A Baby on the Greek's Doorstep

Relief coursed through Tor, who had remained insanely conscious of how quiet and muted Pixie had become throughout the day. He didn’t know when he had become so attuned to her moods, but he noticed the instant the sparkle died in her eyes and she withdrew from him. It had disconcerted him to appreciate how much she could put him on edge. He smiled at her as he urged her up the steps, careful to stay behind her in case she stumbled in her high heels. They took seats out on the terrace with its panoramic view of the sea and had only received their menus when Tor swore softly in surprise under his breath.

An older couple had walked out onto the terrace.

‘My godparents,’ he breathed. ‘Basil and Dimitra...not a happy coincidence.’

‘I think I dimly remember them from the wedding...but we didn’t actually speak,’ Pixie whispered. ‘Don’t you like them?’

‘It’s not that,’ Tor parried with a frown before he stood up to greet the other couple.

Pixie rose as well, walking into a hail of Greek being exchanged and smiling valiantly. Dimitra introduced herself in easy English, explaining that she had grown up in London before moving to Greece in her teens, where she had gone to school with Tor’s mother, Pandora. Their meeting was not quite the coincidence Tor had stated, Pixie thought once she learned that the other couple owned a holiday home nearby. Tor insisted that the couple join them for their meal, and it passed pleasantly with talk of their cruise round the Greek islands until Tor became increasingly involved in talking business with his godfather. By the coffee stage, the men had shifted to the outside bar across the terrace and the two women were alone.

‘I feel guilty that we’ve intruded on your last night away.’ Dimitra sighed.

‘I’m really surprised that I didn’t get talking to you at the wedding when you’re so close to Hallas and Pandora,’ Pixie confided, wondering how that oversight had come about.

‘I suppose because we felt it would’ve been inappropriate to put ourselves forward too much. I wasn’t even sure about us accepting the invitation to your wedding,’ Dimitra admitted and, seeing Pixie’s frowning, puzzled look, added, ‘You don’t know, do you? Tor’s first wife was our daughter...’

‘Oh...’ Pixie whispered, bereft of breath by that revelation but equally quickly grasping the difficulties of that situation. ‘But you’re all still good friends, aren’t you?’

‘Of course, although it’s a shame that Tor chose to conceal the truth about their marriage,’ Dimitra shared in a troubled undertone. ‘After what he’d endured, we’ve never wanted to tackle that subject with him directly, but we’re straight-talking people and it would’ve been easier for us had he just admitted that our daughter was having an affair and that Sofia was not his. At first I was grateful for that silence but with such close friends I would’ve preferred the truth rather than feeling forced to live a lie.’

Pixie settled startled eyes on the other woman, swiftly suppressing the shock of learning that Sofia had not, after all, been Tor’s child. ‘I don’t think Tor realises that you know.’

‘We knew. We tried hard to stop it, but we got nowhere. Katerina was obsessed with Devon.’

Pixie’s brow furrowed. ‘Devon?’ she queried.

‘Sevastiano’s half-brother, Devon. Katerina called him Dev. Ironically, they met at a prewedding party Hallas and Pandora threw for Tor and my daughter. Devon was already married with two young children,’ Dimitra revealed heavily. ‘But once Tor and Katerina moved to London, where Devon lived, the fact that they were both married didn’t influence either of them and we didn’t know it was happening until two years after the marriage when we caught them together. It was on that horrible day that my daughter admitted that she was pregnant with Devon’s child. I won’t go into our feelings, but you can imagine how treacherous I felt when Pandora wept over the passing of a child who was not of their blood. But it was not our secret to tell.’

And Tor hadn’t revealed that final secret even when he could have told it that first night they met, Pixie reflected painfully. Even more revealing was his silence on that score, a silence so complete, so unyielding over the entire sordid business that he had been erroneously blaming his brother, Sevastiano, for being his late wife’s lover when in fact it had not been him. How on earth had he contrived to get that wrong? Yet it served Tor right, a part of Pixie declared without sympathy. He had been far too busy hugging his damaged ego and his secrets, and Tor and his family had remained in dangerous ignorance long after the event. And that was very unhealthy, wasn’t it?

A welter of differing thoughts and deductions assailed Pixie on the launch that wafted them back to the yacht. What she had learned from Dimitra had put her in an awkward position. She had to tell Tor not only that his former in-laws were already fully acquainted with their late daughter’s peccadilloes, but also that he had misjudged his brother, Sevastiano, who had not been Katerina’s lover. How could she keep quiet about such matters? They were too important to ignore yet too personal for her to want to tackle them...aside of that revelation about Sofia, who had not been Tor’s daughter, as he had led her to believe.

But did Tor even know that Sofia had not been his child? It was perfectly possible that he didn’t know, Pixie reasoned uneasily. On the other hand, if he did know, Pixie believed that Tor should have told her—because such an issue did matter to the mother of the baby she had assumed to be his second child.

However, if Dimitra was to be believed, Alfie was Tor’s firstborn, and if he had known that all along and kept quiet about it, deliberately misleading Pixie in relation to her son’s status, she did have a bone to pick with him. Just at that moment Pixie felt very tired of following in Katerina’s footsteps and suspecting that her beloved Alfie was a mere replacement for Tor’s lost daughter. All of a sudden that felt like a burning issue for her. But at the same time she was consumed by the awareness of what Tor must have suffered when he’d realised that the child he loved was not his child, and she felt quite sick at the prospect of having to broach that topic with him.

‘You’re very quiet. Did Dimitra say something that upset you? I didn’t intend to leave you alone. Basil had a tricky financial problem he wanted my advice on and I lost track of time.’

‘No, nothing she said upset me,’ Pixie lied, because she didn’t want him misinterpreting her meaning. ‘Although I could’ve done with you just biting the bullet and telling me that your godparents are your former in-laws. It’s not such a big deal.’

‘It feels awkward now that I’ve remarried,’ Tor countered a little stiffly. ‘Especially with all that happened five years ago. I’ve known them all my life but I’m aware that they feel uncomfortable as well. It’s unfortunate. They’re a lovely couple.’

‘Yes. I liked them,’ Pixie confided, on surer ground.

‘It’s a mystery to me why their daughters turned out as they did. Maybe they spoilt them, never told them no... I don’t know. I feel like I should know, though, when I grew up with them running around my home, but you have a different viewpoint as a child.’

‘I didn’t know there was another dau

ghter.’

‘Angelina. Didn’t you meet her at the wedding?’ Tor asked casually.

‘Oh, yes, I met her, but I didn’t realise the connection.’ Pixie understood Angelina’s bad attitude then, or thought she did: a sister being confronted by her dead sibling’s replacement bride and child. The brunette had been unpleasant but her identity granted her some excuse for her behaviour, in Pixie’s opinion.

Her mind moved on as she mulled over Tor’s remark about it being a mystery how the Raptis daughters had turned out as they had. That was the closest he had ever come to criticising Katerina and it surprised her, for she had assumed that he still viewed his first wife as some kind of misunderstood martyr.

‘We have to talk when we get back,’ she breathed softly as Tor settled her down in a seat on the launch, having carried her across the beach to save her from the task of removing her shoes.

‘About what?’

‘Stuff,’ she framed flatly.

His ebony brows pleated, bronzed eyes narrowing with a dark glitter in the moonlight, and she thought how gorgeous his sculpted bone structure was and of the marvel that she was actually married to such a man. All that electrifying sexiness and caring and she was still finding fault? Was she crazy?