Cora wrinkled her nose. “I can well believe it. But if Tasso gets worried about something…”
“There’s no stopping him,” Phoebe finished the sentence, with so much easy affection, Cora laughed.
“You really do love him, don’t you?”
Phoebe looked at Cora as though she’d asked for confirmation the earth was round. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Cora repeated, nodding, her heart dropping to her toes, and her breath strangling in her throat.
“He’s a force of nature, and can be incredibly domineering, but he’s everything that is good and kind in this world. He is the best person I’ve ever met.”
Cora nodded, but she was no longer thinking of her older cousin, but rather, another domineering, good, kind person. A man who’d become so much a part of Cora that he was like breathing. She’d ended things because she was worried how serious they were getting. She’d ended things to avoid getting hurt. But it had been too late.
After that first night, she never should have seen him again. When he’d arrived at her home and swept her into his arms, promising her more of the pleasure but absolutely no pain, ever, she’d been a fool to believe him. Because of course she’d fallen in love with him. Of course she loved him now, as deeply as any person had ever loved another. And the pain was the most intense thing Cora had ever known. It was as much a part of her as her love for him. With every step she took, she felt it slice through her. The knowledge they could never be together was a torture, a nightmare from which she couldn’t escape. Ironically, it was the worst at night, when her dreams of Samir offered some reprieve, for a short time. But always there was the harsh reality waiting for her, the knowledge that he was out of reach and always would be.
She imagined him often, hurting, grieving the loss of his brother, and half-hoped there was someone who was offering him comfort. She loved him so much that the idea of him finding happiness with someone else, if it alleviated the pressures and burdens he carried, brought her a sense of reassurance, even when it also filled her with a spitting beast of jealousy.
Phoebe changed the subject and Cora struggled to keep up. The revelation of how much she loved Samir kept reverberating through her, like shockwaves from an enormous earthquake. It took all her concentration and skill to act as though everything was normal, and even more to discuss the finer points of Mila’s bridal shower.
They decided to keep it simple—dinner, at a restaurant in London so Mila’s figure skating teammates could come, and then drinks afterwards at an impossible-to-get-into bar. The bar had been Cora’s suggestion—it had slipped out before she could contemplate the downside of that plan: the fact the outside would be teaming with celebrity-spotters. But it would also be beautiful and exclusive and Mila deserved all the fuss in the world.
They’d just finished locking down the details and sending invitations when Anastasios strode in, dressed in a suit and with eyes only for his fiancé, so Cora wondered if he’d even noticed she was there. It took him at least two full minutes before he turned to her and grinned, reminding her in that moment of the young boy he’d been.
“Hello to you, too,” she said with a tight smile. As happy as she was for them, she longed for her own love story to have this kind of happy ending. But it wasn’t possible.
“Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“How did it go?” Phoebe asked solicitously. Tasso’s brows drew together.
“I don’t think we can keep it under wraps for much longer. We’re going to have to work out how to tell mum, and then deal with the press afterwards.”
It didn’t take long for Cora to work out what they were discussing. Anastasios’s father had a secret love child, a young woman, a famous Opera singer, who had learned of her parentage and in fact, had met Anastasios the year before. It wasn’t Ophelia that was the threat to the secret though, but her mother, who had started threatening to go public, unless she received an exorbitant financial settlement.
“I’m very sorry for your mother,” Phoebe said gently. “But I’m also upset for Ophelia. How awful to have been raised like that—as if your very existence was something to be ashamed of.”
Cora’s ears pricked up and her breath took on a strange, over-heavy quality. “Do you think she feels that?”
“I’m sure she does,” Phoebe agreed. “For all I loved your father,” she turned to Tasso, “I can’t understand how he thought this was okay. To have ignored her for so long—,”
“He didn’t ignore her completely,” Cora pointed out.
“But to never publicly acknowledge her,” Phoebe corrected, sighing. “Ophelia is his daughter as much as you are his niece and Tasso his son. Instead of being a part of his life—a real part of his life—she was hidden away. Yes, I’m sure she felt everyone was ashamed of her.”
Cora dug her fingernails into her palms, the words reverberating deep in her heart.
“We need to address that,” Tasso said. “But how can we possibly welcome her into our family now, without devastating mum in the process?”
“Perhaps you can’t,” Phoebe said softly. “But that doesn’t change the fact it has to happen.”
“Let’s get through the wedding first,” Tasso said, CEO once more. “And the ceremony for dad. After that, when she’s had a little more time, when there’s some more distance between dad’s death and this…reality…she might be ready.”
“She’ll never be ready,” Phoebe said softly, putting an arm around Tasso’s waist. “It’s not going to be an easy conversation to have, but it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Yes,” Anastasios agreed, and when he turned to his fiancé, all of the darkness and concern his features wore ebbed away, leaving only love in their place. “We’ll tell her together.”
Cora couldn’t stop thinkingabout their conversation.
They couldn’t have known that there were references to her own predicament buried in their to and fro, but the idea that her baby might grow up with any sense of shame rolled around inside Cora for days and nights, until it was all she could think of. She thought of Samir and knew the kindest thing would be to keep the news a secret, but surely her bigger debt was to their child? A child who should never feel that their parents hadn’t wanted him or her. Who should never feel like some secret of which Samir was ashamed.