Page 21 of Pregnant Behind the Veil (Brides for Greek Brothers #3)

Alessandra

Morning sun makes the white walls of Santorini glow. The bright blue rooftops that grace countless pictures on Instagram and Pinterest gleam in the early-morning light. At this hour, the streets are mostly empty, giving me time alone with my chaotic thoughts.

As I wander up and down the alleys and streets, I’m bombarded by images. Michail zipping me into my dress at Lucas’s boutique. Staring at me as I undressed like he’d never seen anything he wanted so much in his life. Smiling down at me last night as if he never wanted to let me go.

Thickness swells in my throat. That brief high had made the fall even harder when, just minutes later, he drew a line between us. Part of me understands. We have a bond between us. But it was a bond forged out of circumstance, not choice.

Yet I thought the last few days we were growing closer. It felt like he respected the boundaries we had agreed on, but he had also been the one to introduce intimacy, to subtly push and draw me in. But the intimacy he’s offering doesn’t include himself. Only what he’ll share in the bedroom.

My throat tightens. I certainly didn’t help matters.

Instead of taking time to calm down and talk to him, I lashed out.

I truly hadn’t been comparing him to Lucifer when I’d said what I did.

Only that I was coming to understand how our mothers had fallen for the men who had taken everything they had to give yet refused to do the same.

I stop in front of a small nook carved into one of the stone walls. A statue of a woman draped in Grecian robes stands inside, gleaming white and cradling a baby in her arm. My hand drifts down to my belly. I can only imagine how frightened our mothers were, stranded with no resources, no support.

Remorse propels me away from the statue. There are some similarities in my situation. But one key difference is Michail’s desire to be a part of our son’s life. Yes, he hurt me last night. His lack of trust even as he demands more of me is something we’ll have to address.

But my response—more lashing out, out of fear and embarrassment—was also unacceptable. I hurt Michail. Deeply. If he can’t trust me enough to have me present for getting his mother’s paintings back, will he be able to forgive me?

I continue my walk as the village by the sea starts to come alive. A couple of children scramble out onto the street, tossing a ball between them. One spies me, shoots a gap-tooth smile, tosses the ball in my direction. I catch it with a laugh and throw it back.

I start to walk again. Then stop, my steps faltering as I recognize the sign hanging a few storefronts down.

It was the mermaid that drew me in first all those months ago.

One arm is stretched over the top of the name of the bar, blond hair cascading over her bare breasts.

The other lies along her side. Her fingers are splayed against the green of her tail.

She smiles down at passersby, a teasing smile that tells people if they continue on without stopping to see what’s inside, it’s their loss.

Even though the sign makes me sad, I try to focus on the happier memories made here. I reach into my purse and pull out my phone to take a picture. A quick glance at the screen shows a dozen missed calls, all from Michail in the last thirty minutes.

Worry jolts through me. The door to his room was closed this morning, so I assumed he was still sleeping. Is he okay? Did something happen to Sarah?

Before I can dial him back, my phone rings again.

“Michail?”

“Thank God.” His voice is heavy, gruff. “Where the hell are you?”

“Santorini. Where else would I be?”

His breathing comes across the line, harsh and labored. “Your bed was made and your suitcase was gone. I thought you’d left.”

I don’t want to be touched that he was concerned I’d left him. But I am. The worry in his voice is gratifying to hear. It’s not love or trust. But it’s something I desperately need in the wake of his rejection last night.

“No. I make my bed every morning, and my suitcase is in the closet.”

“Where are you? Specifically?”

“Um…” I glance up at the mermaid. I swear she’s laughing at me. I roll my eyes at her. “The bar.”

“The bar?”

“ The bar.”

Silence reigns. Then, at last, he orders, “Don’t move.”

He hangs up. I slide my phone into my purse. I thought I’d have more time this morning, to wander and organize my chaotic thoughts.

Awareness pricks the back of my neck. Slowly, I turn.

Michail is striding up the street, his eyes fixed on me.

One of the boys playing shouts, then lobs the ball toward Michail.

