, calming his tone a little. ‘I think about you, and how it must have felt to have your mother literally give up on you.’
Thanos’s spine stiffened and he took a glug of Scotch, wincing as it hit his palate.
‘I think about how impossible that should be—to turn your back on your own child. The idea of never seeing Isabella again makes my body ache all over.’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother deserted you, she chose not to love you, and you have spent the rest of your life feeling unlovable.’
Thanos finished his Scotch and stared into the empty glass, wanting everyone to go away, wanting to be alone. Particularly, not wanting to hear these words.
‘You live with a chip on your shoulder the size of this island because it’s easier than accepting your mother failed you and your father failed you and that you deserved better. They failed you, but now you’re taking it one step further and failing yourself.’
Thanos ground his teeth together. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You love her, don’t you?’
Thanos glared at his brother with a rising phoenix of white-hot fury. ‘For the last time, no! I don’t! I don’t love her, okay!’ And he threw the Scotch glass across the room, until it landed with a burst against the wall and shattered into a thousand tiny shards.
‘You’re screwing everything up,’ Leonidas said, with the kind of honesty only a sibling could offer.
‘Oh, go to hell.’
* * *