He’d agreed because he’d thought that moving his wife out of the family home would circumvent the tension that existed between his mother and his wife.
Pollyanna had not reacted as he’d expected her to, accusing him of wanting to exile her to the country, of isolating her from the friends she’d managed to make despite the best efforts of his mother and sister in undermining her place in Athens society.
He’d dismissed the arguments as the result of pregnancy hormones and made it clear he would not tolerate her ongoing, and unnecessary, jealousy of his mother and sister.
Pollyanna was his wife.
There had been no need for her to be jealous of his family.
Or so he had believed.
“I still expected your wife to make the effort to share her daughter with us.”
“Which she does.” Once a month Pollyanna took Helena on the two-hour car ride to have tea with her grandmother. Alexandros did his best to join them when his schedule permitted.
Which admittedly wasn’t as often as he now realized it should have been.
“So, why did we have to change family dinners?” Stacia asked, whining in a way that had been annoying when she was a teen and in adult woman was entirely unpleasant.
“We changed family dinners because if you want to share the time with me and my family, you will do so here and during the afternoon,” Alexandros said implacably.
Neither his mother, nor his sister looked pleased by that response.
Had they always been this difficult?
Or had his policy of giving in to them to keep the peace blinded him to how intransigent and selfish both women could be?
Deciding he’d spent enough time discussing a situation that was not going to change, he stood up and excused himself so he could join the croquet players. Swooping in to scoop his daughter up, he swung her up in the air, loving her joy-filled laughter.
Polly smiled at the way her daughter responded to attention from her father.
Helena adored her papa and Alexandros was a very hands-on dad when he was around. She was really glad to see that having his mother and sister here for lunch did not mean he would ignore his daughter for them.
Weekends were the only time Helena really got to play with her beloved papa, and Polly would have hated to see some of those hours lost because of the change to the Kristalakis once a week family gathering.
On Helena’s next turn it was Alexandros who knelt beside his daughter, coaching her on the use of the mallet to tap the ball.
“I see how it is,” Petros teased. “You saw Helena was winning and decided to horn in on the spoils of her victory.”
“We are an unbeatable team, aren’t we koritsi mou?” Alexandros asked his daughter.
Helena grinned up at her papa and then her uncle. “We’re going to beat you, Uncle Petros.”
Polly grinned at her daughter’s arrogance, so like her father’s. If anyone wondered how she still loved her husband after five years of marriage that had opened her eyes to how unimportant she was to him, all they had to do was look at Helena. How could Polly not love the man who had given her such a beautiful daughter?
More viscerally, how could Polly not love the man who was so like the child that she adored with every fiber of her being?
She saw the best of her husband in her daughter every day.
“Oh-ho, I see how it is. Now that your papa is here to play on your team, Uncle Petros is chopped liver.”
Helena’s tiny little face screwed up in disgust. “I do not like liver, Uncle Petros.” She shivered dramatically and adorably, and looked up at Corrina. “It’s yucky.”
Corrina laughed. “You’re right about that, Helena.”
“Liver is good for you.” His mother’s voice from just behind Polly told her that the wicked witches of the west had joined them on the lawn.
Polly moved so she was on the other side of Petros without even thinking before she did it. When she could, she avoided even proximity with her mother or sister-in-law.