Worse was yet to come as he took in the reactions of his family.
Stacia managed to look both offended and satisfied at the same time. His mother’s expression showed offence and concern, but it was Corrina’s reaction that struck him like a blow to his ego. She looked at Pollyanna with undisguised pity. And his brother?
Petros wasn’t looking at Pollyanna at all; he was looking at Alexandros, and his expression was equal parts anger and disappointment.
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It was not the type of look Alexandros was accustomed to receiving from any member of his family, but especially his younger brother.
Alexandros had a realization so stunning, it nearly took him out at the knees. His brother and his brother’s wife thought he was a poor husband. Even more staggering, the flat tone of his wife, the absolute belief that tone imbued to her own words said she thought the same thing.
A discussion he’d had with his brother before Petros’s marriage to Corrina came back to Alexandros now.
Alexandros gave his brother, Petros, a stern glance over the coffee they shared after a productive meeting with their top-level executives. “Is it really so much to ask that you put your honeymoon off for one week so you can attend this gala? You know how important it is to our mother.”
“Yes.” Petros’s glare was more than stern; it showed a stubborn resolve Alexandros was not used to his brother turning on him. “If you think I’m making the same choices in my marriage you’ve made in yours, then you are wrong. I know Mama had a hard time after Papa died, but her feelings are not more important than the woman I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with. I will never put her desires ahead of Corrina’s.”
“Family requires sacrifice. We balance the needs of our wives with those of the rest of our family.” It hadn’t been easy for Alexandros to watch his mother and wife jockey for position in his life.
But ultimately he’d never doubted Polly’s ability to hold her own and stand up for herself when it mattered.
There was no humor in Petros’s laugh. “You mean like you balance your wife’s needs against that of our mother and sister?”
“Precisely.”
“No thank you. I would like my wife to still be in love with me five years from now.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I am not putting off my honeymoon to make our mother happy.”
At the time, Alexandros had dismissed the dramatic implication of his brother’s words. But they came back to haunt the eldest brother now.
Had Pollyanna stopped loving Alexandros? She still responded to him in bed like a woman in love. Or a woman in lust. But love? It wasn’t an emotion he’d been particularly worried about when they first got together. He’d called her agape mou but had rarely told her he loved her, and she’d never pressed for declarations of that nature. Not even when he proposed.
He’d taken that as more proof of how well suited they were.
Alexandros had said the words the first time when their daughter was born, and had given her an eternity ring to remind her of the sentiment when he did not say it.
Looking back, he realized she’d responded in kind but not with the kind of enthusiasm she’d said the words in the beginning. And he could not remember the last time she’d told him she loved him.
He thought, that like him, she realized they did not need the words.
“How can you say something like that?” his mother was saying with ringing censure.
Pollyanna tilted her head, like trying to understand the question. “Surely there is no reason for me to lie? There cannot be a single person in this room that harbors any illusions in regard to my place of priority in Alexandros’s life.”
She spoke like she meant what she said, like she couldn’t understand why his mother had taken offence, why Alexandros might take offence. Then as if she had not said anything inflammatory at all, she turned to Petros and asked, “Have you and Corrina decided to stay in the Athens apartment for now?”
And his brother answered, pulling his wife into the discussion. Apparently, they were going to stay in the apartment. That was another difference between Petros and Alexandros.
His younger brother had moved into one of two penthouse apartments at the top of the Kristalakis Building when he graduated university and took up his first position in the family business.
He and Corrina had opted for her to move in there with him after their wedding, rather than back into the more spacious family home Alexandros had not moved out of until he bought the country villa he and Pollyanna lived in now.
Generations of their family had lived in the huge luxury villa together since his second great-grandfather had bought it for his new wife.
“But won’t that be limiting once you start your family?” his mother asked.