CHAPTER TWELVE

E LIANA ’ S PHONE WAS buzzing softly but insistently, waking her up. It was morning, but early still. As she groped for it the call went to voicemail—but the number was still displayed.

Immediately, she slid out of bed. Leandros was still asleep, and she was grateful. She hurried from the room, wanting the privacy of her own bedroom so she could hear the voicemail. But after she did, she set the phone down, sank down on the unused bed, consternation in her face.

Then, her breathing shallow and agitated, she got to her feet.

She needed to go—right now.

Leave Paris.

Leave Leandros.

Leave this brief happiness that had come so unexpectedly, had been so unlooked-for—which she had always known could only be brief and soon must end.

And now it had.

Leandros sat in his airline seat, his hands clenched over the armrests. His face was tight, expressionless. But behind the mask of his face a storm was taking place.

She had gone. Walked out on him. No explanation. No justification. No attempt at an excuse. Nothing.

Except a scrawled note.

Leandros, I have to get back to Thessaloniki.

The words stabbed in his head as the plane flew on above the clouds, heading south. Stabbed him—and mocked him. Just as the past had mocked him, was still mocking him now. It was happening again. She was walking out on him, walking away. Just as she had done before.

But this time—

Why? Why is she doing it again now? Six years ago she left me to marry money—but what is there for her in leaving me now? There is nothing for her in Thessaloniki—just the scraps from Jonas Makris’s begrudging table!

He closed his eyes, his grip on the armrests of his seat tightening so that his knuckles were white with it. The rest of her words stabbed at him.

We knew from the start that Paris was only to set ourselves free from the past—nothing more.

Now the stab went deeper. Mocking him even more. Yes, his wanting to be free of her, to stop her haunting him, tormenting him, had been the reason he’d taken her to Paris. He’d wanted nothing else. But now—after those carefree, contented days with her, those incandescent nights with her...

Is that still what I want?

Her final words tolled in his head.

Nothing more.

His eyes flared open, bleak and empty. And those words tolled again.

Nothing more.

Each one was a stab to his throat.

Eliana was at the bank, her face set. She was going to have to raid her minuscule pot of savings, assiduously hoarded out of what had been left of her allowance and her earnings. With a grim expression, she made the payment she had gone there to make. Then headed back to her apartment. Not that she could afford to live even there now.

She felt a flicker of unease. What she was doing was risky—but she had no choice. Her finances demanded it.

Her mind flitted back, like a magnet seeking true north, to where it longed to go—where she longed to go. But that was barred to her now.

I took the ‘now’ that was offered to me knowing that it could not last. And now that ‘now’ is gone.

Regret mingled with guilt—a familiar toxic mix. But now it was not for the past of six years ago. It was for the past of only the day before yesterday. But there was nothing she could do about it. Only endure it. Endure it as she had before—six years ago and every year since then. And now once more.

This time it was more unbearable. More agonising.

To break her heart a second time...

The taxi pulled up outside the run-down apartment block and Leandros got out, his face set. Why had he come here? He should have stuck to writing Eliana out of his life—again. But after one sleepless night in Athens he had flown up to Thessaloniki.

Wanting answers.

She owes me that.

The words of the totally inadequate note she had left incised in his brain.

Why? Why did she have to come back? After what we had in Paris...

Someone was coming out of the block, and he used that opportunity to get into the shabby lobby. The elevator had a notice on it saying it was awaiting repairs—the same notice as last time—so he vaulted up the stairs, chipped and stained.

He gained Eliana’s floor. Rapped on her door.

Demanding entrance.

Eliana paused frowningly in the act of closing her suitcase. The landlord’s agent? Come to inspect the premises before she left?

She went to open the door, not wanting a confrontation, but steeling herself for one all the same.

It came—but not with the landlord’s agent.

She gave a gasp.

Leandros strode in, turned. But not before he had seen the suitcase on her bed, the larger one already closed and standing by the door. He took in the stripped bed, the absence of any of her belongings. His eyes swept back to hers. Skewered them.

