miscarried Jacob’s twin. It made her see that any hopes she may have harboured about Nico wanting to get to know Jacob had been a waste of time. Nico wasn’t interested in Jacob any more now than he had been interested in him nine years ago.
* * *
Nico sat in his car and stared across the shimmering blue expanse of the sea. He couldn’t actually see it. All he could see was this greyness that seemed to have enveloped him. It felt as though it had leaked out from his very soul and consumed him.
He had a son. It should have been a time to take stock, to reassess his life and make plans for the future, but he couldn’t see through the greyness. He had a son who he had known nothing about, a child who had grown up knowing nothing about him either. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Amy had kept him a secret from Jacob just as she had kept Jacob a secret from him, but why? It was a question he should have asked her, one of many that needed answering, but he couldn’t face it. Not now, not when everything felt so grey and hopeless.
His hands shook as he started the engine and drove away from the hotel. It was late afternoon and the roads were busy with locals and tourists heading back to begin their preparations for the evening. Nico took his time, aware that his concentration wasn’t what it should have been. It took him almost an hour to get home but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered apart from that answer Amy had given him, that tiny life-changing word: Yes.
The first stab of feeling pierced his heart and he winced. He got out of the car and watched as the sun sank below the horizon. He could see the colours now, see the gold turn to orange, see it begin to fade to a rusty red. He had no idea how long he must have stood there but there was the barest glow shimmering along the horizon when he finally roused himself. He went inside and took a bottle of water out of the fridge, gulping it down as though he had just returned from the desert. In a way, he had. He had escaped from that grey wasteland and now he needed those answers, all of them, no matter how unpalatable they might turn out to be.
Tossing the empty bottle into the bin, he went back to his car. This wasn’t over, not by any means. Amy had a lot of explaining to do.
* * *
Jacob’s eyelids were drooping by the time they had finished dinner. Although he put up a token resistance when Amy took him back to their room, she could tell that he was merely going through the motions. He fell asleep before she got to the end of the chapter in the book they were reading. Switching off the bedside lamp, she let herself out onto the terrace. They had a ground floor room overlooking the garden and it was peaceful out there with just the sound of the waves rolling up the beach to disturb the silence.
Sitting down on one of the wicker chairs, she let the peace wash over her, hoping it would calm her, but her nerves were too tightly strung. She didn’t know when Nico would seek her out again but he would. Even if he didn’t want anything to do with Jacob, he would want to make his position clear, make sure she understood exactly what she could expect from him. That was his way. He took control, made decisions, and didn’t confer with anyone. However, it wasn’t that simple in this instance. What Nico decided wouldn’t affect only him but Jacob as well. She had come to Constantis specifically to give Jacob a link to his paternal heritage. Even though she had never expected to run into Nico, it had happened and now she needed to protect Jacob at all costs. She couldn’t bear to imagine how hurt he would be if he found out who Nico was and then learned that his father had rejected him.
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