Page 39 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage

‘Why, though?’

Christos closed his eyes briefly, knowing he was going to tell her and yet dreading it all the same. But maybe it was better she knew. It would, he suspected, keep her from falling any more in love with him, and maybe that was what they both needed—a reminder of how it was supposed to be between them.

‘Christos...?’

‘It’s hard because every time I come home, I’m reminded of how I disappointed and failed my family, back when my mother died. It’s hard on me, but it’s also hard on them. Seeing me stirs up my father’s grief, Thalia’s issues.’ He glanced at her. ‘I presume you saw how high strung and emotionally fragile she seemed at times?’

Lana’s expression was both thoughtful and sombre, her head tilted to one side. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘That’s because of me.’

Lana was silent for a moment. ‘Surely it can’t entirely be down to you, Christos,’ she said finally, her voice quiet but holding a certain firm reasonableness. ‘You’re not the only thing in her life. There have to be other issues affecting her mental health.’

‘Maybe, but I trigger them. I know I do, because I caused them at the start.’

Again, Lana was silent, absorbing what he said. He didn’t feel any condemnation from her, not yet, but he certainly felt it in himself. He always did when he remembered that agonisingly painful time.

‘Tell me,’ she said finally, ‘what happened when your mother died.’

As she said the words, Christos realised, with a pang of shocked relief, that he actuallywantedto tell her. He wanted to let it go, and, moreover, he wanted her to know about it. How it might change things between them he had no idea, only that it would, perhaps irrevocably, but it needed to be said.

‘My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen,’ he began slowly, choosing his words with care, each one feeling laborious, laid down like an offering. ‘It was difficult. Thalia was only a baby, Kristina twelve and Sophia ten. My father was loving, but he worked all the time and he struggled to cope with the demands...not just physically, but emotionally. I wanted to be there for him, for them all, but it was hard.’

‘I’m sure it was,’ Lana murmured, her voice soft with compassion.

‘At first my mother tried to go on as normal. She wouldn’t talk about her chemotherapy, or how sick she was, and she was always there to greet us with a smile.’ Already he felt his throat thickening. ‘She was so strong, and I suppose that’s why it came as a shock when suddenly she wasn’t. When I was sixteen, she stopped treatment. There had been a few months of seeming remission, and I think we were all hopeful. Then the cancer came back, as it often does, more aggressive than ever before. She wanted to go into a hospice, but my father insisted she come home. He wanted to be with her. He loved her very, very much.’ His voice almost broke and he drew a quick, steadying breath.

Seeing his father absolutely overcome with grief, barely able to function as his mother had withered away, had cemented in him a certainty that he never wanted to love someone that much. Need them so desperately.

Yet what if you already do?

Christos pushed that thought aside. ‘Those weeks she was at home were awful,’ he said quietly. ‘She was so weak, so...different. And we had no help, because my father didn’t want anyone to see her like that. He wanted everyone to remember my mother as she used to be—a laughing, lovely, beautiful woman. And she wasn’t any more. I didn’t even like seeing her...she’d lost so much weight, and her face looked...it looked like a skull.’ He pictured her eyes, burning into him, begging him. ‘In all truth, I could barely stand to sit with her.’ He bowed his head, the words coming faster now, the confession like a bloodletting. ‘And so, I wouldn’t. I avoided her, and she knew I was, and I know it hurt her. Kristina and Sophia could both handle it, they sat with her for hours. Kristina would come in with Thalia, who was just two, put her in my mother’s arms, and help her to hold her. And I... I stayed away.’

‘That’s understandable, Christos,’ Lana said quietly, and he let out a hard, almost wild laugh.