‘Moving out?’ he said.

His voice was calm, but it made a hollow inside her for all that.

He filled the room—filled so much more. She hung on to the door-jamb, just to give her strength. A strength that was ebbing away like ice on a hot stove, just as swiftly. Her mouth had dried, but she had to answer him.

‘Yes,’ she said.

His skewering gaze pinned her. The planes of his face were stark. Only once had she seem him thus—when she had slid his ring from his finger and walked out of his life.

‘I...I have to go,’ she said.

He frowned suddenly. ‘You’ve been evicted?’

She shook her head. ‘No... I’m just...just moving somewhere else.’

Weakness was flooding through her—and something quite different that had nothing to do with the dismay that was paralysing her. A longing so intense she felt faint with it. But it was a longing that had no place in her life.

‘Where?’ he demanded.

‘Just...somewhere else.’

She knew there was evasion in her voice. He’d heard it, she could see. See it in the sudden icing of his gaze. The narrowing of his eyes. The starkness of his cheekbones.

‘So tell me where.’

Her heart was thudding, her hand still splayed across the door-jamb, clinging to it for support.

‘It doesn’t matter where. Or why.’

He took a step towards her and she threw up a hand, as if to ward him off.

‘Leandros, it doesn’t matter ! It doesn’t matter where I’m going, or why. It isn’t...it isn’t anything to do with you.’

He stared at her. ‘You say that to me,’ he said slowly, ‘after Paris?’

Her face contorted. ‘Leandros—Paris was...was... Well, what it was...’ How could she tell him what it had been to her? ‘But it was never going to last—and you didn’t want it to either.’ She shut her eyes a moment, then sprang them open again. ‘Oh, Leandros...’ Her voice had changed...she heard anguish in it. ‘I know why you took me there. I know the memory of what I did to you six years ago has haunted you—poisoned you. At first I thought that I owed you Paris, and I was prepared to go through with it. But then... Well—’ she drew a ragged breath ‘—things changed. Maybe...’ she half lifted a hand towards him, then let it drop away ‘...even healed,’ she said. ‘Or...or something like that. Whatever it was, it was...good.’ Her voice dropped. ‘But it could never have lasted. It just couldn’t.’

‘Did you not want it to?’

His voice was hollow, as if something had been emptied out of it.

He stepped towards her. ‘Eliana, what happened in Paris—it was good! You know it was good. We made it good. I said to you that we could change, and we did—both of us!’ His voice was vehement—urgent. ‘Why lose it? Why walk away from it?’

How could she answer? It was impossible.

She took another ragged breath. ‘I wish you hadn’t come here...chasing after me. There’s no point.’

‘So where are you going? Why? And why do you not answer what I’ve asked you?’

She could see a nerve working in his cheek, the starkness in his face as she stayed silent.

Then suddenly, he gave an oath, his expression changing completely. ‘You’re going to someone else—’

There was no emotion in his voice, yet it chilled her to the core. Chilled her—and handed her what she desperately, despairingly, needed.

‘Yes,’ she said.

For one unendurable moment his eyes held hers, and in them was what she had seen only once before, on that unbearable day she’d handed him back his ring. Then, without a word, he walked past her.

Out of the apartment.

Out of her life—a second time.

She closed her eyes, hearing his hard, heavy footsteps on the stairs heading down. As hard and heavy as the hammer-blows of her heart. Slaying her.

Leandros was in his office, but he was not working. Work was impossible, though it was piling up. Over and over in his head he could hear a replay of his last exchange with Eliana.

‘ You’re going to someone else.’

And her one-word answer.

‘Yes.’

One word—one single word—and it damned her. Damned her to hell. But he didn’t want her in hell. Hell was where he was—and seeing her again would be another circle of hell for him, another agony.

How could she be going to someone else? How could she be leaving him? After what they’d had in Paris?

After what we claimed for ourselves.

‘Healing’, she’d called it, and the word blazed in his head now. Yes, that was exactly, totally what it had been. He felt it now, the truth of it filling him.

