Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks

He gave her his old charming grin. “The race was a good thing. It lifted the spirits of everyone on the wing.”

Looking slightly mollified, she sighed. “I guess I’d better go try convince my boss of that.” She left the room.

Her father turned back to Letty. “But why are you crying? You really thought I was dead?”

She tried to smile. “You’re crying, too, Dad.”

“Am I?” Her father touched his face. He gave her a watery smile. “I’m just glad to see you, I guess. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever come.”

“I came the instant I heard,” she whispered, feeling awful and guilty.

Howard gave a satisfied nod. “I knew he’d eventually tell you.”

“Who?”

“Darius. Sure, I promised I’d never contact you. But there was nothing in our deal that said I couldn’t contact him. I left him a message four weeks ago, when I woke up in the hospital. I’d collapsed in the street, so an ambulance brought me here.”

Four weeks? Letty was numb with shock. Darius had known for a month that her father was in the hospital, just an hour away from Fairholme?

Her father stroked his wispy chin. “Though I’m pretty sure he knew even before that. He’s had me followed since the day you ran off with him. The guy must have noticed me going to my doctor’s office three times a week.”

She sucked in her breath, covering her mouth. Not just one month, but two? Darius had known her father was sick, dying, but he’d purposefully kept it from her?

Your father is spending his days playing chess with friends down at the park.

A lie!

Last night, when she and Darius had been cuddled by the fire, dreaming about their child, even then, her husband had been lying to her. While Letty had been eating cookies and drinking tea, her father had been spending yet another night in this hospital. Alone. Without a single word of love from his only daughter.

A cold sweat broke out on her skin. She trembled as if to fight someone or flee. But there was no escaping the horrible truth.

Darius had lied to her.

The man she’d loved since childhood. The center of all her romantic dreams and longings. He’d known her father was dying, and he’d lied.

How could Darius have been so callous? So selfish, heartless and cruel?

The answer was obvious.

He didn’t love her.

He never would.

A gasp of anguish and rage came from the back of her throat.

“He never gave you the message, did he?” her father said, watching her. When she shook her head, he sighed. “How did you know I was here?”

“Mrs. Pollifax.”

“I see.” He looked sad. Then his eyes fell to her belly and he brightened as he changed the subject. “You’re so big! You’re just a week or two from your due date, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve almost made it.” His voice was smug. “The doctors said I was a goner, but I told them I wasn’t going anyplace yet.”

Letty’s body was still shaking with grief and fury. In the gray light of the hospital room, she turned toward the window. Outside, she saw November rain falling on the East River, and beyond it she could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Where Darius was right now.

Howard said dreamily behind her, “I was determined to see my grandbaby before I died.”

She whirled back to her father. “Stop talking about dying!”

His gaunt face sagged. “I’m sorry, Letty. I really am.”

“Isn’t there any hope?” Her voice cracked. “An operation? A—a second opinion?”

Her father’s eyes were kind. He shook his head. “I knew I was dying before I left prison.”

She staggered back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He rubbed his watery eyes. “I should have, I guess. But I didn’t want you to worry and take all the stress on yourself like you always do. I wanted, for once, to take care of you. I wanted to repair the harm I did so long ago and get you back where you deserved to be. Married to your true love.”

True love, Letty thought bitterly. Her stomach churned every time she thought of Darius lying to her all this time. The unfeeling bastard.

“It was my only goal,” her father said. “To make sure you’d be looked after and loved after I was gone. Now you and Darius are married, expecting a baby.” He grinned with his old verve and said proudly, “Getting my arm broken by that thug was the best thing that ever happened to me, since it helped me bring you back together. I can die at peace. A happy man.”

“Darius never told me you were sick,” she choked out, her throat aching with pain. “I’ll never forgive him.”

Her father’s expression changed. “Don’t blame Darius. After all my self-made disasters, it just shows his good sense. Shows me he’ll protect you better than I ever did.” He looked up from the wheelchair. “Thank you, Letty.”

She felt like the worst daughter in the world. “For what?”

