Page 16 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

She doubted he wished to hear about herflush.“Very well,” Constance said instead, trying to match his tone. “Maria is a godsend. I couldn’t manage without her. Thank you.”

“It is nothing.”

He did not eat, she noticed. She was not entirely convinced that Anax Ignatios suffered the pangs of humanity or mortality that everyone else did. Perhaps he was above such things. Perhaps the demands of flesh and blood were beneath him.

She had thought that her impression of him, like some dark angel at the back of the nativity play, had been more of that same fever dream of a near-birth delusion. But if anything, she discovered, she had been underplaying the situation in her memory.

His beauty was almost brutal. It was a shock to her system. She feltuncomfortable, and too hot, that was how intensely attractive he was. Today he was wearing boots, jeans, and a sweater. It should have been unremarkable. But it was obvious that each one of those items was breathtakingly well-made, and no doubt priced accordingly. Or, more likely, made to his precise specifications.

It was also obvious at a glance that he was not from around here. That he was not even from this country. It took her a long moment to understand that it had something to do with how he was wearing that particular sweater, with its high collar. It had something to do with how he sat. With how he held himself. The sophistication in even his smallest gesture and the hint of Europe sunk deep into the fabrics that clothed him.

Another thing that felt ridiculous even to think, but that didn’t make it less true.

“I’m afraid that most of what happened on Christmas is a blur,” Constance said into the silence since she was terribly afraid that he would see right through her to all these likely offensive thoughts she was having about him. “I’m not sure I thanked you.”

“I am not the one who was busy delivering a human being into this world,” he replied at once, and yet something about the way he said that scraped at her, just slightly. It was the perfect thing to say, of course. It was lovely, even.

Yet there was something in his tone. There was something about that careful way he regarded her as he spoke. Maybe it was the stillness in him and the way he sat there, as if he was...waiting. If he washolding himself back—

Constance thought then that really, she needed to figure out a way to spend more time outside of this house before she really did lose the plot entirely.

“What I don’t understand,” she continued, because she was determined to talk her way out of this. Whateverthiswas. “Or, I guess, what Imissed, is how you got anyone to marry us on Christmas Eve in the first place.”

“I am very persuasive.”

“I suppose you’d have to be, to get a judge to do anything, much less on such short notice. It probably wasn’t legal anyway, because—”

“It was legal.” There was something, then, about the way his mouth nearly curved. It seemed to scrape its way down the length of her spine. “That you can depend upon. My sister, in addition to her many other charms, is something of a legal scholar. She prides herself on being the final word in such things.”

Constance opened her mouth to say something likeShe seemed like a lawyer, but thought better of it. And then was glad she hadn’t started speaking, because she would have swallowed the words whole.

Because Anax stood and pulled a small pouch out of his pocket. She stared, unable to imagine what he could be holding there—and so she was completely unprepared when he tipped the pouch over and two rings landed in his palm with a soft, metallic sound.

“I took the liberty of finding some jewelry for this purpose.” Anax’s face was unreadable.

Constance worried that her face was anything but. “Jewelry?”

He set the rings down before her decisively, one clink and then the next. She stared down at them, sitting there on the coffee table that had sat in this living room for as long as she could remember. Though she was sure it had never been set with two gleaming rings of what she felt certain was platinum, one with an exquisite solitaire and the other etched in a sort of pattern she felt certain was desperately fancy. She’d never seen anything like it before.

“Rings do not seem like a little legal matter,” she heard herself saying, almost desperately. “They seem... Like something else.”

His gaze found hers and she watched as his lips curved again, and she found it...

Well. She wasn’t sure what it was but once more, it wasn’t a smile.

Yet in the next moment, she doubted herself. She didn’t know this man. Maybe thiswashis smile, like the calm before a storm.

“Consider it a point of clarification, nothing more,” he said after a moment, his gray eyes even smokier than before. “And a token of my esteem, if you will. You have given me a daughter, Constance. You don’t need to wear the rings if you do not like them. Consider it a gesture of celebration, nothing more.”

She thought about that quite a lot, after he left.

Weeks turned into months. Natalia changed so much that it seemed impossible to keep up with and yet Constance knew she was so little, so new, and had so far to go. Iowa winters were long and grueling, but she took advantage of every hint of decent weather she could. She bundled up the baby and went outside. To breathe. To move. To not stay in her house.

To walk down the length of her driveway to the main road, and sometimes into what passed for town.

Slowly, she started to feel like herself again.

Six months on, Constance was starting to not feelquiteso panicked about things. She was grateful that Grandma Dorothy had taught her how to economize, as she’d been able to take a lovely, long maternity leave. She’d been able to spend all winter and the whole of the spring getting used to her new life.

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