I found her again—the woman I once loved.

But now he had lost her again.

Rebellion rose up in him.

Six years ago I let her leave me. I let money be more important to her than loving me. I let her do that. I didn’t challenge it... I didn’t fight her for it.

Because six years ago she hadn’t been worth fighting for.

But this time...

This time she is.

Whatever had happened to her in the dysfunctional marriage she’d made, she had changed. She must have changed. Or else why would she not have taken from him everything she could? All that he had originally promised her? She’d refused gifts of jewellery, left her couture wardrobe behind. Walked away with nothing of what he’d offered her when he’d told her he wanted her to go to Paris with him.

And what they’d had in Paris had been good.

Maybe I didn’t understand what was happening to me—to us. Maybe I still wasn’t sure what I wanted. But now—Now I won’t lose it. I won’t let it go, never to return.

He felt his hands clench into fists. This time he would not give up on her.

He stared, unseeing, across his office. Emotion was churning inside him. Powerful. Insistent. Focussed on one goal only.

Eliana.

Getting her back.

Eliana was back at work, back to stacking shelves, back at the till, back to fetching and carrying. She wasn’t working full-time any longer, but the wage she earned was still essential to her finances. The supermarket was farther away from where she was now based, and she was on the lookout for something closer. She wished she could find something better paid, but that was unlikely, given her lack of marketable skills.

She gave a sigh. No point wanting things that were impossible.

Like wanting Leandros.

No, she mustn’t let her thoughts go there, or her memories. It was like pouring acid on an open wound.

I survived a broken heart six years ago—I can survive it again. I must.

Because there was no alternative. As before, she’d made her choice—and now she was living with it.

No point complaining or repining.

Numbly, mechanically, she went on stacking shelves.

Leandros frowned. This apartment block might be in a better street than the dump Eliana had lived in before, and it was in better condition—cleaner and well-kept—but it was not what he’d expected. Had she really taken up with someone who lived here?

But it was not where that someone lived that he cared about—it was that there was a ‘someone else’ at all.

How could she? How could she after what we had in Paris? Did it mean nothing to her?

His thoughts darkened as he walked into the lobby. Six years ago her time with him had meant nothing to her either...

He gave her name to the concierge—at least this block had one. The man frowned for a moment, then his face cleared.

‘Second floor, apartment six—opposite the stairwell,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to phone?’

Leandros shook his head, vaulting up the stairs.

As he gained her floor he stopped dead. What the hell was he doing? He’d trekked here to fight for her—thinking that this time she was worth fighting for. But was he just fooling himself? Whatever had happened in Paris, she had still walked away from him as she had done before.

Six years ago he’d known who she’d left him for. And why.

Last time around I knew. This time around I don’t need to.

Could not bear to.

That was the sorry truth of it.

He made to turn away. He could not face this. Could not bear it. Whatever she was doing in a place like this, whoever she was with, he didn’t want to know.

She’s gone—and I’ve lost her. Lost her just as I lost her before. I have to accept it.

He twisted round to head back down, get the hell out of here.

The sound of the door of the apartment facing the stairwell starting to open—the very door he’d been about to approach—made him pause. He turned back, not wanting to, but turning anyway. As he did so a gasp sounded.

Shock. Dismay.

Frozen in the open doorway was Eliana. And she was pushing a child’s buggy.

Faintness drummed through Eliana. It could not be—she was imagining things, creating a mirage out of her own mind.

Her vision dimmed—then cleared.

He stepped up to her. Leandros. Out of nowhere.

‘How...?’ Her voice was as faint as the faintness drumming through her.

‘A private investigator located you for me. Followed you back from the supermarket you work in.’

There was no expression in Leandros’s voice. But she knew that shock must be going through him, as it was her. Knew why.

His eyes dropped from her to the buggy she was clinging to. To the infant within.

A single word broke from Leandros, and his eyes flashed back to her. ‘Yours?’

There was nothing in his voice. And yet there was everything in it. She didn’t answer. Could not. Desperation clawed in her head.

