Constantine's Defiant Mistress

Whatever the reason, it was very kind of her sister, and Laura knew it was good for Alex to have something to occupy his thoughts other than the life he had left behind on Livinos. But the free day yawned emptily ahead of her, and Laura found herself wondering how she was going to fill the aching hours ahead when she heard a loud banging on the door. She ran back into the hall to throw it open with more than a little relief.

‘Now what have you forgotten—?’ she began to say, but the words died on her lips when she saw who was standing there. Not Alex. Nor Sarah. But…

Constantine?

Laura swallowed, shaking her head a little, blinking back the stupid sting of disbelieving tears as she stared up at him. She’d been thinking about him non-stop. Dreaming about him constantly. Her thoughts about him had driven her half mad and her heart had been unable to stop aching—so that for a moment it just felt like an extension of all her desires that he would somehow magically appear. As if the man who stood in front of her wasn’t real. As if he couldn’t be real.

But he was. Laura stared at the formidable physique of Constantine Karantinos—standing on her doorstep, with his dark hair all windswept and a look on his face she had never seen before. Had she forgotten just how gorgeous he was? How strong and how vital? How he could dominate a space simply by existing in it?

‘Constantine,’ she breathed, and her heart began to pound with frantic yearning. She wanted to touch him. To throw her arms around him. To whisper her fingertips wonderingly along the hard, proud line of his jaw—as if only touch alone would convince her that he was really here. ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ she questioned.

It was then that she realised. Of course! He had come to see his son. Their heartbreaking farewell on the airstrip must have made him vow to come and see Alex earlier than he had intended. And even though she would have liked some warning that he was about to appear, so that she wouldn’t have answered the door in a scruffy old pair of jeans and a T-shirt which had seen better days, she managed a brisk kind of smile.

Think of Alex, she told herself—he’s the one who matters.

So she was able to look up at him with genuine regret. ‘Oh, what a pity. Alex has just gone out.’

‘I know he has.’

She looked at him blankly. ‘Yo

u do?’

‘Yes. I rang Sarah this morning and asked her if she would take him out for the day.’

‘You rang Sarah?’ she repeated. ‘And she…agreed?’

‘Yes, she did.’

Laura blinked at him in confusion. It was true that her sister no longer seemed to think that he was the devil incarnate—but agreeing to Constantine’s request behind her back sounded awfully like collusion, and…and…Well, it threw up all kinds of questions. ‘But why?’ she whispered.

He raised his dark brows in sardonic query. ‘Do you want me to tell you when I’m standing on the doorstep?’

Registering the faintly reprimanding tone of his question, she pulled the door open wider. ‘No. No, of course not. Come in.’ But as he passed her she had to clutch the door handle to balance herself—his very proximity was producing a terrible wave of weakness and longing which threatened to destabilise her.

He was standing in their cramped little hallway—making it look even smaller, if that were possible—and Laura shook her head uncomprehendingly. Because if he wasn’t here to see Alex, then…then…

‘Please tell me why you’re here,’ she said, her voice a whisper as thready as her erratic heartbeat.

His black gaze was calculating. ‘No ideas at all, Laura?’

Numbly, she shook her head, and it was then that Constantine realised that there was no easy way to do this—or she wasn’t going to make it easy for him—and maybe that was the way it should be. Maybe he too needed to experience doubt and uncertainty, as well as the fear that she might reject him again.

But words describing feelings didn’t come easy when you’d spent a lifetime avoiding them—and for a moment he felt like a man who had found himself on a raft in the middle of the ocean, unsure of which direction to take. He sucked air into lungs which suddenly felt empty.

‘I have thought about everything you said that last night. About love and about the past.’ He saw the way she was staring at him, her pale face fierce, chewing on her bottom lip the way she always did when she was concentrating hard. ‘And the impact of both those things on the present and the future.’ There was a pause. ‘They were things I didn’t want to hear,’ he whispered. ‘Things I tried to block my ears to. But somehow—I couldn’t do it. And when my anger had died away, I realised that you were right. That I needed to forgive my father—and in a way I needed to forgive my mother, too.’

‘Constantine—’

‘So that’s what I’ve come to tell you. That I have. I have had a long talk with my father and told him…’

Momentarily his voice tailed away, and Laura lifted up her hand. ‘You don’t…have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ she whispered, seeing the pain of memory etched on his hard features and finding that it was hurting her, too.

‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. You see, I do, Laura. I need to tell you plenty of things—just as I did my father.’ He sucked in another breath—because although Constantine was a brave man, opening up his heart to her like this took courage of a different kind. ‘I told him that it was now time for us to be a true father and son to each other—and for him to be a grandfather to Alex.’

Laura nodded as his sudden appearance at last began to make sense. She guessed what was coming. He was going to ask her to take Alex back to Greece, to help facilitate his relationship with his father—a man too old and infirm to travel great distances. And, although it wasn’t ideal, Laura knew she was going to say yes. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t offering her the dream ticket of love with marriage—she’d settle for whatever she could get. For everyone’s sake. Because she’d had a chance to live the alternative—a life without Constantine—and that life was bleak. Like a vase which was permanently empty of flowers. And didn’t she have more than enough love to go round—for all of them? Couldn’t she perhaps show him how to love—with the hope that one day he might be able to give a little love back to her? Was it pathetic of her to be prepared to settle for that?

‘That sounds perfect,’ she agreed.