“For always believing in me,” he said softly, “even when you had no reason to. For loving me through everything.”

She looked at her dying father through her tears. Then looked around the hospital room at the plain bed, the tile floor, the antiseptic feel, the ugly medical equipment. She couldn’t bear to think of him spending his last days here, whiling away his hours with wheelchair races.

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you really need to be in the hospital?”

Howard shrugged. “I could have gone to full hospice. Other than pain meds, there’s not much the doctors can do for me.”

Her belly tightened with a contraction that felt like nothing compared to the agony of her heart. She lifted her chin. “Then you’re coming home with me.”

Howard looked at her in disbelief. “Back to that apartment? No, thanks. At least the hospital isn’t cold all the time and someone brings me meals…”

“Not the apartment. I’m taking you to Fairholme.”

His eyes looked dazzled.

“Fairholme?” he breathed. She saw the joy in his wrinkled face. Then he blinked, looking troubled. “But Darius—”

“I’ll handle him.” Wrapping her arms around her father’s thin shoulders, she kissed the wispy top of his head. Her father’s last days would be happy ones, she vowed. He would die in the home that he’d adored, where he’d once lived with his beloved wife and raised his child, surrounded by comfort and love.

Letty would take care of him as he’d once taken care of her.

And, she thought grimly, she’d also take care of Darius.

She’d loved her husband with all her heart. Now she saw that all the sacrifices she’d made, all of her trust, had been for nothing. For an illusion. Darius didn’t love her. He would never love her.

It was his final betrayal. And for this, she would never forgive him.

Darius walked into his office near Battery Park with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. He was late but had an excellent reason. He’d stopped at his favorite jeweler’s on Fifth Avenue to buy a push present for his wife.

He’d read about push presents in a parenthood article. It was a gift that men gave the mothers of their children after labor and delivery, in celebration and appreciation of all their hours of pain and hard work. Since Letty’s due date was so close, Darius had known he had no time to lose. He’d found the perfect gift—exquisite emerald earrings, surrounded by diamonds, set in gold, almost as beautiful as her hazel eyes. They’d even once belonged to a queen of France. With Letty’s love of history, he knew she’d get a kick out of that, and he could hardly wait to give them to her. And even more amazing: when he did, their son would be real at last, and in their arms.

Darius realized he was whistling the same hokey lullaby that his wife had sung in the shower that morning to their unborn baby.

He loved Letty’s voice.

He loved their home.

And he loved that he’d been able to blow off half a morning of work in order to get her a gift. It was supposedly one of the perks of being a boss, but at his last company, he’d been too grimly driven to do anything but grind out work. So he could build his fortune. So he could be worth something.

But even after he’d succeeded, even when he’d finally been rich beyond imagination, he’d been unhappy. He realized that now. He’d spent ten years doing nothing but work, and when he’d sold his company he’d felt lost. Money hadn’t fulfilled him quite as much as he’d thought it would.

But now, everything had changed. Both in his work and his life.

He was building a new company. A free website would teach software coding, math and science skills, so others could have the opportunities he’d had, to get good jobs or perhaps even start their own tech companies someday.

His goal wasn’t to build a fortune. He already had more than he could spend in a lifetime. When he’d paid out billions of dollars to Howard Spencer’s victims, he hadn’t even missed it.

Letty was teaching him—reminding him?—how a good life was lived.

Throughout their marriage, as Fairholme had every day become more beautiful, so had his pregnant wife. She was huge now, and she glowed. Every day she told him how much she loved him. He could feel it, her love for him, warming him like a fire in winter.

There was only one flaw.

One secret he was keeping.

And he knew it might ruin everything.

Darius’s steps slowed as he crossed through the open office with the exposed brick walls.

Letty’s father was dying. And Darius didn’t know how to tell her.

He hadn’t wanted to believe it was true at first. For weeks, he’d insisted it was all an elaborate con. “Call me when he’s dead,” he’d told his investigator half-seriously.