What to answer—? What to say—?

A voice called from inside the apartment.

‘Who is it, Eliana?’

There was a note of fear in the voice, and she knew why. She turned her head, called back, wanting to reassure.

‘It’s all right—’

But a hand was closing over the handle of the buggy. Leandros had stepped forward, blocking her.

‘Inside,’ he said.

It was not a request or a suggestion.

Numbly, she drew back indoors. Her mind was in free-fall—but how could it not be?

He followed her in. Looked past the narrow entrance hall into the living room beyond.

Incomprehension in his face.

Slowly...very slowly...Leandros took in what he was seeing. A living room with a dining table by the window, a little balcony beyond. The room was filled with old-fashioned furniture, sideboards and cupboards heavy with ornaments, pictures on the wall, a settee covered with a crochet throw, and another swathing a commodious armchair in which a grey-haired woman was sitting, a walking stick propped up beside her chair. Beyond the living room, Leandros could see a small galley kitchen.

The grey-haired woman was speaking, sounding both alarmed and confused. Her local Macedonian accent was distinct to his ears.

‘Eliana, who is this? Why is he here?’

He turned his attention to the woman. ‘I am a...a friend of Eliana’s, kyria ,’ he said. ‘I am sorry to disturb you—but I need to speak to Eliana.’

‘She was about to take Miki to the park,’ the elderly woman said.

‘Miki?’ Leandros echoed.

His eyes went back to the infant. Maybe two years old, or three—he didn’t know much about the ages of small children. The little boy was looking at him with interest in his dark eyes.

‘My grandson,’ the woman said.

There was pride in her voice—and doting affection too.

‘We can still go to the park, Ya-Ya.’

Eliana’s voice made Leandros turn back to her. She was as white as a ghost, her hands tightly gripping the handle of the buggy.

She looked at Leandros.

He nodded. Absolutely nothing here made sense. But getting out of there did.

He gave a brief, perfunctory smile to the grey-haired woman, just to be civil, and then he was turning back into the entrance lobby, reopening the front door that he had closed. Pointedly waiting for Eliana to precede him.

‘We’ll take the lift,’ he said.

Eliana, her heart thudding as it had been from the moment her eyes had seen Leandros, sat on a bench in the little park that was only a street away from the apartment.

It was a pretty enough place, with mulberry trees for shade, pleasant paths, well-planted flower-beds, hibiscus shrubs, and an area of grass, dry and brown in this season after summer. There was a children’s play area, with swings and slides, a little roundabout and a see-saw, and a few other attractions to appeal to small children. Miki was seated on one—a colourful pony perched on a strong steel spring, rocking himself happily backwards and forwards. Rubberised flooring meant that even falling off would not be painful.

Leandros sat down beside her.

Memory pierced. How they sat side by side that afternoon in the Luxembourg gardens, into which this little urban park would have fitted a score of times over, eating their patisserie , watching the Parisians and the tourists enjoying themselves.

‘So talk,’ said Leandros at her side.

His voice was grim. And, as before, it was not a request or an invitation.

For a moment she did not answer. Her eyes rested on the little boy, oblivious to the complications and currents swirling all around him.

‘I take it he’s yours.’

Leandros’s voice was flat. Hard. As hard as stone. Things were starting to make sense—but darkly. Bleakly.

‘But who the hell is his father? Because the woman in that apartment is not Damian’s mother! And besides—’ He broke off. ‘Damian was gay, so—’

He broke off again.

Eliana turned to look at him. He was frowning.

‘But you were a virgin,’ he said. ‘So how—?’

He took a rasping breath.

‘IVF might have got you pregnant by Damian, or by any other man, but to give birth and still be a virgin...? Is it even possible ?’ He lifted a hand, then dropped it like lead. ‘Caesarean delivery?’

He gave a swift shake of his head in negation.

‘But you have no scar.’ His frown deepened. ‘Maybe you used a surrogate? Because how the hell else—?’

It was time for her to speak. What else could she do now? Only the truth would answer him.