‘Is it? Is it understandable that the day before she died, she asked me to sit with her? She knew she was dying, that she would die soon.Iknew she would die soon. Her strength was seeping away...you could practically see it happening, minute by minute. She begged me, Lana.Beggedme, with tears in her eyes, her voice. “Please, Christos, let me see you. Let me hug you and say goodbye to you.” And you know what I did?’ He drew another breath, his voice turning jagged with pain. ‘I pretended I hadn’t heard her. I walked right by her bedroom—she was sitting up in bed, even though she had no strength, her arms outstretched to me, calling. And I didn’t go in. I didn’t even answer her. I never saw her again. She died that night.’ He dropped his head into his hands as a shudder ripped through him, and then, in surprise, he felt Lana’s arms, soft and accepting, fold around him.

‘Oh, Christos.’ Her voice was soft, sad, and so very tender.‘Christos.’As she held him, he felt the sobs building in his chest and he wanted to keep them there. Heneededto, and yet he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and they escaped him in choked gasps as she held him and he cried for the mother he’d disappointed, the mistakes he’d made, the grief he’d repressed, the regret that had been eating away at him for two decades.

‘I’m sorry,’ he finally managed, wiping his eyes, half ashamed, half relieved by his emotional display, the kind of histrionics he’d never let himself indulge in, ever. Yet here he was.

‘Don’t be sorry.’ She pressed her hand against his damp cheek, looking fiercely into his eyes. ‘Never be sorry, Christos, for showing me your heart.’

The words pierced him like a sword. His heart? Yes, he had, but...but it went against their agreements, their instincts. ‘Lana...’

‘Don’t say anything,’ she said quietly, briefly laying a finger against his lips. ‘I know it’s not what we agreed. And it may not be what you want—’

‘I don’t know what I want,’ he admitted in a low voice. ‘Not any more.’

‘Then don’t say anything,’ she said again, her voice fierce and determined. ‘Let’s just be.’ She pressed a kiss to his lips, and he clasped the back of her head, holding her to him, needing her more than ever.

‘There’s more I haven’t told you,’ he confessed when they had broken apart. Now that he’d begun, he wanted to say all of it. ‘It wasn’t just that one time. I failed in so many ways...after my mother’s death, my father asked me to be there for my sisters, because he was so broken by grief, and I wasn’t. Iwasn’t. I ignored them, I got irritated by them, I shut down in every way possible.’

He searched her face for signs of disappointment, of judgment, but found none. ‘And then that just became the way I operated, and they accepted it, but I always saw their disappointment. My father, too...he’s never been able to look me in the eye since my mother died. He’s more disappointed than angry, but that feels worse.’ He drew a breath, gazing straight at her, seeing only empathy. ‘When I left for university at eighteen, I was glad to get away. I tried to come back as little as possible, even though it added to Kristina and Sophia’s burdens, especially with Thalia being so little...for some reason, she’d latched onto me, the big brother, and made me a role model when I was anything but.’ He paused, steeling himself for what came next.

‘When she was fifteen, she had her first depressive episode. She called me, begged me to come see her. She was in such a state, crying, pleading...and it reminded me of my mother. Of her begging me to sit with her. And I couldn’t... I just couldn’t...’ He stopped, composed himself, and started again. ‘So, I told her no. I texted Kristina, to tell her to look after her, but I didn’t answer any of Thalia’s other messages. I turned off my phone and acted like it hadn’t happened. That night...’ His voice choked again. ‘That night Thalia tried to kill herself—cut her wrists, almost bled out. It was touch and go for days, but thankfully she survived. She spent three months in a secure psychiatric unit, on suicide watch. That was my fault, Lana. All my fault. And you can’t tell me I was young, that I can be forgiven, because I wasn’t. I was nearlythirty. It was only three years before I met you.’ He stopped then, waited for the judgment that would surely come.

‘And you’ve clearly been paying for it ever since,’ Lana told him quietly. She didn’t sound condemning, but her voice was firm and level. ‘I can see that full well, Christos, and I won’t excuse what you did, because itwaswrong. It was a terrible mistake. But how long must you pay for your sins? Will you ever forgive yourself? Will you allow yourself to be forgiven?’