before the day is out. Don’t make me petition the court to secure my right to be with my son. That’s the last thing I would want to do to either of you.
Theo.
Stella’s cry reverberated against the walls of the kitchen.
As she read the letter again, Theo’s name swam before her eyes. She started to get up from the chair, but her body began to feel icy. Nausea rendered her too weak to stand. There was a ringing in her ears. In the distance she heard Iola cry before she felt herself slump against the housekeeper.
When next she had any cognizance of her surroundings, she discovered she was lying on the kitchen floor. Iola was leaning over her whispering prayers while she patted Stella’s cheeks with a cold, wet cloth. As the housekeeper fussed over her, a memory of the letter filled her mind.
After six years Theo Pantheras had reappeared in her life, as if from the dead, wanting to talk to her? The very idea was so staggering Stella could hardly fathom it.
She’d known moments of anger in her life, but no amount of pain compared to the violence of her emotions against Ari’s father, the man who’d come close to destroying her.
For him to think for one second she would pick up the phone and call him was too ludicrous to comprehend. The night she’d told him she was pregnant, he’d acted thrilled and told her he would find a way to take care of her and their baby. They would get married immediately despite their families being against it.
They had arranged to meet at the church, and once Theo arrived they would get married in secret, but Theo never came and Stella never saw him again. It was as if he’d simply disappeared off the face of the earth. The pain and the shame of waiting for him pretty well shattered her. Without Stasio’s love and support, and of course the love she had for her gorgeous Ari, she probably would have died.
“I’m all right, Iola,” she assured her. Sheer negative adrenaline flowed through her body, driving her to get to her feet. She clung to the chair back while she waited for her head to stop reeling.
“Drink this.” Iola handed her a glass of water.
It tasted good and she drank the whole thing. “Thank you.”
“Theo Pantheras has obviously been stalking you. That is not good. You must call Stasio at once.”
“No,” she countered in a quiet voice. “That’s the one thing I won’t do. I have Ari to think about. This is something I intend to handle myself.”
Since her parents’ deaths, Stella had relied on her brother for everything. It had almost ruined his life in the process, but she wasn’t a helpless teenager anymore. She’d grown into a twenty-four-year-old woman with a responsible position in the company, who’d been raising her son for the last six years.
Stasio had done more for her and her son than any human could expect of another. Her love for her brother bordered on worship. The only way to repay him in some small way was to leave him out of this. He had a wife and children he doted on, and Rachel was expecting for a third time. Stella wasn’t about to impose her problems on him or his family. Never again.
She stared at Iola. “Not one word of this to anyone, especially not Nikos or Stasio. It will be our secret. You understand?”
The older woman nodded, but she said another prayer under her breath.
With no time to lose, Stella went upstairs for her purse. While there she phoned Dax’s mother and told her she was coming to collect Ari. After telling Iola where she was going, she put the letter in her purse, then left the villa and drove to Dax’s house.
As soon as Ari saw her, he ran down the steps of the front porch carrying his backpack and got into the car. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “How was your last day of school?”
“Okay. We had to bring all our pictures and stuff home. Can we fly to Palaiopolis tonight?” It was the village on Andros where Stasio lived.
“No, honey. I’m planning to drive us tomorrow morning. I’d like my own car while we’re on vacation.”
“Hooray! I love our new car.”
She chuckled. “So do I.”
“Stasi says I’ll be able to drive a car like this one day.”
“Not for years yet, honey.”
Whatever Stasio said, that was it. Long ago, when Stasio had told Stella he’d help her raise Ari, Nikos had warned Stella that Ari would always look to Stasio as his father. No other man could hope to compete. Nikos had told Stella that she should put her son up for adoption so he could have a normal life with a mother and father, but Stella wouldn’t hear of it. Ari was her life! Since Theo had opted out of all responsibility, a boy could pray to have a surrogate father like Stasio.
While they waited for an old man to cross the street in front of them she glanced at her son. For six years she’d purposely concentrated on his Athas traits, but since receiving the letter from Theo, she was forced to take a second look at him.
Like Stasio, Ari was tall for his age with brown-black hair. He had Nikos’s beautiful olive skin and her smile. But if she were honest with herself, his jet-black eyes, the musculature of his lean body, the shape of his hairline with its widow’s peak belonged to Theo.
Pain stabbed her heart. Ari was the most adorable six-year-old in the entire world. Theo had no idea what he’d given up when he’d turned his back on the two of them. Why in heaven’s name would he be interested in his child now? It didn’t make sense.
She moved on. The breeze played with Ari’s overly long hair. It had a tendency to curl at the tips, like Theo’s…. Sometimes he held his head at an angle while he was looking at something with intensity, and again he reminded her of the man she’d once loved so completely she’d thought she couldn’t live without him.
But that man who’d shown her so much love and had made her feel immortal had disappeared from her life. After realizing he was never coming back, she’d thought she was in the middle of a nightmare and would wake up. To her horror, she discovered she’d been awake the whole time. Welcome to the new reality of her life.
Remembered pain still had the power to shake her. She glanced at Ari. “Are you hungry?”
“No. Dax’s mom fed us. Do you think Dax could come to Andros for part of our vacation?”
Any other time she would have said yes without thinking about it, but her entire world had been turned upside down this afternoon. She dreaded broaching the subject of his father with Ari, but if she put it off she would become more frantic than she already was. Then he’d know something was terribly wrong.
Ari had a very intuitive nature. Since she’d always been honest with him, she couldn’t be any different now. When they pulled around the back of the villa, she didn’t immediately get out of the car.
“Ari—before we go inside, there’s something I have to tell you.”
He looked upset. “Is it about Dax? You don’t like him, huh.”
She blinked. “Where did you ever get that idea? He’s my favorite friend of yours.”
“Because