‘Miki is not my son.’ She spoke quietly, the words falling slowly from her lips. ‘He is Damian’s.’

She didn’t look at Leandros, only at the little boy still rocking on his pony, humming away to himself.

‘Damian was not gay, as you supposed,’ she said, and she knew that now she had no choice but to tell all—to tell everything. ‘And as I let you think. He was just in love with someone else. Miki’s mother, Maria. He wanted to marry her, but she worked as a maid in his father’s house—that was how they met. Jonas, as you know, is a self-made man—and he was ambitious, as many such men are, for his only son. His heir. The last thing he would have permitted was his son throwing himself away on a woman who worked as a maid. Someone from the same background he himself had climbed away from. He wanted better for his son. He wanted old money...the prestige of a “good family”. Mine, as it happened.’

She swallowed.

‘That was why he found Damian’s marriage to me acceptable. Oh, he profited materially too, by buying up my poor father’s debts and ending up with his house. But my real value to him was that I made a very “suitable” wife for Damian socially.’

Her gaze rested on Damian’s little son.

‘That was Damian’s father’s reason for wanting me to marry Damian. Mine...’ her voice twisted ‘...you already know.’

She drew another breath—a difficult one.

‘As for Damian... Well, it suited him too. Marriage to me meant he could continue his liaison with Maria, the woman he’d never be allowed to marry. She became pregnant...gave birth to Miki. Damian, of course, could never acknowledge him—never do anything but conceal his existence, conceal Maria’s as well. As for me... I knew from the start and went along with it, what Damian wanted of me—being a smokescreen to hide Maria behind, and placating his father with a marriage that Jonas would welcome. We agreed to it before we married.’

Her voice changed.

‘I pitied Damian...felt for him. His father ruled him with a rod of iron. Damian was cowed by him—he always had been. He had no money of his own—his father held the purse strings. If he’d left me for Maria his father would have cut him off penniless. So he just made the best of it—as did I.’

She paused again. Then finished the sad and sorry tale.

‘Maria was in the car when Damian crashed it. They died together. Leaving Miki with only his widowed grandmother. And me.’

She looked at Leandros.

‘I can’t abandon him, Leandros. His grandmother is getting on—you saw that. And she isn’t in the best of health either. She has her pension, but it isn’t much. I...I give her as much as I can afford from the meagre allowance Jonas makes me as Damian’s widow, but it doesn’t go very far. It stretches so far as paying for a childminder for Miki, because his grandmother can’t really cope on her own. And after Damian and Maria were killed, I...I steered clear. Not because I wanted to, but because—’

She took a sharp, incising breath.

‘Leandros, Jonas must never learn of his grandson’s existence! He’s never suspected it, and it must stay that way! Thankfully, the ambulance crew at the scene of Damian’s car crash got Maria out first—she was still alive, I discovered—and she was taken to the ER. She died en route. So far as Jonas knows there was no passenger with Damian. But if he learnt about Miki he’d get hold of him! He’d value him now, because—illegitimate or not, and despite who his mother was—he’s all the progeny he’s going to have! He’d use his wealth and influence to get custody...ensure Miki’s grandmother never saw him again. It would be a hellish childhood for Miki! I know that from what Damian said about his own childhood, and I’ve seen for myself—experienced for myself—how Jonas treats people. Miki is much better off with Maria’s mother, despite her age and her not being well off. She adores him, and for her... Well, he’s all she’s got now, with her daughter dead.’

She fell silent. The tale was so sad...so pitiful all round.

‘Ellee!’

The sound of Miki finally tiring of riding the pony made her get to her feet.

She went over to him, lifted him off. ‘What shall we do next?’ she asked brightly. Fondly.

Spending more time with him had been the one clear bonus of moving in with his grandmother in order to save on her own rent, as she now had to do. She might only be Miki’s stepmother—or not even that—but he was growing in her affections. And she in his.

‘Slide! Slide!’ he cried out, and she laughed, taking his hand to make their way across to the smaller of the two slides.

She hefted him up to the top, holding him steady. ‘Ready?’

