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‘I am sorry I left you so long.’
‘It’s fine.’ The last thing she wanted was for him to see her as an inconvenience—a house guest he had to care for. She knew the feeling well. Being foisted upon an unwilling aunt and uncle taught one to recognise those signs with ease. She ignored the prickle of disappointment and panic at finding herself in this situation, yet again.
This wasn’t the same. She was an adult now, making her own decisions, choosing what was best for her child. ‘You don’t need to feel like you have to babysit me,’ she said, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her statement.
His nod showed agreement with her words and, she thought, a little gratitude.
He didn’t want to be saddled with a clinging housemate any more than she intended to be one.
‘I will show you around, after dinner.’
‘I’ve already had a look around,’ she murmured, but her mind was zeroed in on his use of the word ‘dinner’. It had all happened so fast she hadn’t stopped to think about what their marriage would look like. Would it be this? Dinner together? Two people living in this huge house, pretending to be here by choice?
Or polite strangers, trapped in an elevator with one another, having to stay that way until the moment of escape? Except there was no escape here, no one coming to jimmy the doors open and cajole the lift into motion.
This was her life—his life.
‘And I mean what I said. Please don’t feel you have to keep me company, or have dinner with me or anything. I know what this is.’
‘Ne?’ he prompted curiously.
Mrs Chrisohoidis appeared then, carrying not only some bread, but a whole platter, similar to the one they’d shared on the flight, but larger and more elaborate, furnished with many dips, vegetables, fish, cheeses and breads.
‘I make your favourite for dinner.’ She smiled at Leonidas as she placed the platter on a table towards the edge of the terrace.
‘Thank you, Marina.’
They both watched her retreat and then Leonidas gestured towards the table.
‘She’s worked for you a while?’ Hannah eyed the delicious platter as she sat down and found that, to her surprise, she was in fact hungry after all. She reached for an olive, lifting it to her lips, delighting in its fleshy orb and salty flavour.
‘Marina?’ He nodded. ‘For as long as I can remember.’
That intrigued her. ‘Since you were young?’
He nodded.
‘So she worked for your parents?’
‘Yes.’
A closed door. Just like his wife and son.
Hannah leaned against the balcony, her back to the view, her eyes intent on the man she was going to marry. ‘Did you grow up here?’
He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘No.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Everywhere.’ A laconic shrug.
‘I see. So this is also “off limits”?’
Her directness clearly surprised him. He smiled, a tight gesture, and shook his head. ‘No. I simply do not talk about my parents often. Perhaps I’ve forgotten how.’
She could relate to that. Aunt Cathy had hated Hannah talking about her own mother and her father. ‘He was my brother! How do you think it makes me feel to hear you going on about them? Heartbroken, that’s how.’ And nine-year-old Hannah had learned to keep her parents alive in her own mind, her own head, rather than by sharing her memories with anyone else who could mirror them back to her.
Angus had asked about them, but by then she’d been so used to cosseting her memories that it hadn’t come easily to explain what they’d been like.