Then he’d gotten a message from Howard Spencer himself, saying he was in the hospital. Even then, for a few days, Darius had told himself it was a lie. Until his investigator had combed through the hospital records and confirmed it was true. Darius had no choice but to face it.

Now he had to tell Letty.

But how? How could he explain to her all his weeks of silence, when he’d known her father was dying in a Brooklyn hospital?

Darius still believed he’d done the right thing. He and Letty had made a deal at the start of their marriage: no contact with her father. There hadn’t been any fine print or “get out of jail free” card if the man decided to die. All Darius had done was uphold their deal. He had nothing to feel guilty about. He hadn’t just paid Spencer’s debts, but also his living expenses and even his medical bills. He’d practically acted like a saint.

Somehow, he didn’t think Letty would see it that way.

Darius dreaded her reaction. He’d halfheartedly started to tell her last night, but stopped, telling himself he didn’t want to risk raising her blood pressure when she was so close to delivery. He didn’t want to risk her health, or the baby’s.

After the baby’s born, he promised himself firmly. Once he knew both mother and baby were safe and sound.

She would be angry at first, he knew. But after she’d had some time to think it over, she’d realize that he’d only been trying to protect her. And it was in her nature to forgive. She had no choice. She loved him.

Feeling calmer, he walked past his executive assistant’s desk toward his private office. “Good morning, Mildred.”

Lifting her eyebrows, she greeted him with “Your wife is on the line.”

“My wife?” A smile lifted unbidden to his face, as it always did when he thought of Letty.

“She said you weren’t answering your cell.”

Instinctively, Darius put his hand to his trouser pocket. It was empty. He must have left it in the car.

“Mrs. Kyrillos sounds pretty stressed.” His executive assistant, usually stern and no-nonsense, gave him a rare smile. “She said it’s urgent.”

Letty never called him at work. His smile changed to a dazed grin. There could be only one reason she’d call now, so close to her due date!

“I’ll take it in my office,” he said joyfully and rushed inside, shutting the door behind him. He snatched up the phone. “Letty? Is it the baby? Are you in labor?”

His wife’s voice sounded strangely flat. “No.”

“Mildred said it was urgent—”

“It is urgent. I’m leaving you. I’m filing for divorce.”

For a long moment he just gripped the phone, that foolish grin still on his face, as he tried to comprehend her words. Then the smile fell away.

“What are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath. “I’ve read about pregnancy hormones…”

Anger suddenly swelled from the other end of the line.

“Pregnancy hormones? Pregnancy hormones? I’m divorcing you because you lied to me. You’ve been lying for months! My father is dying and you never told me!”

Darius’s heart was suddenly in his throat.

“How did you find out?” he whispered.

“Mrs. Pollifax couldn’t understand how I could be such a heartless daughter to just let my father die alone. Don’t worry. I’ve let her know that the heartless one is you.”

He looked up, past his desk to the window overlooking the southern tip of Manhattan, and the Atlantic beyond it. Outside, rain fell in the gray November morning.

He licked his lips and tried, “Letty, I don’t blame you for being upset—”

“Upset? No. I’m not upset.” She paused. “I’m happy.”

That was so obviously not true he had no idea how to react. “If you’ll just give me a chance to explain.”

“You already explained to me, long ago, that you wouldn’t love me. That love was for children. You told me. I just didn’t listen,” she said softly. “Now I really, truly get it. And I want you out of my life for good.”

“No—”

“I’ve brought my father to Fairholme.”

Gripping the phone, he nearly staggered back. “Howard Spencer—in my house?”

“Yes.” Her voice was ice-cold. “I’m not leaving him in the hospital, surrounded by strangers. He’s going to spend his last days surrounded by love, in the home where he was married to my mother.”

“It’s not just your decision. I bought that house and…” He stopped himself, realizing how pompous he sounded. But it was too late.

“Right.” Her voice was a sneer. “Because money makes the man. You think you can buy your way through life. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Buy things. You bought my virginity, and ever since, you’ve kept buying me. With marriage. With money. You didn’t realize it was never your money I wanted.” Her voice suddenly broke to a whisper. “It was you, Darius. My dream of you. The amazing boy you were.” She took a breath. “The man I actually thought you still were, deep down inside.”

