Claiming My Bride of Convenience

‘Sad?’ I tried to smile, but it wouldn’t come this time. ‘Why do you think I’m sad?’

‘I can tell. You look like Pappous when he sees me. Always sad.’

I flinched at this, because I hated the thought of Andreas suffering under the weight of Bastian Arides’s disappointment. The precious grandson he’d practically revered had become an embarrassing and unwanted pariah, and it had been that, along with his treatment of me, that had made me realise what an illusion love was.

But I was not afraid of it. No matter what Daisy said.

‘Don’t be sad,’ Andreas implored. ‘Play with me.’

‘I’m always happy to play with you, Andreas.’ I reached over and picked up a brick. ‘Where does this go?’

‘Over here.’

For a few minutes we both concentrated on constructing his city, and it almost felt peaceful. The ache of losing Daisy was still intensely painful, but at least I could pretend to forget it for a little while.

A sound at the door had us both looking up, and I stiffened in surprise at the sight of my grandfather.

‘Pappous!’ Andreas exclaimed, seeming genuinely happy to see the old man.

I gave him a narrow-eyed look. We’d avoided each other for the last two days; the only reason I was still here was for Andreas.

I rose from where I was seated. ‘I didn’t think you came up here.’

‘Pappous comes every day,’ Andreas told me. ‘He likes to play chess, but I’m not very good at it.’

‘You’re learning, dear boy,’ Bastian said, and something in me flinched.

Was this new? Was he trying to win Andreas’s forgiveness as well as my own? Manipulating a man with a child’s mind and heart? It was a new low for him.

He turned to me, his expression both determined and bleak. ‘Matteo,’ he said. ‘May we talk?’

‘There’s nothing more to say.’

‘There is. I have something more to say, and I need you to hear it. After that you are free never to see or speak to me again, as you wish.’

‘Never?’ Andreas’s voice wobbled and we both hastened to reassure him.

‘He doesn’t mean that, Andreas,’ I said, although I knew he did. ‘Keep building your city. I’ll be back in a few moments.’

I strode out of the room, Bastian following me. Not wanting to leave Andreas for long, I stopped in the hallway, far enough away that he wouldn’t overhear.

‘What is it?’

Bastian glanced around, as if to object, but then he shrugged. ‘I know I don’t deserve a fair hearing from you. It was wrong of me to ask it of you before.’

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘Matteo, is there anything I can do to help you to forgive me? I know I was wrong in the way I treated you. I justified it to myself because I was grieving the loss of Marina, your stepmother. I loved her like my own daughter—’

‘What did that have to do with me?’

‘I found it painful to know that you had been brought into the world, a healthy and hale boy, but she withered and then slipped away.’

‘Still not my fault,’ I gritted. I wasn’t giving an inch.

‘I admit I was unjust. I was angry, as well as ashamed that I had an illegitimate grandson—that it was known publicly—’

‘That was your fault, not mine.’