The Greek Tycoon Box Set: The Complete Serial: Books 1-10 (44 page)

“Is this a tea room or something?” Carla asked.
 

She craned her neck to see if there was any sign or chairs out front, but there was nothing.

Mary and Charles chuckled together.

“Well, you can have tea if you want, dear,” said Mary.

Atreus squeezed Carla’s hand while Dios struggled to get out of the car seat. Carla unstrapped him.
 

“I don’t understand.”

Charles got out of the car and gestured for them all to come out. Atreus got Dios out of his car seat and soon they were all standing on the gravel driveway. Carla really saw then how truly beautiful it was, and caught sight of the vegetable patch in the back.

Mary and Charles held hands, looking at each other with a renewed love.
 

“It’s our new home.”

Carla squealed with delight.
 

“Really? Wow! How? You’ve bought it already? Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“We wanted to,” said a smiling Mary, flinging her arms around Carla’s neck. “But we wanted to give you a nice surprise. After all you’ve been through, we thought you could use a nice surprise.”

Carla grinned.
 

“This is about the best surprise ever. When the baby’s born, you’ll be so close to us. Dios and Anastasia will be here all the time.”
 

She looked at the cozy stone cottage and felt a deep sense of gratitude. She knew that her children would have the same comforting experiences she’d had as a girl and that one day they’d turn into beautiful memories, which would sustain them through difficult times.

“I love you guys so much,” she said, tears welling up. “This is the best. This is just the
absolute best
.”

*****

“Wow, look at
these
!”

When they’d returned home from Charles and Mary’s new cottage and back into their own, they’d found Olivia placing the most gorgeous delivery on their doorstep.

“White lilies and,
look
, white roses!” Carla bent down on the step to get a better look. “And all this gold detailing. Wow!”

“They’re not from me,” Olivia said quickly. “Though I wish they were. They’re beautiful.”
 

Her voice was lacking the enthusiasm it normally had.

Carla beamed.
 

“Don’t you just love them, darling?”

Atreus grimaced playfully.
 

“Flowers are for girls.”

“No, they’re not!” both Carla and Olivia said at the same time.

Dios was asleep on Atreus’ shoulder, having been stuffed with little treats by Mary and Charles all afternoon.
 

“Shh!” Atreus said to them, chuckling. “I’m going to take him up to bed and hope he doesn’t wake up as soon as I put him down.”

“Okay,” Carla said, blowing him a kiss. She then turned her attention back to the flowers, and the label that came attached to them. “
With love, from Felix and Jules Swanson-Jessup. Oh, how nice of them!
”

Olivia said nothing. In fact, she was so quiet that when Carla looked up, she was surprised to see her still standing there.
 

“Are you okay?”

Olivia shifted from one foot to the other and did not reply.

Carla frowned and stood up.
 

“What’s wrong?”
 

“I’m glad Atreus went back in,” Olivia said, “because there’s something I want to tell you. I’ve not told anyone before.”

“What is it?”

Olivia let out a deep sigh and mumbled something, facing downward.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I think I’m in love with Hugo,” Olivia said, impossibly quickly.
 

Carla suppressed a gasp. It was so unexpected, even though she’d seen them exchanging glances. She was twenty-five, he fifty-five, a significant age difference.

“I know it’s crazy,” Olivia said, “cause he’s so much older than me. And I would have never thought I’d be with someone… well, that old… but…”

“But you’re really falling for him?”

“Exactly! Is it really wrong?”

Carla shook her head.
 

“No! It might not be orthodox, but it’s not wrong. You’re both single, eligible, good people. If you love each other, there’s nothing you can do about age. All you can do is to decide if you think the beauty of love is worth more than the discomfort the age difference will bring you.”

Olivia’s eyes were eager and vulnerable.
 

“Do you think it’s worth it?”

She thought of Atreus. Though their age difference was nowhere near as steep, there were plenty of other discomforts that had gotten in the way, trying to force them apart. And together they’d faced them all and were happier and stronger than ever.

“Yes,” Carla said, a smile on her face. “I know it is.”

*****

Chapter 7

Carla and Atreus took a plane down to London for the court case, leaving Dios in Scotland with Carla’s grandparents.

“We’ll miss you
so
much,” Carla had said, planting a kiss on his chubby little cheek.
 

She fought hard with herself to hold out hope that this might be the last time they would all be together as a proper family. All she wanted to do was squeeze Dios in a hug and run far, far away with him where no court would ever find them.

She looked at Atreus in the plane seat beside her and he glanced back with a worried smile. Reaching out to interlace their fingers, she tried to rouse a sense of victory.
 

“I know we’ll win,” she said. “I
know
we will.”

“Yes,” Atreus said, his voice confident though his hands were sweating. “By the grace of God.”

They had booked a room in the Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, where Onella often stayed with her children, but when they got in the car at Heathrow Airport, Atreus turned to Carla.
 

“We could go to a church?”

“Now?”

His eyes were wide and sincere.
 

“It would mean the world to me.”

“Okay.”

Atreus informed the driver of their plans and soon they were on their way. It was a long drive through the city, but it was a Sunday afternoon so they passed through mostly unhampered.

“This is where we’ll be tomorrow,” Atreus said when they reached a place called Hammersmith.

Carla looked out the window and suppressed a shiver.

“I know.”