“I’m still that man,” he said tightly. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t want you upset…”

“Upset by my father dying!”

Darius flinched at the derision in her voice. “Perhaps I made a bad decision, but I was trying to look after you.”

“And you assumed I would forgive you.”

He felt shaken. “Forgiveness is what you do.”

She gave a hard laugh. “How convenient for you. Only the idiots who love you have to forgive. But since you never love anyone, you never have to worry about that. You’re free to hurt whomever you please.”

She didn’t sound like his wife at all, the kindhearted woman who greeted him every day with kisses, who gave so much of herself and asked for very little in return.

Except for him to forgive her father, Darius realized. That was the one thing she’d actually asked for. And the one thing he’d refused, again and again.

He, who was never afraid of anything, felt the first stirrings of real fear. “If you’ll just listen to me—”

“I’ve had suitcases boxed up for you. Collins is taking them to your penthouse in Midtown. Don’t worry. I won’t stay here forever. You can have Fairholme back after…” Her voice was suddenly unsteady. “After. I don’t want anything from you in our divorce. The baby and I will be leaving New York.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Poppy Alexander lives in Los Angeles now. She offered me a job a while back. I told her no. Now I’m going to say yes.”

“No.”

“Try and stop me. Just try.” He could hear the ragged gasp of her breath. “You called my dad a monster. You’re the real monster, Darius. Because you know what it was like to have your father die alone. That was the reason for all your vengeance and rage, wasn’t it? That was the big reason you wouldn’t let me see my dad. Well, you know what? My dad nearly died alone, too. Because of you.”

The pang of fear became sharper, piercing down his spine. He licked his lips. “Letty—”

“Stay away from us,” she said in a low voice. “I never want to see you again. Better that our son has no father at all than a heartless one like you.”

The line went dead. He stared down at the phone in his hand.

Numb with shock, Darius raised his head. He looked blankly around his office, still decorated with his wife’s sweet touches. A photo of them on their Greek honeymoon. A sonogram picture of their baby. He stared in bewilderment at the bright blue jeweler’s bag on his desk. The push present for his wife, the emerald earrings once owned by a queen that he’d bought to express his appreciation and joy.

Above him, he could hear the rain falling heavily against the roof. Loud. Like a child’s rattle.

And felt totally alone.

He’d known this would happen. Known if he ever lowered his guard and let himself care, he would get kicked in the teeth. Teeth? He felt like his guts had just been ripped out. For a second, he felt only that physical pain, like the flash of lightning before thunder.

Then the emotional impact reached his heart, and he had to lean one hand on his desk to keep his balance. The pain he felt then was almost more than he could bear.

Standing in his office, in the place he’d been happily whistling a lullaby just moments before, anguish and rage rushed through him. Throwing out his arm, he savagely knocked the jewelry bag to the ground.

Suddenly, he could almost understand why Howard Spencer had turned criminal when he’d lost his wife. Because Darius suddenly wanted to set fire to everything in his life, to burn it all down.

Slowly, as if he’d gained fifty years, he walked out of his office.

“Everything all right, sir?” Mildred Harrison said serenely from her desk. “Are you headed to the hospital for Mrs. Kyrillos?”

Mrs. Kyrillos. He almost laughed at the name. She’d never been his wife, not really. How could she, when she’d seen through him from the start?

You always said a man could be measured by his money.

He looked slowly around the bustling office loft, with its exposed brick walls, its high ceilings, the open spaces full of employees busily working on computers or taking their breaks at the foosball table. He said softly, “No.”

His executive assistant frowned. “Sir?”

“I don’t want it anymore.” Darius looked at her. “Take the company. You can have it. I’m done.”

And he left without looking back.

