It was true. It might have been unbearable, just as it had proved for the former employees, except she’d needed the money and the experience more. A few years in this job and she’d be finished with her diploma and could get a decent job with better pay. Aristos had given her a chance and she’d grasped it. For all his faults, he’d at least given her this opportunity, and she owed him for that.
But Aristos was gone, and it was his nephew now sitting in front of her. And yet still she hadn’t even offered the merest of condolences.
‘The news about your uncle must have come as quite a shock. I’m sorry…’
He watched her for a second, but it was as if his eyes were shuttered. Then he slammed the pen down on the desk in the same instant as he heaved himself away. He took a few steps, one hand rubbing his nape.
‘It was a shock—but nothing compared to what Sofia is contending with. To have lost her mother to cancer a decade ago, and now to lose her father so suddenly…’ He sighed, and for a moment looked so lost in his own thoughts that she sensed there was more to his statement than just compassion for his cousin.
He turned suddenly to face her, his eyes dark and fathomless. ‘My mother, Helena, was step-sister to Aristos. She died some six years back herself. Aristos and my father were as close as brothers while they were both alive, even though I didn’t know him that well.’
Alex swallowed. She’d never met Nick’s parents—but she’d heard enough about his father way back then to scare her socks off. It came as no surprise that he was related, even by marriage, to Aristos.
Even so, they had been Nick’s parents. Jason’s grandparents. And now he would never have the opportunity to meet them. Guilt stabbed deeper inside her.
When would she stop paying for the decision she’d made so long ago? The decision she knew was the right one.
‘Your parents…I didn’t know…’ She shook her head. ‘What happened to your father?’
‘Why should you know?’ he asked sharply, as if she had no right. Then his voice softened. ‘About two years ago now he drove off a bridge. Drowned before he could be rescued.’
‘That’s awful,’ said Alex. When they’d been on Crete both Nick’s and her own parents had been alive. It had been less than nine years ago and now Nick’s parents had gone. How long before hers too were no longer here?
She’d see them at Christmas, when they were planning to travel across the country from Perth to visit. But that was still weeks away. She’d call them tonight. The thought that they wouldn’t be there for ever…it was unimaginable.
To be so alone… She sucked in a breath. As she had countless times before, she thanked her lucky stars her sister Tilly had also chosen to make her home in Sydney, to pursue her growing wedding planner career. At least she had some family close by. For all that she was struggling to make ends meet, at least she had someone to turn to, someone to give her moral support when things got too bad. Sofia had no one. And nor, it seemed, did Nick.
‘I really am sorry. I had no idea.’
Nick stopped pacing and stood, propping his arms on the back of the visitor’s chair. His exhale came out like a sigh. ‘In a way it was a release for my father. I think he’d stopped living years before, when Stavros died.’ His eyes bore the pain of loss and tragedy, and as they sought and found hers something connected between them.
He remembered. She could tell.
It was the last time they’d spoken. She’d rung, flushed with excitement at her news. After months of hiding the truth she’d finally held her baby—their baby—and known that in spite of all the powerful reasons why she shouldn’t tell him she simply had to. He had a right to know he was a father. That he had a son.
Only when she’d finally made the connection to Nick’s house it had been to find the family in mourning for the eldest son.
How did you say, I’m sorry your brother is dead and congratulations—today you became a father in the same sentence? How did you drop a bombshell like that into a grieving family and expect them to embrace a new branch of the family they didn’t know existed and wouldn’t want to know? Not after what had happened to Stavros.
Realising that no one in his family would ever believe her, let alone welcome her news, Alex had hung up the phone, keeping her secret and knowing she’d never speak to Nick again.
Stavros had been killed, Nick had become the new heir to the family fortune, and it had been obvious there could never be a future with Nick—neither for her nor their newborn child.
Alex rubbed her arms. It was cold in here. She’d have to check the wall thermostat. But not now. Not until Nick had left her office and there was no chance of getting anywhere near him.
His eyes narrowed until they glinted and he straightened behind the chair.
‘Something frightened you away. Is that it? Is that why you never returned my calls after that?’ His words speared through her consciousness to places she’d rather not go. It was one thing to know she’d done the right thing. It was another thing entirely to have to explain it.
‘Nick, I don’t think we need to rehash all that. It’s in the past. Let it stay there.’
‘No. I think the least you can do is offer me an explanation.’
Alex stiffened in her chair. What relationship they’d had had been over for the better part of nine years, and here he was, larger than life, insisting on the whys and wherefores. Talk about inflated male ego! As if it mattered now.
‘Let it go—’
‘Was it another man?’ He threw a glance to her left hand. ‘You’re not married, but was there someone back then?’
‘Look, it’s not important—’
‘So it was another man. Why else would you just stop communicating? I tried to call you. I wrote to you.’
‘We moved—’
‘I didn’t. You knew where to find me.’ Accusation was layered thickly in his eyes. ‘So why else would you never return my calls? Why never answer my letters unless you were too busy in someone else’s bed?’
Enough! Incensed, Alex pushed herself up from her chair. She’d had enough of looking up to him. And she was sick of putting up with his slurs.
‘Drop it, Nick.’
‘I demand to know what happened!’
Alex glared at him, at that moment totally wondering how she’d ever held the notion that she’d loved this guy. ‘I grew up.’ The hard way. ‘End of story.’
‘It’s no wonder you’ve never married, if that’s the way you treat men. If you want my advice—’
Alex’s hands curled into tight fists.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she cut in, ‘I don’t want your advice. I don’t need your advice. And, given that you don’t appear to be married either, are you completely sure you’re in any position to give advice?’
In that moment Nick’s face might have been cast from concrete. It seemed all harsh angles and rigid planes, and she could tell he was battling to keep the fury he was obviously feeling under control.
Well, bully for him. She was furious too. How dared the brute think he could waltz back into her life and start criticising?
A muscle in his cheek twitched. ‘You’ve changed, Alexandra. You are still as beautiful as you were then, maybe even more so, but you’ve changed on the inside.’
I’ve had to! Her mind told her to remain strong and resolute. It shouldn’t matter what he said about her looks. And it wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let