Near Chiswick, where her grandparents had lived when she was growing up, Hammersmith was the place she’d frequented as a teenager, hitting the shopping malls and McDonalds with her friends. Now it was to be the place in which the greatest victory, or greatest disaster, of their lives would be decided.

In about an hour, they came to Edmonton and the Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, a black sign in gold copperplate lettering told them. Atreus told the driver to wait and they stepped out onto the sidewalk. The church was quiet but a door was open.

When they stepped into the church, Carla gasped. It was truly beautiful, like a small cathedral, with arches down either side leading all the way up to the altar. Classical paintings of who she guessed were saints adorned the walls and a huge mural was painted on the portion of wall that led up from the altar to the high, arching roof. The wooden pews were simple and plain, but the golden chandeliers were ornate and decorated with more pictures of saints. The whole thing was a beauteous swathe of sandstone and white masonry, of wood and gold.

There was no one around, apparently, but there was a door at the front right-hand side that seemed to lead to another part of the church.

Atreus first went to the portrait of Mother Mary that was propped up by the door, knelt before it and kissed it. Carla was not religious in that way so did not copy him, but she felt comforted just being there. As Atreus knelt in the aisle with his head down, Carla slipped into the back pew and listened to him muttering his fervent prayers. It was only then she realized how truly worried he was. The terror of them losing their little Dios was alive in his voice, and she felt it filter through to her very soul.

*****

The next day they had breakfast delivered up to their room.

“I can’t stand to see other people right now,” Atreus said, and Carla felt the same.

It was so hard to find a smile and politeness for the wait staff when worrying about Dios, so they took their coffee and pastries and fruit in their room, not enjoying a single bite of it. They’d both chosen to wear gray suits and when Carla looked at them both in the mirror she was reminded of dark rain clouds. Black seemed far too much like mourning, but they still looked miserable.

“Time to go then,” Atreus said, and his voice shook a little.

“Yes.”

Just before they left the hotel room, Atreus grabbed her and pulled her into a hug.
 

“Carla, I love you. I love you
so much
.”

“I love you, too,” she said, squeezing him tight.

“Dear God,” Atreus prayed, in a whisper. “Please give us the victory today so we can keep our son and raise him in a loving, stable home.”

It was the first time Carla had ever heard him pray, and the first time
she
had prayed in a long time, but she found herself saying “
Amen
” after him and truly believing in the power it held. She pulled back from their embrace and looked deeply into his eyes.

“For Dios,” she said.

“For Dios,” he repeated after her.

*****

“The man is
totally incompetent!
” Serene said to the magistrate, flicking her thin, bronze arm with a dismissive flourish.

Carla watched as Theo leaned back and widened his eyes at Atreus. Theo looked confident, though, and she guessed that was a good sign. He was a very experienced lawyer.
 

She sat all the way in the back, in the visitors’ gallery, on his instructions.

“I know you’re a great person,” Theo had said, “but the more people we bring into this, the more complicated it gets. It’s fine for you to be here and support him but when we talk about parenting we’re going to stick more to Atreus for now. Just to keep things simple.”

Carla was perfectly happy to go along with that.

Serene stood at the desk on the other side of the room, glaring at Atreus. So far, she hadn’t seemed to notice that Carla was there.
 

“He’s irresponsible,” she said. “Totally and utterly irresponsible.”

Carla felt her blood boil. Not once had she seen Atreus act irresponsibly. Serene, on the other hand, seemed to be the very epitome of recklessness. Walking out on her child, leaving Atreus for another man, rushing through a divorce, then asking for Atreus back, declaring her love for him, and finally this? None of it made sense. She clearly didn’t know what she wanted.

As Carla watched her throw her arms around and make all sorts of wild accusations, she almost felt sorry for her. It was clear she was lost, so, so, utterly lost, and totally miserable. Now she was trying to claw back the thing she’d realized was perhaps her only shot at happiness, Dios. But as soon as Carla thought that, it felt like a tiger rose up within, baring its claws and teeth and ready to pounce. Dios was not a
thing
to be abandoned or claimed by adults as they so wished. He was a person, an individual, a child who deserved to feel loved and cared for and secure. Carla was prepared to do just about anything to protect his well-being.

Then Serene burst into tears.
 

“My son,” she wailed. “
My son!
How can they keep my son from me? Wasn’t Atreus leaving me for another woman cruel
enough
? He can keep her if he wants to keep her, but at least let me see my son.”

Carla felt the tension rise in the room. Theo shot a quick glance in her direction, and he looked concerned. Her stomach tightened.

The magistrate, an older woman with short hair and glasses, turned to Atreus and Theo.
 

“Is there anything you’d like to say in this regard?”

“Yes,” Atreus said, almost defiantly.
 

He stood up.

“Serene, as the divorce papers will illustrate, was, in fact, the one who left me. For my business partner, Nikolas, who she has since broken up with.”

Theo rushed to the front to hand the magistrate the divorce papers. She looked over them, tight-lipped.

“That, indeed, is what this says,” she said. “Ms. Palios, what do you have to say about this?”

Serene crossed her arms. Her cheeks were still wet with crocodile tears.
 

“I would have done
anything
to get away from him. I did not love Nikolas. But Atreus was so cruel… that anyone else would have seemed kind and good.”

“He abused you?”