The Latin Lover

But Spiros did not see that side of things. All he saw was how his brother had let him down…like his parents. Phoebe hurt for them both.

So much pain and no end in sight…not with Xandra missing, tormenting Dimitri with “what ifs”. Not with Theo in surgery and at risk. Not with Spiros so set on family pride that he was blind to love himself. She was grateful that he was ignorant of her love, but she pitied Dimitri that Spiros was so blind to brotherly love right now, and to the deep feelings Dimitri had for his former mistress, how much they were tearing the older man apart.

Dimitri got up to check at the nurses’ station for any news, and Aristotle went to stretch his legs in the hospital courtyard. Phoebe turned to Spiros in the waiting room, now empty but for them. “You need to give him a break.”

“Who?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.

She glared at him. “Dimitri needs you right now. This is hard enough for him without you going all judgmental. He doesn’t need a family rejection as well.”

“He should have thought of that before…before…”

“Before what? Giving in to love and sullying the Petronides name?” she asked with sarcasm.

“You think that is why I’m so angry?”

“Yes.” Why else would he be so mad at his brother?

“If Dimitri had told the truth to begin with—both to himself and to his girlfriend—this whole mess could have been avoided.” He looked away and then back at her, his gaze burning into hers. “You would have been saved a lot of pain.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. I know I messed up that one time in my office, but, damn it, Phoebe, where do you come off thinking I care nothing for your feelings?”

“You wanted me to marry Dimitri.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“You told me you did. Don’t lie to me now.”

“Maybe I changed my mind.”

And maybe the moon had fallen from the sky. She just gave him a look. “We can discuss this another time. We need to discuss your problem with your brother now—before there’s an irreparable rift between you.”

“He did dishonor our family name, Phoebe.”

That was more what she’d expected, but somehow he’d said it with not nearly the conviction she’d thought he would. “Are you saying that your family name means more to you than your brother?”

“No, but the family name should mean something to him as well.”

“It does, and he wants to give it to his child. How can that be wrong?”

“That is not wrong. It is very right. But it is the way he went about things up to this point that is so wrong.”

“Like you have so far to talk.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve hardly been celibate this past four years.”

“It is nothing the same. I had no promised fiancée.”

“Only because you are younger than him. If you’d been the oldest you would have been the one in that ridiculous agreement.”

“Had I been, I would have honored it.”

“That is so easy to say, Mr. Casanova, when you didn’t have to live like a monk for four years.”

“Dimitri did not.”