‘Slide! Slide!’ he enthused again.

‘Whee!’ she said, sliding him down, holding him around the waist to keep him steady.

‘Again! Again!’ he cried.

She moved to heft him up again. He was quite a weight, at just gone three years old.

‘Let me,’ said another voice.

Leandros was walking towards them.

‘Right, then, young man,’ he said, and swung Miki back up to the top of the slide, copying Eliana’s safety precautions as Miki glided gleefully to the bottom.

It took a while for him to get bored, but he did eventually, and progressed on to the roundabout, and then an infant swing with an encased seat to stop him falling off. Finally, the sandpit beckoned, and Eliana extracted a small plastic bucket and spade from under the buggy, settling him down with them in the sand. He got stuck in happily, fully absorbed.

Benches surrounded the sandpit, most filled with mothers watching their children in the sandpit, but one was unoccupied. She sat down on it, Leandros beside her.

He turned towards her.

‘What do I say to you?’ he said.

‘What do I say to you?’

The words—as inane as they were inadequate—echoed in his head.

When she had so shockingly revealed her virginity he hadn’t known what to say to her. Nor did he know what to say now—with this even more shocking revelation.

That the ‘someone else’ she had gone to was Miki...

And that her marriage was a farce—a lie from the very start. A lie both she and Damian agreed to. And now she has taken responsibility for a child that is not hers. A child she will not abandon and is determined to care for—whatever it costs her. Even it costs her me...costs her what we found again in Paris.

His gaze went to the small boy, playing happily in the sand. He was a nice little lad—cheerful and sunny—and Leandros watched him happily and assiduously fill his bucket with sand, then chortle as he emptied it all out again, only to repeat the process industriously.

A thought came to him, poignant and powerful.

What if he’d been ours—Eliana’s and mine?

They might easily have had a child that age by now...possibly another baby as well. His eyes went to Eliana, emotion snaking through him at what he had just thought. A sense of waste smote him.

How different our lives might have been from what they are.

She spoke now. ‘There isn’t really anything to say.’

Her voice was even, but he could hear a note of resignation in it. Or was it rather acceptance? Or both?

‘It’s just how things have panned out. We make our decisions in life, Leandros—and live with the consequences.’

She dropped her eyes, letting them go to where the little boy for whom she had shouldered a responsibility she should not have had to take on was innocently playing. A callous fate had imposed it on her.

‘I can’t abandon him,’ she said again. ‘Financially it’s hard, but I’m just about managing.’ She paused, glanced back at Leandros, then away again. ‘The...the reason I left Paris so abruptly...’ he could hear a sense of strain in her voice ‘...was that Maria’s mother, Agnetha, had phoned me in a panic. She’d had a letter from her landlord, raising her rent or threatening her with eviction. She was so upset and scared because it was beyond her means to find the extra money, and I knew I had to get back and help out.’

She drew breath and ploughed on.

‘I was already completely stretched financially, and I had to raid my savings, such as they are, to find the extra rent due. I made the decision that I could only stay afloat if I gave up my own apartment and moved in with Agnetha. It’s risky—because, as I said, I don’t want there ever to be any association between the widow of Damian Makris and a small child. It might start gossip, questions, speculation...and that might filter back to Jonas.’

She gave a wan smile. ‘Ironically, if he jumps to the same conclusion you did, it would keep Miki safer. Jonas would just think I’d cheated on Damian and had an affair with someone else and a secret baby. Of course he’d cut off my widow’s allowance instantly, but at least he wouldn’t get any suspicions about Miki’s true parentage.’

She fell silent again. Then spoke once more.

‘I’ve stopped sending him to the childminder, to save some money, and cut my own working hours down, so it’s only mornings. My income is less, but it was only going on the childminder anyway. This way I can bring in a little more money, and Agnetha can manage half a day looking after Miki—at least for now. I take over at lunchtime. As I say, we’re...we’re just about managing...even with the rent hike.’

