‘You just need to spend time with him,’ she urged quietly. ‘Getting to know him will make you feel more comfortable.’ She tilted her head to the side. ‘You work such long hours. It’s no wonder you don’t feel comfortable with him yet. Why don’t you take some time off? Or even truncate your work day a little so that you can have breakfast with him, or dinner? It takes time, Santos,’ she pressed when he didn’t say anything. ‘There’s no magic pill, no secret. Time and attention.’
His expression was like stone, reminding her of the first night here.
Do not expect miracles while you are here. Your concern is my son’s happiness, not his relationship with me.
‘Anyway,’ she said again, on a small sigh. ‘He’s asleep now.’
‘Nai.’
Neither of them moved. The air around them seemed to thicken, making breathing almost impossible. God, he must work out a lot to have a physique like this. Her eyes followed the ridges of his chest, chasing each undulation until her breath was burning inside her lungs and her fingertips were tingling with a desire to follow the course of her eyes.
She had to break free of him now or it would be too late. She stifled a groan but before she could turn and move away he lifted a hand and curved it over her cheek.
Neither of them spoke, but she felt a thousand and one things deep in her soul. ‘I am very grateful you came here, Amelia.’
For Cameron, she mentally added. Of course, for Cameron.
She nodded, dislodging his hand, and took a step back while she still could. ‘So am I.’ Silence wrapped around them once more.
He broke it. ‘Kalinychta, Miss Ashford.’
‘Goodnight, Santos.’
* * *
He couldn’t say why but after Amelia had left him, disappearing into her own room, he didn’t return to his own. He couldn’t. Not while his son’s cries were still at the uppermost of his mind. He had no idea what he could do to ease the young boy’s suffering if he awoke again but he wanted to be there if grief tore through his sleep once more.
It was a long night but Santos didn’t sleep. Instead, he sat beyond his son’s door, crouched in the corridor, his head bent, his breathing deep, perched ready to react if Cameron needed him. He couldn’t explain why, but in that moment, for that night, Santos obeyed one of his instincts—that to comfort his son.
The other instinct—to be wrapped up in Amelia Ashford and how he’d like them to spend their night—he ignored resolutely.
* * *
It’s no wonder you don’t feel comfortable with him yet. Why don’t you take some time off? Or even truncate your work day a little so that you can have breakfast with him, or dinner? It takes time, Santos.
She was right. Of course she was right. He couldn’t avoid the fact he was a father. He might not have any idea how to be a father but that didn’t change the fact. And since when had Santos Anastakos been a man to run from the unfamiliar? Never. Whatever he’d faced in his business life, he had conquered, even when that meant scaling an almost impossible mountain.
This would be no different.
A week after Cameron’s broken sleep, after he’d spent the night in a silent vigil outside his son’s room, Santos surprised them all at dinner—Talia, Cameron and Amelia—even more so when he took a seat at the head of the table, accepting a plate of food and a wine glass from one of the helpers Chloe hired through the summer to keep on top of the housework.
He watched Amelia across the table as she spoke to Cameron and Talia, completely calm and reserved, no hint of emotion on her features, no hint of warmth at his presence. What had he expected? A marching band? For her to pause proceedings and congratulate him on doing something so banal as returning home a few hours earlier than normal?
‘That can’t be true!’ Talia laughed but Amelia shook her head so her dark hair shifted around her face, distracting him with its glossy, water-like consistency, reminding him of the way it had tousled around her face when she’d been in the bed in the pool room.
‘It absolutely is.’
‘How can it be?’ Cameron placed his cutlery neatly in the middle of his plate. Santos turned his attention to his son and as always felt the clip of pain—the gaping hole inside him where knowledge and familiarity should have been. Cameron had excellent manners—a credit to his mother, he supposed. He wished he could remember more about Cynthia. The truth was, he’d been twenty-seven and celebrating a huge takeover of a rival shipping company the night they’d met. He’d spent most of their time together either responding to emails or drinking Scotch.
‘The warmth in the atmosphere causes a thermal expansion,’ Amelia said with a smile. She lifted her knife, holding it in the air. ‘When the weather gets warm, the iron that was used to build the Eiffel Tower grows bigger—expands—until it’s around four inches taller than in winter.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Cameron laughed. ‘It’s a building, they can’t change shape.’
‘Not shape, necessarily, just size,’ she insisted, laying her knife back down. ‘When I was studying in Paris, we measured it over the course of the year.’
‘You studied in Paris?’ Santos’s voice came out deep and Amelia’s gaze flicked to him, something flashing in her eyes so it was impossible not to feel the snaking heat of response. It had been several days since he’d last seen her and when she looked at him now he wanted to stand up and drag her body to his, to throw her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs. He wanted to spend a long, hot night making love to her, rather than the rushed coming together they’d experienced in the pool house.
‘Yes.’ She lifted one perfect brow in a silent challenge then turned back to Cameron. It was as if she felt nothing for Santos, no temptation, no curiosity. Frustration shifted inside him—he wanted to kiss her until that ice dropped from her completely, until it melted away in an incontrovertible acknowledgement of desire.