Page 90 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
‘Lydia?’ It was her mother’s voice, pulling her out of the memory she’d fallen into.
‘I’m here,’ she called back, wiping away tears she hadn’t felt fall.
Her mother emerged through the trees. ‘What are you…?’ She saw the redness of her daughter’s eyes and pulled her into an embrace. ‘We’ll survive,baba. You’ll see. So long as we all stick together, we can survive this and start again and come back stronger.’ She stepped back and cupped Lydia’s cheeks. ‘Now dry your eyes—those vile Tsaliki people are on the island and I need you by my side to face them because God knows your father and brother are in no state to deal with them.’
‘Thanasis has fallen in love with her, hasn’t he?’ Lydia sniffed.
Her mother’s lips thinned. ‘He thinks he has, yes, but that kind of witchcraft is fleeting.’
She hesitated to ask, already guessing the answer. ‘Witchcraft?’
‘How else could Lucie have tricked him into forgetting that she’s a viper like the rest of them?’
‘So we are all in agreement, then,’ Alexis stated, eyeballing every person around the dining table with the exception of Lydia, who he skimmed past. He’d sent her a message saying to meet him on the beach at midnight. Until that hour struck he could not allow himself to think of the news she’d thrown at him or allow himself to think about her. ‘We all keep our mouths shut.’ At this, he gave his sister an extra-hard stare.
Athena gave him her most innocent look.
Of all his many siblings, Athena was the one Alexis had always struggled the most to like, and it had nothing to do with her being the only female sibling. He loved her and would protect her with his life, but she had a bitchy streak that rivalled their stepmother’s, and it was Athena who was responsible for knocking the first domino that had led to their stepsister, the bride, running away. For all his cool words to the Antoniadises, Alexis did not have confidence that the Tsalikis could get through this unscathed, not after everything that had already happened. They were all at the precipice, closer to falling into the abyss than they’d ever been, and it was down to him to make sure they all knew and understood what was at stake.
‘I mean it,’ he said grimly, addressing Athena directly. ‘You do not breathe a word of what’s happened here. We can only hope that Lucie doesn’t go running to the press—’
‘She won’t,’ a dull-eyed Thanasis interjected.
‘I agree that it’s unlikely.’ His stepsister had a visceral hatred of the press. ‘And so we all play the long game.’ For a moment he lost his train of thought, his words pulling him back three months. He blinked the memory away and studiously avoided seeking out the hazel eyes of the woman he’d once delivered those same words to. ‘We play the long game,’ he reiterated, ‘and ride it out. We say nothing because anything we do say can be contradicted if—and I know it’s an unlikely if—Lucie speaks out or releases a statement.’
Addressing Athena directly again, he spoke slowly and elucidated every word. ‘If you speak about this to anyone outside these walls, I will see that you’re cut off. That goes for all of you.’
Outrage came from half a dozen voices, including his usually gregarious father who, like Petros Antoniadis, had spent the entire meeting mute. Both family patriarchs had retreated into themselves.
Alexis slammed his fist on the table. ‘Enough! Athena is lucky that she’s still allowed to call herself a Tsaliki. The wedding might be off but the peace brokered between myself and Thanasis isn’t.’ He put a finger lightly to the cut on his lip caused by Thanasis’s fist. ‘The only thing that’s over is the war between our two families.’
Lydia sensed movement and had just enough time to brace herself before the figure appeared from the shadows. It had been the longest day of her life and was only going to get longer. Everything she’d had to cope with so far would be a piece of cake compared to what was coming for her now.
The hulking figure sank heavily onto the sand beside her.
For the longest time, neither of them spoke. The air, though, spoke with a tension thick enough to slice with a spoon.
‘So we’re going to be parents,’ he eventually said.
‘Yes.’
‘And you want to marry me.’
‘No.’
He grunted a laugh. ‘I would never allow a child of mine to suffer and that includes suffering with poverty. You don’t need me to marry you for that—I will give you everything you need and more.’
Lydia lifted her gaze to the stars, She thought the night sky was why she loved Sephone so much. Here, the lack of light pollutants made the stars shine brighter and in millions times greater numbers than anywhere else on earth. Anywhere that she’d ever been in any case, and it broke her heart for all her family that Thanasis would probably have to sell it.
‘I’m sorry, Alexis,’ she said in as steady a voice as she could manage, ‘but I need the security of marriage.’
‘You don’t,’ he contradicted firmly.
‘My parents are going to disown me. They will never accept a grandchild who’s half Tsaliki and they will never forgive me for…for…’ She swallowed to force her next words out. ‘For sleeping with you.’
And they had slept. It hadn’t just been all sex. For two beautiful nights they’d turned their phones off and hidden from the world in his bedroom. They’d talked and talked about anything and everything that wasn’t their families, watched old films and fallen asleep entwined in each other’s arms. It had been the most magical time of her life.
‘They won’t disown you,’ he said tightly. ‘You Antoniadises are a close-knit bunch.’
