for the better, it seems.’
He flicked off his fingers and she fumbled for something to say.
‘I…I’ll get some financial statements ready for you. I guess you’ll want to get things organised quickly, to allow you to get back to Greece as soon as you can.’
She could swear he almost smiled then. A smile that didn’t touch anywhere near his eyes.
‘Who said anything about going home to Greece? I may just decide to stay the full six months Aristos’s will requires.’
Then he was finally gone. Alex shut the door and let herself collapse against it. It was barely eleven in the morning and she felt as if she’d just run a marathon.
How in the world would she survive six months?
CHAPTER FOUR
ALEX stood on the sidelines, clutching her thirty-eight-millimetre camera and waiting while the coach said a few final words to the team, grateful that Sofia had chosen this particular afternoon to show Nick around some of their properties, allowing her to slip off half an hour early unnoticed.
After an emotionally draining day Alex was more anxious than ever to be with her son. This was their night—hers and Jason’s—with no study or classes to intrude. Just for now she’d rather not have to explain that to Nick.
She took a couple of deep breaths and rolled her shoulders, easing away some of the strain of the day, before putting the cap back on the camera lens. She’d taken enough shots today to fill another page in the album she was keeping—the albums and video recordings she was using to record every event and growth phase in Jason’s life.
The albums and videos she was one day intending to show his father.
Only his father was here. Now.
How the hell was she supposed to deal with that? Somehow she had to work out a way of coping with Nick’s presence in the office. It was only day one, but from the tension evident between them today it was difficult to believe they could ever work together comfortably as colleagues. It certainly wasn’t going to happen with this huge secret hanging over them.
If he was ever going to see these pictures and videos, eventually—inevitably—she’d have to tell him the truth. Only things were so complicated. Now she couldn’t just tell him about their son. Now she’d also have to explain why she had never told him at the start. Never told him she was pregnant with his child. Never told him he was a father.
And there was no easy way to do it.
Yet the longer Nick stayed, the more inevitable it would become that he would find out she had a son. Once he knew she had a son…how long would it take before he worked out the rest and know she had kept the truth from him?
Her heart kicked up a beat. Just maybe there was a chance Nick wouldn’t see the resemblance. Close relatives didn’t always notice such things, did they? After all, people were always telling her that in spite of Jason’s dark hair and eyes he was still unmistakably hers, even though she couldn’t see it herself. Maybe Nick would be the same?
She looked closer at the huddle of players. Jason had his head cocked to one side, listening intently to the coach’s words, concentrating hard, his eyes dark and intense, and as she looked at him a chill whipped up her spine.
Her son stood there focused and determined—every part a miniature version of Nick. Alex took a deep breath and tried to steady her heartbeat back into a normal rhythm.
She’d been kidding herself. There was no way Nick could deny the resemblance. She sighed. That left only one course of action. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d have to do it—and the sooner the better.
The team huddle broke up and Jason turned and waved, smiling as he ran towards her until he collided at force into her chest, swinging her with his momentum. She breathed in the happy, warm smell of him, mingled with grass and earth, and caught his laughter as he clutched on tightly around her neck and they spun each other round.
‘Pizza!’ he squealed.
She laughed and stood up, catching his hand in hers as she turned to the car. ‘I hope you spent some time out there thinking about soccer, and not just what you wanted for dinner.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, tugging her along. ‘A bit.’
Four pieces of pizza later, Jason started to slow down between bites. After a brief hesitation he reached for his cola and took a long drink. ‘Can you fish, Mum?’
Alex blinked and put her piece down. It was noisy in the pizza bar and she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. ‘You mean with a rod and reel?’
Jason nodded and studied the remaining pieces before reaching for the one with the most olives, despite it being the furthest away.
‘I’ve been known to catch the odd fish, sure.’
Jason focused on his next mouthful before continuing. ‘I thought so. I told them you could do anything, but they still said I couldn’t come.’
‘You told who? And couldn’t come where?’ she asked, secretly pleased that Jason still had such faith in her.
‘Matt and Jack. They’re going fishing one weekend with their dads. They said I could have come but you were a girl and you wouldn’t know how to fish.’
‘That’s a shame,’ she said, feeling more than slightly put out. ‘Did you want to go?’
‘Sort of. The camping out sounded the best bit, though.’
‘Ah,’ she said, getting some idea of the real reason why they might be uncomfortable with a woman along. ‘I know why they didn’t want us to go.’
‘Why?’
She smiled. ‘Well, how would they feel when we caught all the fish?’
‘I knew it.’ Jason leaned back in his chair and surveyed with only half interest the few remnants left in the pizza box. ‘I told them it wouldn’t make any difference even if I had a dad, because we’d still catch the most too.’ Then he burped loudly, clapped his hand over his mouth and collapsed into a fit of giggles.
Alex laughed too, but inside felt his words as a boot to her heart. Hot tears stung her eyes.
It’s the shock, she tried to tell herself as she brushed away the evidence with the back of her hand, pretending they were laughter induced. Naturally she would be feeling more sensitive than usual after Aristos’s sudden death and the arrival of Nick on the scene. Why else would she be crying into her pizza at dinnertime?
But, despite what she wanted to believe, part of her knew there was more to her tears than that. Once again she was reminded that no matter how she tried to be both mother and father to Jason, to provide him with the balance his young life required, there would be times when she just couldn’t be both.
Jet lag, Nick decided. It had to be jet lag.
Why else would his legs be so unresponsive and his body so stressed and lethargic? Three kilometres into his run along the foreshore, it was
