Page 34 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage
‘Of course I’ll tell you their names,’ he replied as mildly as he could. ‘I have three younger sisters—Kristina is the oldest, then Sophia, then Thalia.’
‘Three sisters! I think you might have told me that before, actually,’ she replied musingly. ‘When we first met. But I must have forgotten.’ He shrugged. Sometimes he tried to forget too, but he never did.
‘What are they like?’
What were theylike? Christos felt his throat going tight. Damn it, he did not want to answer these kinds of questions. But it wasn’t particularly unreasonable, he told himself, for Lana to ask them. It wasn’t even emotional. It was just that he was feeling pretty raw, now that he was going home, and now that Lana was carrying his own child.
When she’d first told him she was pregnant—a mere three weeks after her initial proposal!—he’d been thrilled. For a millisecond. Following that, he’d been completely terrified, and tried to hide it ever since.
What on earth had made him think he could have a kid without screwing it up? Disappointing and even failing him or her, the way he had his own family? Not that he ever wanted to explain any of that to Lana. And so, he’d been living in this state of paralysis—enjoying their time together, as they had been before she’d taken that test, trying to be as thoughtful and considerate as he could be, without it actually costing him anything. Without thinking about the future.
‘What are they like?’ he repeated, mainly to stall for time. He wasn’t used to talking about his family, or even thinking about them, not if he could help it. ‘Kristina is a busybody, if a well-meaning one. That’s what she’d call herself, anyway. Always wanting to know about you, always willing to listen.’ Even when he refused to talk. ‘She’ll ask you a million questions the minute you arrive, so consider this fair warning.’
‘I will,’ Lana replied, a smile in her voice.
Against all odds and expectations, Christos found himself relaxing. A little.
‘Sophia is completely different. She’s very focused and direct, but she can also be very private.’ After their mother had died, he and Sophia had been similar in their silent grief, unable to connect with anyone, shutting down rather than engaging with the people who loved them most.
‘And Thalia?’
‘Thalia...’ The name escaped him on a sigh. The baby of the family, full of laughter and light...until she hadn’t been. And Christos hadn’t been there for her, even though she’d asked him.Beggedhim. He’d refused her...with disastrous consequences. ‘She’s...emotional,’ he said at last, and he saw Lana raise her eyebrows. ‘When she’s happy, she’s buzzing and the best to be around, and when she’s not...’ He trailed off, remembering when she most certainly had not been.
‘Help me, Christos.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Christos?’ Lana asked softly, and he shook his head to expel the memory.
‘That’s it.’
‘What about your father?’
His father. Christos would have closed his eyes if he hadn’t been driving. ‘My father loved my mother very much,’ he said after a moment. ‘And when she died, it was like the life had gone out of him. The...essence.’
‘I depend on you, Christos. You’re the man of the family now. You have to take care of your sisters.’
Except he hadn’t.
‘That must have been very hard,’ Lana said quietly.
‘Yes.’ The word was quiet, but Christos heard how heartfelt he sounded. It hadn’t been hard; it had been near impossible. Agony, every day, and then worse after, until he’d finally left them all behind, tried to find some freedom, some peace, and thought he hadn’t, fooled himself, really, because he knew he never had. Not if he was feeling this way now.
To his surprise, Lana reached over and rested her hand on his thigh, a gesture of comfort, one he hadn’t expected. Although they’d certainly been affectionate—and more—with each other in the last few months, they hadn’t offered each othercomfort. Not like this—something quiet and tender and heartfelt.
He had an urge to shrug her hand off, tell her it wasn’t needed, and just as strong an urge to grab hold of it and press it to his cheek. He did neither. He just kept driving, his jaw tight, his gaze on the road.
An hour later they were pulling up to the sprawling colonial in one of Brookhaven’s gracious streets, the only home he’d known before he’d moved to New York. His father, Niko Diakos, had started life in a tenement on the Lower East Side, worked his way up in the banking business until middle management had allowed him the trappings of respectability. He’d never made the millions Christos had, first with the apps he’d developed and then with more advanced technological investments, but he’d had a solid business, a solid life.
Until his beloved wife Marina had died. Even now, as Christos parked in the driveway, he was picturing the day his mother’s body was taken from the house—a sheet to cover her, so Christos hadn’t been able to see her face. His father weeping, his sisters huddled together on the stairs. In his memory, that day was dark and grey and stormy, but he knew in reality it had been a sunny summer’s day much like this one. Funny, how he couldn’t remember the sun shining. Only the terrible, vast numbness he’d felt inside, as if a frozen tundra had claimed him, covered him in snow and ice.
‘Christos...should we go in?’
Christos glanced at Lana, who was looking troubled and all too sympathetic, as if she knew how painful these memories were, how hard he tried never to think about them. But she didn’t know, he reminded himself, because he’d never told her...and he never would.
‘Yes.’ He forced the corners of his mouth up in something like a smile. ‘Let’s go.’
CHAPTER TWELVE