Page 42 of Pregnancy Clause in Their Paper Marriage
I can’t disappoint her,he thought with a frisson of panic.I can’t let this lovely woman down, the way I did my own mother and sister. I have to be strong enough this time.
Was it enough to want that, he wondered, even if he still wasn’t sure he could?
An hour later they were circulating through the ballroom of one of the city’s finest hotels, in fact the same hotel where Lana had first suggested the pregnancy clause to their marriage. Christos smiled to think of her then, so nervous and determined, and with that outrageous suggestion of IVF! He could laugh about it, now that he was gazing at her across the ballroom, laughing and chatting to someone, ripe with his child. Pride and, yes,loveswelled within him. He loved her. He loved her. And he needed to tell her so.
‘Hello, Christos.’
Christos turned at the sound of the quiet voice, his mouth dropping open when he saw who was standing in front of him, smiling sadly. His sister Sophia.
‘Sophia...what are you doing here?’
‘I came with a date. I don’t often go to these big events, but occasionally I do.’
‘I’ve never seen you...’
‘No, but then you weren’t looking.’ She spoke pragmatically but Christos felt shame pierce him all the same. Sophia had lived just outside the city for years and he’d never made the effort, because it had always been easier not to. Not to face the memories, feel the guilt.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she raised her eyebrows, her smile turning wry.
‘What for?’
A gusty breath escaped him. ‘For everything, I suppose. Not being there back...then, and not really since, either.’ He shook his head. ‘It was just always easier. For me, but also, I convinced myself, for you.’ He paused, realising he’d never spoken so honestly to his sister before. ‘But maybe it wasn’t.’
She nodded slowly. ‘We always wanted you there, Christos.’
‘I know.’ He realised as he said the words that hedidknow. It was all part of the guilt he’d felt, all the while trying not to feel it. Doing his best to believe that it was better for his family for him not to be around, when all the time it had been better for him. Although no, not better, just easier.
Except there had been nothing easy about it.
‘I just couldn’t bear to see your disappointment,’ he confessed to Sophia in a low voice. ‘And Dad... I know he still can’t look me in the eye.’
Surprise flashed across his sister’s face. ‘Christos, it’s you who can’t look him in the eye. Dad doesn’t blame you for anything.’
Christos shook his head, the movement visceral and instinctive. ‘No, he does. Of course he does. I didn’t—I didn’t say goodbye to Mom. And I didn’t look after all of you.’
‘You were sixteen. He never should have asked you that, and he knows it, trust me.’ She laid a hand on his arm. ‘Talk to him, Christos. Talk to all of us.’
‘Thalia...’ Her name came thickly from his throat, tears stinging his eyes. He’d let down Thalia worst of all.
‘Thalia has always had her issues,’ Sophia told him. ‘I know you’ve torn yourself into shreds over not coming when she asked you to, but, Christos, there was always going to be something with Thalia. That’s how she’s wired.’
‘But if I had come when she—’
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Sophia cut across him. ‘And in any case, you need to let it go. Think of the future, not the past.’
Christos smiled faintly. ‘That’s more or less what Lana told me.’
‘I like her,’ Sophie replied frankly. ‘I think she has the strength of spirit to take you on.’
He laughed then, with genuine humour. ‘Touché.’
Sophia smiled. ‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do.’ He smiled back, and for a moment, things between them felt normal, warm. This, Christos realised, was easy. It was the easiest of all, and it gave him a glimpse of what the past could have been, but, more importantly,farmore importantly, what the future could be.
A ripple of alarm travelled over the crowd, intermingled with gasps. Christos turned to look, as did Sophia, both of them frowning in consternation.
‘Is there a doctor here?’ someone cried out, and someone else asked for somebody to call 911.