‘Because she’s a princess.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So that must just leave the bit with the Prince.’
Six-year-old Annie lifted up on her elbow, pouting as she studied Lewis’s face. At twelve, he could have been busy playing football, or reading the books he loved, but instead he always told Ann
ie a personalised bed-time story. It was their ritual.
‘Yes?’ Annie asked, waiting.
‘Well, the dragon brought the Princess down to a field—’
‘What kind of field?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Flowers? Wheat? Corn?’
Lewis grinned. ‘Flowers.’
‘Okay. Purple flowers?’
‘Sure, Annie. Purple flowers.’
She smiled at that, flopping back on to the bed and looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes felt heavy.
‘He brought her into the field and there, waiting for her, was the Prince Charming she’d heard so much about. Now that she was free from the Evil Queen, nothing could stop them from getting married and ruling the kingdom side by side. They lived happily ever after.’
Annie smiled. They always lived happily ever after.
‘Lewis, are princesses and princes real?’
‘Sure they are.’
‘But I’m not really a princess?’
‘You are to me.’
She smiled, her eyes sweeping closed.
‘And will I grow up to marry a prince?’
‘Well, he might not be a real prince, but he’ll treat you like a princess or he’ll have me to deal with.’
‘I saw it.’ Dimitrios’s lips were set in a grim line. His brother looked back at him from the screen of the tablet.
‘Has Annie?’
Dimitrios cast an eye towards the newspaper folded on his dining table. The headline was like all the others—proclaiming the secret relationship and love child. But the article had been a barely concealed attack on Annabelle, calling her everything from ‘frumpy’ to ‘ordinary’ to ‘struggling single mother’. Of course, they’d chosen a particularly unflattering photograph of her, taken the day before. Even then, Dimitrios found his eyes lingering on the picture, noticing all the things the journalist had obviously missed. The elegance of her neck as she spun to address the paparazzi, the sheen of her hair—so shimmering it was like gold—the poise and determination in the strength of her spine, the fullness of her lips, the depth of her eyes.
He pushed the paper aside and gave Zach the full force of his attention.
‘Well?’
‘I don’t know.’ Dimitrios ground his teeth together. ‘But, either way, she’ll have to get used to that kind of crass reporting. It’s part and parcel of being a Papandreo.’
‘And she’s okay with that?’