Page 11 of Husband for the Holidays

She sighed. At least when she was running flat out, trying to stay afloat, she didn’t have to dwell. She didn’t have to feel. She didn’t have to...

She yawned and let herself tip onto her side. She pulled a cushion under her cheek, needing to rest just for a minute...

Eloise hadn’t come down by the time dinner arrived so Konstantin went back upstairs to find his room empty.

Even as alarm jolted through him, his gaze snagged on the green and striped clothing discarded on the bathroom floor. His own clothes were abandoned on the foot of his bed.

He strode toward the phone on the night table, planning to ask the doorman if a naked woman had walked through the lobby, when he spied the bottom of her bare foot resting on the arm of the love seat that faced the windows. He peered over the back and found her fast asleep, arm curled under the cushion she’d pulled under her ear.

She didn’t look as young now that she was out of her costume and her clownish makeup was washed away. Her cheekbones were high and well-defined, her mouth relaxed and somber. Her skin was so smooth and fine-grained, he wanted to touch her cheek, but he was torn over whether to wake her.

Patience wasn’t one of his virtues. Virtues weren’t really among his virtues. He abided by the law and treated people with civility, but he wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. He didn’t believe in heaven so he didn’t strive to get there.

But he didn’t needlessly torture people when they were at the end of their rope, either. He wanted to know how she came to be working a dead-end job that left her so exhausted she passed out before dinner, but he let her sleep. And, not for the first time, wondered if she might be taking drugs.

He took the decorative throw off the back of the love seat and draped it over her, then went downstairs to shamelessly go through the pockets of her coat. He came up with a handful of loose change, a subway card, a lip balm, a broken candy cane and a set of two keys, likely for an apartment door and a mailbox.

He sat down to eat alone—which wasn’t unusual for him. It was, however, the first time in a long time that he wished he could call Ilias. Not that Konstantin had ever called him. No, Ilias had reached out so often Konstantin had rarely placed the call himself.

Ilias had been Konstantin’s friend whether he had wanted one or not. He hadn’t. Friendship had been an unfamiliar concept to him. Konstantin hadn’t had siblings and had rarely seen children his own age before he’d been plucked from his father’s remote farm and thrust into his grandfather’s lavish world.

But Konstantin had no sooner got used to the cavernous mansion outside Athens when his grandfather had sent him to “get a proper education.”

At ten years old, he had found himself in a rainy English autumn, unable to speak a word of the language, surrounded by boys who all seemed to know each other, or have common interests, or understand how things were done.

It had been a nightmare. Konstantin understood how to be alone and preferred it. He had tried to seek solitude at every opportunity, but Ilias had said,We’re the only two Greeks in our year.We have to stick together.

Ilias already spoke English he’d learned from his mother. He was outgoing, quick-witted and so personable, even Konstantin couldn’t hate him.

By contrast, one of the first words Konstantin had learned wassullen.

Why so sullen, Master Galanis?the teacher had mocked, making the entire room of boys laugh at him.

He’d been sullen because he’d been cold and miserable and bewildered. He’d never had proper schooling, only what his mother had managed to teach him. Even the basics of math and reading in Greek were difficult for him, but Ilias had sat with him for countless hours, teaching him to draw the letters, tutoring him and helping him finish his homework.

Half the time, Ilias would say,Just copy mine so we can go play football.But the end result was that Konstantin had kept up and passed all his exams. He had also learned there was at least one person in this world who had his back.

Aside from those first couple of years when they’d both been homesick for Greece, Konstantin had never understood what Ilias saw in him. Konstantin would sometimes kick a football or walk to the shops if it was only him and Ilias, but he had little desire to spend time with anyone else. The rest of the boys and their mindless pursuits were superficial and immature.

Ilias would seek him out, though, especially after talking to his mother. Ilias’s father had died when he was six and his mother had only relinquished him to boarding school because it was the school Ilias’s father had gone to. It had been his father’s wish that his son attend it, too. His mother had seemed to need a lot of connection with her son, calling nearly daily from wherever she happened to be, needing advice and reassurance. Ilias was always patient with her, but after ending the call, he would seem quietly distressed.

Konstantin had never known what to do with that. He understood the pressure of responsibility if not the weight of emotion that Ilias seemed to carry. The other boys would cajole Ilias to “cheer up!” but he would dismiss them, then ask Konstantin if he wanted to study. Over time, Konstantin had concluded it was the very fact that hedidn’task anything of Ilias that made Ilias gravitate to him.

When their university years arrived, they took different directions. Konstantin went to Oxford while Ilias went to Harvard, then Konstantin had to cut his education short. His grandfather had become ill and left such a financial mess of the shipping business, Konstantin had had to step in to right it.

By then, Konstantin had lived half his life in poverty, and the second half in luxury. He knew which lifestyle he preferred. He’d been prepared to grind himself to the bone to keep the company afloat and keep himself in the comforts of wealth.

To his shock, Ilias had not only learned what he was up against, he had stepped in with a loan, completely unasked, leveraging the trust fund he’d gained access to at twenty-one. That had given Konstantin enough breathing room to make swift, radical changes that had been risky, but had not only saved his grandfather’s company, but doubled its share value within two years.

At that point, investors had lined up to throw money at him. They liked having young ambitious blood at the helm.

Konstantin had been growing the company ever since, expanding into tech, commodities, green energy and anything else he thought could turn a profit.

When he had repaid his loan to Ilias, with suitable interest, Konstantin had gone to the US to arrange it. By then, Ilias had been finished at Harvard and was living in New York, beginning his career as an architect. It had been December. The streets and pubs and shops had been bustling with crowds, but Ilias had dragged Konstantin into all of those places.

“Mother has a new boyfriend. She’s spending Christmas with him at his castle in Scotland. Eloise would rather come here. You should stay and spend the holidays with us.”

Konstantin had been introduced to Ilias’s little sister through toothless photos and clumsy drawings that had arrived at school in the mail. Occasionally, he had eavesdropped on conversations over the tablet when she had plonked her way through a piano lesson or complained about something at school. She was eight years younger than they were so she’d always been very much a child, especially once he had left school to work and she was still wearing braces and pigtails.

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