Page 44 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

The truth he needed to know, no matter how terrible it was. No matter what it did to him.

No matter what became of him after.

“Am I him?” he asked, in a voice he barely recognized as his own. “Mother, you must tell me the truth, no matter what. Am I the same monster?”

CHAPTER TEN

“WHATIFIwanted to go home to Iowa for Christmas?” Constance asked one bright day toward the end of December.

Christmas was only a few days away, something that seemed impossible. The calendar marched on but here on this island it was all blue skies, sunshiny days, and very little hint that the year was ending.

She sometimes wondered if she was slowly going mad.

Though, as an upside to being completely abandoned by the husband she’d made the critical mistake of falling in love with right before he disappeared for weeks, she was coming along with her swimming. So at least that was one way she didn’t have to worry about drowning. A person could float in water for ages.

Too bad the same couldn’t be said about her strange, sad marriage.

Beside her in the pool Maria looked at her sharply, then away. “That wouldn’t be up to me.”

“I would ask my husband, of course,” Constance said, with studied casualness. “But he is very busy. Very, very busy.”

She and Maria looked at each other for a long while, there in the water. And they did not speak of it again while they stayed in the pool, practicing strokes and treading water and other ways to stay afloat.

But later that afternoon, Maria came into the room and informed her that the plane was ready and waiting.

“If Mr. Ignatios has any questions,” Maria said mildly, in response to the question Constance did not dare ask, “I’ll be happy to answer them for him.”

“Wonderful,” Constance replied in the same tone.

And that was how she managed to take Natalia back home for what was, technically, her second Christmas. But only her first birthday.

She spent the entirety of the plane ride mounting arguments in her head, though there was no one sitting across from her on the flight. There was only her, grabbing hold of her armrests and refusing to look out the windows for hours, until the plane touched down over the cold fields of home.

And she was happy to be back in Iowa, but she was coming back different. For one thing, it was all so easy. The privileges of Anax’s wealth were evident everywhere. The car that met them on the tarmac. The fact that when they arrived at her house, it was warm and bright and welcoming, more than ready for them.

Constance felt guilty that she liked it.

“Mr. Ignatios has many homes,” Maria said as they walked in to heat and light, a perfect welcome after a long trip. Maybe the other woman saw the look on Constance’s face. Maybe she just knew Constance that well by now. “They are always made ready for his arrival.”

Maybe, Constance thought, it was okay to admit that she liked it.

Maybe it was okay that not everything had to be hard.

Besides, it was the twenty-second of December. She was finally back home in Iowa, no longer stranded on that island, trotted out only for the odd Cinderella moment before being stashed away again. More importantly, Natalia was a happy little toddler. She was still finding her legs, preferring to get around on all fours—but happy to stand if she was holding on to things. And today, she seemed delighted to find herself in a new place.

Or an old place she didn’t quite remember.

Constance set out to walk into their little bit of town, prepared to be knocked sideways with all the nostalgia. She felt a bit groggy from the flight and thought a walk would sort her out. And she also expected that she would immediately feel right at home.

But that wasn’t what happened. There was no sigh of relief as she and Natalia made their way into the center of Halburg. There was no sweet sense of homecoming.

Instead, she ran into a neighbor who made it clear, and quickly, that she knew exactly who Anax was, now. That everyone in the county did after all those tabloids had made a meal of Constance’s appearance at that ball. Cheryl Fox, who had always felt she should have been the nursery school teacher and indicated that she had finally achieved that dream, straight out announced that she thought Constance had cleverly targeted Anax from the start.

As in, from before she’d even gotten pregnant.

“How would I have done that, Cheryl?” Constance asked, keeping one eye on Natalia as she entertained herself with standing up and sitting down at the edge of a bench near the church. “You do know that you’re not actually allowed to know who the donors are at the clinic, don’t you? It’s all private. That’s the whole point.”

“I knew your grandmother,” Cheryl replied, with a knowing look that Constance immediately took exception to. She tried to check herself, because she’d always found Cheryl a bit of work...but had she always been sosmug? “I wouldn’t put anything past one of you Joneses.”

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