He spent the afternoon in one of Manhattan’s old dive bars, trying to get drunk. He could have called Santiago Velazquez or Kassius Black, but they weren’t exactly the kind of friends who shared confidences and feelings. Darius had only really done that with Letty. He told himself Scotch would keep him company now.

It didn’t.

Finally he gave up. He was alone. He would always be alone. Time to accept it.

Dropped off by the taxi, Darius came home late that night to his dark penthouse. All the bright lights of Manhattan sparkled through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He saw nothing but darkness and shadows.

And three expensive suitcases left in his foyer. Suitcases Letty had packed for him when she’d taken his measure, found him completely lacking and tossed him out of their family home.

You think you can buy your way through life. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Buy things.

Slowly, Darius looked around the stark, impersonal penthouse at the sparse, expensive furniture. Everything was black and white. He’d bought this place two years ago, as a trophy to show how far he’d come from the poverty-stricken village boy he’d once been. A trophy to prove to himself that Letitia Spencer had made a fatal error the day she’d decided he wasn’t good enough to marry.

This penthouse was not his home.

His home was Fairholme.

Darius closed his eyes, thinking of the windswept oceanfront manor with its wide windows over the Great South Bay and the Atlantic beyond. The roses, fields and beach. The sun-drenched meadow where he’d taught Letty to dance. Where he’d first learned to love.

Letty.

He opened his eyes with a slow intake of breath.

Letty was his home.

Even during their brief marriage, he’d experienced happiness he’d never known before. The comfort and love of having a wife who put him first, who waited for him every night, who kissed him with such passion. Who slept warm and willing beside him every night in bed.

More than that. She’d reminded him who he’d once been.

You didn’t realize it was never your money I wanted. It was you, Darius. My dream of you. The amazing boy you were. The man I actually thought you still were, deep down inside.

Numbly, he looked out the two-story-high windows that overlooked the twinkling lights of the city.

Letty was always determined to protect those she loved. Now she was trying to protect their child from him. Just as he’d once tried to protect Letty from her father.

You called my dad a monster. You’re the real monster.

He leaned his forehead against the cold window glass.

Howard Spencer had been a good man once. He’d been a good employer to Darius’s father and kind to everyone, including the scared eleven-year-old boy newly arrived from Greece. Then he’d changed after he’d lost his beloved wife.

What was Darius’s excuse?

He took a deep breath, looking out bleakly into the night. Why had he been so determined to wreak vengeance on her father? So determined that he hadn’t even cared how badly it might hurt Letty as collateral damage?

He should have told her the truth from the start.

He should have taken her in his arms. He should have fallen to his knees. He should have told her he was sorry, and that he’d do whatever it took to make it right.

Why hadn’t he?

What the hell was wrong with him?

Darius had convinced himself he was justified for his actions, because he blamed Howard Spencer for his father’s early, unhappy death.

Letty was right. He was a liar. And he’d lied to himself worst of all.

The truth was, deep in his heart, there had always been only one person Darius truly blamed for his father’s death, and it had been too painful for him to face till now.

Himself.

He closed his eyes as a memory that he’d pushed away for over a decade pummeled him. But today, he could no longer resist the waves of guilt and shame as he remembered.

Eugenios had called Darius in the middle of the day.

“I’ve lost everything, son.” His Greek father, usually so distant and gruff, had sounded lost, bewildered. “I just got a certified letter. It says all my life savings—everything I invested with Mr. Spencer—it’s all gone.”

Darius had been busy working in his first rented office, a windowless Manhattan basement. He’d only gotten three hours of sleep the night before. It was the first time the two men had talked in months, since Letty had dumped him and caused Eugenios to be fired and tossed from Fairholme. Just hearing his voice that day had reminded Darius of everything he was trying so hard to forget. A lifetime of resentment had exploded.

“I guess that pays you back for all your loyalty to Spencer, huh, Dad? All those years when you put him first, even over your own family.”

Darius had been so young, so self-righteous. It made him feel sick now to remember it.

“That was my job.” His father’s voice had trembled. “I wanted to make sure I never lost a job again. Never felt again like I did that awful day we found you on the doorstep…”