‘Yes.’ No apology, yet she saw something stir in the depths of his eyes, something she didn’t understand and didn’t want to waste time analysing.
‘All of which makes me a bastard of the first order,’ he said firmly. ‘But that still doesn’t excuse you hiding our son from me for six damn years.’
She spun away from him, moving to the window that overlooked the street. She’d tried to tell him. She hadn’t wanted to do it this way. But seeing him, his lifestyle, how could she throw something like a child into the midst of that? She’d been terrified. What if he’d sued for custody? And raised her child with another woman? She’d already lost so much—her parents, Lewis—the prospect of their baby was all she had.
Seeing him in his own environment like that had shown her the impossibility of telling him anything, and the words he’d thrown at her had been like flames, licking at her feet, tormenting her with how little she meant to him. Why would she ever have believed Dimitrios would act in her best interests? She meant nothing to him—he would do as he wanted, irrespective of her wishes.
Convinced of that, she’d fled, and all these years she’d told herself he’d be grateful if he ever learned the truth.
‘How did the journalist find out?’ she asked quietly, returning to her original question, her face creased with concentration.
‘Beats me. Apparently you must have told someone.’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea how a journalist could have discovered this. I’ve been so careful.’
‘And what about my son? Does he know?’
My son. So possessive, so...right. For years she’d thought of Max as hers. He was her child, hers to protect, raise, love and shepherd. Except, the older he’d got, the more he’d started to look like Dimitrios, so that it was becoming impossible to ignore his true parentage.
‘He doesn’t know.’
Dimitrios’s response was a rumble, a curse, a moan, low and quiet. It nonetheless reverberated around the room and pressed deep from his soul and into Annie’s. She winced, his pain impossible to miss.
‘You haven’t even told him about me?’
She shook her head softly. ‘He’s started to ask, though. I’ve known for a while that I would need to...’
‘And would you then have told me, also?’
She turned back to face him, wishing she could lie, but knowing he finally deserved the truth. ‘I don’t know.’ It was the best she could do. ‘I’d like to believe so.’
His eyes bore into hers, as though through the power of sight he could somehow intuit the truth of her heart. Her blood moved like wildfire and the hairs on her arms stood up.
She waited for him to say something, to react, but he stood there for so long her blood began to rush for another reason altogether. She stared at him. A cacophony of emotions filled her, so she took a small step backwards, needing to break the connection that was firing between them like an electrical current. How was it possible that even in this moment he could have any kind of impact on her?
‘I—’ She wasn’t sure what she’d intended to say. She stopped talking when he shook his head and held up a hand, as if to silence her.
‘No.’ His brows drew closer. ‘No,’ he repeated, then turned on one heel and took the five or so steps his long gait needed to get him to the door.
‘You’re leaving?’ she demanded.
At the door, he turned to face her. ‘I won’t do this now.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘If you knew how close I was to saying a thousand things I would come to regret, then you’d understand.’ He shook his head. ‘If I’ve learned anything, it’s to not react when your emotions are in play.’
She stared at him in disbelief.
‘I will come back tomorrow.’
She swallowed. ‘Max has school.’
‘Good. We should talk without him hearing—it will be easier to make plans if he’s not present.’
‘Plans for what?’ But she already knew what he was going to say. Custody. He was going to take Max away, at least some of the time. How could she live with that? Panic filled her. She felt as if she might vomit.
‘For our marriage, Annabelle. What else?’