He looks away and catches the ball with an athletic ease that has my breath catching.

A younger boy, no more than four, runs up and randomly hugs him about the waist. Michail freezes.

Uncertainty crosses his face, followed by an emotion so raw it makes my heart ache.

He returns the hug with one arm, pressing the boy against his side for a moment before an older child comes over to take the ball and pull the boy away, scolding him in Greek.

The boy looks back at Michail and waves.

Michail waves. And then his eyes find mine again.

As I stand there on the pavestones, with the morning sun threading strands of gold through his dark brown hair, my heart thuds.

I can feel myself slipping ever closer to that emotional edge, toward the same cliff my mother warned me time and time again to stay away from.

I should be longing for a man who’s safe, stable, dependable.

One who will care for me but who I can live without should the worst come to pass.

Not a man who will command not just my body but my heart and soul, even as he keeps his own just out of reach.

I know all this. But it doesn’t stop my pulse from racing nor my heart from crying out as Michail draws close.

I resist the urge to step back. “How did you get here so quickly?”

“I’ve been looking for you for half an hour.”

Warmth clashes with trepidation. “Why?”

His jaw tenses. “Alessandra—”

“You found her!”

A young woman steps out of the doorway, her smile broad and her eyes sparkling as she looks between Michail and me. It takes a moment for me to remember her as the waitress who served me that night.

“Excuse me?”

“He was looking for you.” The woman points at Michail. “A few months ago. He came in the morning after you were here and asked if we knew who you were.” She clasps her hands in front of her chest. “I’m so glad you found one another!”

I don’t dare look around. How can I when my heart is thundering so hard in my chest it feels like it’s going to break free?

“Thank you.” Michail’s voice sounds closer. “We’re fortunate to have found each other again.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles in my throat, but I bite it back. Michail’s shoes whisper over the pavestones as he walks up behind me and places a hand at my lower back.

“Perhaps we’ll be able to stop by for another drink before we leave.”

The young woman beams, oblivious to the tension between us. “We open at five. I hope you’ll join us.”

She disappears back inside. The children must have gone somewhere else, because there’s no more high-pitched chatter, no thuds of a ball being thrown. There’s just us, Michail and me, outside the bar where it all began.

My thoughts are a kaleidoscope, tumbling and twirling as I try to make sense of what the woman just revealed against Michail’s rejection of me last night. His hand moves up my back, his fingertips sliding along my spine. I lean into his touch even though I know I should be walking away.

Slowly, Michail turns me to face him. He drops his hand and takes a step back, his shoulders tense.

“I came here to Santorini because Lucifer invited me.”

His voice is flat, his eyes cold. But I know that at least in this moment, it’s not directed at me.

It’s the only way for him to talk about something so incredibly painful.

I wait with bated breath, torn between hoping he’ll confide in me and being terrified of what that will mean for us.

What it will mean if he gives me a part of himself.

“Growing up, I was so angry that I didn’t have a father.

The reality of it hit me for the first time in kindergarten when our teacher had us make Father’s Day cards.

I told her I didn’t have a father. The teasing started.

” His gaze shifts, travels up to the sign over my shoulder.

“There was a boy who kept telling me that if I wasn’t such a coward, a pip-squeak, and all the other names that young boys can come up with, my dad would still be around. ”

I think about all of the taunts and teasing I suffered in elementary and middle school, usually centered around my love of math, being a geek, not having the right clothes.

Nothing so cruel as what Michail suffered, but enough to dig under my skin, to fester over the years and further convince me that alone was best.

“Children can be cruel.”

“It didn’t help that we lived in a crumbling apartment building known for its mold issues, lack of air conditioning and pipes bursting on a semiregular basis. The apartment next to us was known as the place to go to get decent heroin.”

My eyes widen. A blush stings my cheeks as I remember my words last night, venting about an apartment that didn’t always have working appliances. But I never had to worry about things like whether somebody was bringing illegal drugs into the other side of our wall.

“Were there no charities to help?”