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"I’m sure he is," Madison replies.
"I feel like such an idiot. The father of my children was a monster."
"He’s not the father of your children, Brooklyn, and he never will be," my sister says. "He’s just the man who contributed genetically. Because of the mess he was involved in, Soraya and Silas will never know their father. Even if his final act was honorable—dying to protect you from the assassins—he dragged you into a sordid plot. Nothing justifies that."
"Calm down," I urge. "This isn’t good for the babies."
"I know," she says, taking a deep breath. "It just drives me crazy to think of how irresponsible he was. That idiot played with your life and the twins’ lives, Brooklyn."
"Madison is right. The moment he approached you and made you his girlfriend, he took the risk that the worst might happen to you, especially since, as we’ve seen, he couldn’t even protect himself."
I bury my face in my hands. "How am I supposed to tell my children, someday, what kind of man I gave them as a father?"
"You have plenty of time to figure that out, dear," Eleanor says. "You can wait until they’re adults. But when the time comes, choose the truth. It’s usually painful, but it’s always the best choice. Anything is better than growing up inside a bubble of illusion."
Later that day
"You want me to have dinner at your parents’ house tomorrow?" I try to hide the shock in my voice but fail.
"Yes. I usually have meals there once a week. I want to introduce you to them."
The coward in me wants to back out, make up an excuse, but I’m the one who insisted we define our relationship in the first place. I can’t act like a little girl now. "Did your mom invite me?"
"Not exactly. I already told her about you but not that we’re officially together."
That calms me a little. If his mother already knew about me even before we started dating, it means he was serious when he said I’m not just another woman in his life.
"Why are you so anxious about this?"
"Isn’t it obvious?"
"Not to me."
"I’m not exactly the dream daughter-in-law. I’m far from the perfect woman a mother would want for her son, especially a Greek mother."
Madison’s told me a few things about her husband’s family culture, saying that wealthy Greeks tend to prefer marriages within their own circles to merge fortunes. My only treasure, however, might not interest Medeia Pappakouris: Silas and Soraya.
"You’re the woman I want. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks." He sighs, and I feel a little childish. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? "Look, if it’ll make you feel more comfortable, I can bring my two business partners along. They’re old friends."
"I think having more people there would help. I’d feel more at ease."
"You can bring Silas and Soraya."
Tension spreads through my body as I try to think of a polite way to decline. I’d never expose my children to a situation where I have no idea what to expect.
"Maybe another time," I deflect. "Besides, dinners and kids don’t mix. They go to bed early. It would have to be lunch. We can think about that in the future."
"Fair enough. Speaking of lunch, I was thinking about taking them back to my beach house next weekend. Eleanor is, of course, invited as well."
And just like that, he chips away at my barriers one by one.
What I feared most when we started this relationship was that he’d compete for my time with my kids. But despite us spending the entire week together—in every sense of the word—Athanasios always makes a point of checking in on my children when he comes to pick me up. He also hasn’t insisted that I spend all my nights at his place because I explained that, after being deprived of months with the twins, being able to dress them in the morning and take them to daycare feels like a privilege.
We’ve reached an agreement: we have dinner together, make love—usually before dinner, as our desire for each other hasn’t lessened in the slightest—and then, every other night, he brings me back home.
The only time we clashed, and I later realized I was in the wrong, was when I insisted on driving the car Zeus gave me to take the twins to daycare. Even with security guards following in a car behind, Athanasios was adamant: a chauffeur, trained as a bodyguard, would take us instead.
On the first day, I felt self-conscious. In addition to the car I was in, two vehicles with guards followed. It felt like a motorcade. But eventually, I got used to it.