Page 14 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
Thanasis couldn’t help the laugh of disbelief that came out of him, then. “Did you? When was this, exactly?”
His father sneered at him, and the sad part was that Thanasis found that more recognizable than whatever the rest of this was.This…unburdening of a twisted soul, unsolicited and unwanted though it was.
“You think your mother is some kind of holy creature,” Pavlos growled at him. “But I set her free almost immediately.Shechose to stay.Shewanted to suffer. Remember that the next time you think to accuse me of anything. Martyrs tend to light their own fires, Thanasis. How better to burn?”
Any other time, Thanasis might have walked off at that, because he would not tolerate his father’s take on his mother. Not after the way she had been treated here.
But there was Saskia to consider now. There was more at stake here than his mother’s memory, and in any case, he had the sneaking, unwelcome suspicion that his father was not entirely wrong.
“You, of course,” he said, and he forced himself to sound lazy and unbothered, “never threw any accelerant on that fire, I suppose. It simply burned and burned of its own volition. Nothing to do with you at all.”
Pavlos inclined his head, giving him the point. “I never pretended to be a good man. And I don’t really care what you think of me. But I will tell you this. That girl makes me imagine that I could be a different man altogether. And at my age, after my life? That is a gift.”
Thanasis studied at his father for a long while.
Oddly enough, he felt something like sympathy for this version of the old man, when he had never felt anything like it before. But that was Saskia. That was what she did. He knew exactly what it was like to look at her, to fall into those dark, clever eyes of hers, and imagine himself redeemed.
He wasn’t at all surprised that this was not a unique experience, given only to him. He supposed something in him would grieve that, later.
But here, sitting in the shade with the mean old man he had been so determined to hide Saskia from five years ago, he couldn’t help but feel something else instead. Some measure of distant regret, almost, that he could not allow his father to experiment with that redemption. That he could not countenance the marriage between Saskia, no matter who she thought she was, and this man who could never, ever, appreciate her.
Hadn’t he spent the two years he had with Saskia going out of his way to keep her as far away from the reach of his family as it was possible to get? Wasn’t that why she’d left him that night?
She had imagined that he was embarrassed by her. When the opposite was true. He was embarrassed by all of this. By this mess he came from and carried with him.
And now, all he felt was a sadness mixed with determination, because he could not allow this wedding to take place.
He could not permit his father to get any closer to Saskia than he already had—and Thanasis discovered that he could not allow himself to think about that closeness, not now. Perhaps not ever.
Perhaps that was something to simply decide, here and now, he would never consider too closely. For his own sanity.
His father was not, really, the man he wanted to be with Saskia. Just as Saskia was not the woman she thought she was, with no memory of her actual life.
Thanasis was the only one who knew the truth. About both of them.
And the only way he could think to make certain this abomination never happened was to remind her of that truth. To find a way, somehow, for her to remember what she really felt. And who she really was.
So what he did was smile at his father, until the old man narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
“I think I’ll stay a while,” Thanasis said, and it wasn’t a question, or request. It was a statement of intent. He could see that his father knew it. “It’s been far too long since I enjoyed the particular pleasures of the family nest, don’t you think?”
Pavlos sneered at him again. “Careful, boy. You wouldn’t want to wear out your welcome in this nest of vipers.”
“How could I?” Thanasis replied. He lifted a hand. “After all, all of this will be mine someday. Isn’t that your plan? To bludgeon me with all of this once you’re gone?”
He smiled wider when his father grunted and said, “I hope it is a killing blow, you arrogant—”
Thanasis cut him off, pleased that he’d provoked him into temper. It meant he’d won, and he could tell the old man knew it.
“Congratulations,Patéras,”he said smoothly. “How very mythical of you. Like Kronos himself. I believe that is a certain kind of immortality, after all.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Selwen spent thenext two days hiding out in her room. She told the staff she had a migraine, and they left her to it. They left trays of food by her door and took them away again without bothering her when she left them largely untouched. She kept the shades shut tight and all the lights out. She lay in her bed, watched the ceiling fan rotate again and again, and asked herself what in the name of God she’d been thinking.
She went over every single detail of every moment that she’d spent in the presence of the overwhelming, disturbing Thanasis in forensic detail—over and over again—but she still couldn’t explain to her own satisfaction how she’d allowed…any ofthatto happen. She had danced with too many men to count in too manytavernasto name. She had laughingly brushed off their advances, such as they were, and gone on her merry way. It hadn’t even required thought.
And yet she had kissed that man in the moonlight as if she been starving for the taste of him all her life.
