LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      CHRISTINE SAT ON the chintz-covered sofa, tension racking her still as Mrs Hughes set out a tray of coffee on the ormolu table at her side. Her throat was parched and she was desperate for a shot of caffeine—anything to restore her drained energy levels.

      In her head, memory cut like a knife.

      ‘I could murder a cup of coffee.’

      Anatole had said that the very first afternoon he’d picked her up off the street where she’d fallen in front of his car and brought her back to his flat. Was he remembering it too? She didn’t know. His expression was closed.

      As her eyes flickered over him she felt emotion churn in her stomach. His physical impact on her was overpowering. As immediate and overwhelming as it had been the very first time she’d set eyes on him. The five years since she had last set eyes on him vanished.

      Panic beat in her again.

      I’ve got to make him go away. I’ve got to—

      ‘You realise that this changes everything—the fact that Vasilis has a son?’

      She started, staring at Anatole. ‘Why?’ she said blankly.

      He lifted an impatient hand, a coffee cup in it, before drinking. ‘Don’t be obtuse,’ he said. ‘That is, don’t be stupid—’

      ‘I know what obtuse means!’ she heard herself snap at him.

      He paused, rested his eyes on her. He said nothing, but she could see that her sharp tone had taken him by surprise. He wasn’t used to her talking to him like that. Wasn’t used to hostility from her.

      ‘It changes nothing that he has a son.’ Her voice trembled on the final word. Had Anatole noticed the tremor? She hoped not.

      ‘Of course it does!’ he replied.

      He finished his coffee, roughly set the cup back on the tray. He was on the sofa opposite her, but he was still too close. His eyes flickered over her for a moment, but his expression was still veiled.

      ‘I will not have Nicky punished for what you did.’ He spoke quietly, but there was an intensity in his voice that was like a chill down her spine, ‘I will not have him exiled from his family just because of you. He needs his family.’

      Her coffee cup rattled on its saucer as her hand trembled. ‘He has a family—I am his family!’

      Anatole’s hand slashed down. ‘So am I! And he cannot be raised estranged from his kin.’ He took a heavy breath. ‘Whatever you have done, Tia, the boy must not pay for it. I want—’

      Something snapped inside her. ‘What you want, Anatole, is irrelevant! I am Nicky’s mother. I have sole charge of him, sole guardianship. I—not you, and not anyone else in the entire world—get to say any single thing about how he grows up, and in whose company, or any other detail of his life. Do you understand me?’

      She saw his face whiten around his mouth. Again, it was as if she had sprouted snakes for hair.

      Stiffly, he answered her. ‘I understand that you have been under considerable strain. That whatever your...your feelings you have had to cope with Vasilis’s final illness and his death. His funeral today. You are clearly under stress.’

      He got to his feet.

      How tall he seemed, towering over her as she sat, her legs too weak, suddenly, to support her in standing up to face him.

      He looked at her gravely, his face still shuttered.

      ‘It has been a difficult day,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘I will take my leave now...let you recover. But...’

      He paused, then resumed, never taking from her his dark, heavy gaze that pressed like weights on raw flesh.

      ‘But this cannot be the end of the matter. You must understand that, Tia. You must accept it.’

      She pushed herself to her feet. ‘And you, Anatole, must accept that you have nothing to do with my child. My child.’

      The emphasis was clear. Bitter. Darkness flashed in her eyes, and she lifted her chin defiantly, said the words burning in her like brands.

      ‘I don’t want you coming here again. You’ve made your opinion of me very, very clear. I don’t want you coming near my son—my son! He has quite enough to bear, in losing Vasilis, without having your hatred of me to cope with. I won’t have you poisoning his ears with what you think of me.’

      She took a sharp breath, her eyes like gimlets, spearing him.

      ‘Stay away, Anatole. Just stay away!’

      She marched to the drawing room doors, yanking them open. Her heart was thumping in her breast, her chest heaving. She had to get him out of her house—right now.

      Wordlessly, Anatole strode past her. This time—dear God—this time she would get him out of the house.

      Only at the front door did he turn. Pause, then speak. ‘Tia—’

      ‘That is no longer my name.’ Christine’s voice was stark, biting across him, her face expressionless. ‘I stopped being Tia a long time ago. Vasilis always called me Christine, my given name, not any diminutive. I am Christine. That’s who I am—who I always will be.’

      There was a choke in her voice as grief threatened her. But grief was not her greatest threat. Her greatest threat was the man it always had been.

      Her nails pressed into her palms and she welcomed the pain. She turned away, leaving him to let himself out, rapid footsteps impelling her towards the door of her sitting room. She gained it, shut the door behind her, leaning against it, feeling faintness threatening. Her eyes were stark and staring. That barbed wire garrotting her throat.

      I will never be Tia again. I can never be Tia again.

      The barbed wire pressed tighter yet. Now it was drawing blood.

      * * *

      Anatole drove up the motorway, back towards London. He was pushing the speed limit and did not care. He needed to put as much distance as he could between himself and Tia.

      Christine.

      That was what she called herself now, she’d said. What his uncle had called her. His eyes shifted. He did not want to think about his uncle calling Tia... Christine...anything at all. Having anything to do with her.

      Having a child with her.

      His

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