Frustration bit in Leandros. ‘Eliana, you can’t go on like this! It just isn’t—’

A dozen terms for what it wasn’t rang in his head, but he only picked one of them.

‘Sustainable,’ he said heavily. ‘You can’t live like this.’

She gave a little shrug. ‘It’s the best I can manage,’ she said.

She took a breath and he felt, with a start, the lightest and briefest of touches on his wrist.

‘Leandros, I’m sorry that you’ve found out about all of this. And I’m sorry I just walked out on you as I did in Paris. But I just didn’t want you to get...well, involved , I guess. Sucked in.’

She got to her feet, looked down at him.

‘I’d better get Miki home—Ya-Ya will have his tea ready. Don’t...don’t come with me. There’s no point—truly.’

There was a sadness in her face that tugged at him.

‘I’ve made my life, Leandros—and it is what it is. But...’

She took a breath, and something changed in her eyes that tugged at him even more.

‘But I will always, always remember our time in Paris! I will treasure it dearly. I didn’t think I would—I thought, originally, it was simply something I owed you, because of how I’d treated you when I broke our engagement and became the faithless fiancée you’ve always—justifiably—considered me. I knew the depth of your bitterness...your contempt for me...and how could I disagree with it, after treating you as I had? But then... Well, all that changed, didn’t it? I don’t really know why—and I don’t deserve that it did. That you should have been so kind to me, like I said out on the balcony that evening. But I’m grateful...truly I am. So grateful for those wonderful days we had—’

She broke off, her face working suddenly, and then, as if with an immense effort of will, she cleared it. She bent down, in a sudden, swift gesture, and he felt her lips graze his cheek, as lightly as a feather.

Then she turned, headed towards Miki, crouched down beside him. He watched her speak to him, and saw the little boy nod, and let her pick up the bucket and spade. She took his hand, led him over to the buggy and settled him into it, and then wheeled it off towards the park’s exit.

She did not look back.

Eliana made it through the evening, but it was hard. Agonisingly hard. With all her heart she wished Leandros had not found her as he had. What could it achieve? Nothing—only the agony of seeing him again, having him physically so close to her again for that short space of time.

But he was gone again—as he must be. As he must stay.

Six years ago their lives had diverged, at her instigation. In Paris they had briefly—fleetingly—come together again. She felt her heart turn over. Just enough for her to know the truth about her own feelings. Just enough for her to taste, for that brief time, the happiness that might have been hers had she not made the choices she had six years ago.

But now that time in Paris—that oasis of what might have been—had gone as well. Their lives had diverged again—for ever. And, yet again, she must live with the consequences of her choices.

When Miki was in bed, and Agnetha had settled in her chair to watch her TV programmes, Eliana slipped from the apartment, saying she would get some fresh air, be back within the hour. Agnetha had made no remark about the visitor who had arrived on their doorstep, but Eliana had seen apprehension in her face. So she had given the woman the reassurance she knew she needed to.

‘Yes, Leandros is the man I went on holiday with,’ she said. That was how she’d explained it—nothing more. ‘We had a lovely time, but I won’t be seeing him again. My place is here, with you and Miki. You have my word.’

She heard what she had promised echoing again in her head as she caught a bus to take her to the seafront. She wanted to go there—to walk along the promenade as she had walked that evening with Leandros, after he had walked back into her life.

How much had changed.

And how little.

She stood, leaning on the balustrade, looking out over the dark sea at the lights from the city playing over its waters, hearing the noise of traffic behind, the buzz of the city. So old a city...stretching way back into classical times...changing hands so often over the course of the centuries. So many lives lived here—and hers was just one more of them.

For a long while she stood, gazing out to sea. Leandros might still be here in the city, in whatever hotel he’d booked into, or he might have taken an evening shuttle to Athens. That was more likely. Flying away, out of her life. This time for ever.

A line from a film came to her. An old Hollywood film, like the one she and Leandros had watched in Paris together...

‘ We’ll always have Paris.’

But Paris, for her, was all that she would have...

All she would have of Leandros.

Through the long empty years ahead.