a patch of even sand. Sofia sat down, kicking off her sandals and then digging her toes into the sand with a sigh of pleasure.
Angelos sat nearby, his long, muscular legs stretched out in front him, his arms braced behind him, as he gazed out at the sea.
‘Now this isn’t so bad, is it?’ Talia teased, and he shot her a dark look.
‘It’s hot. But the breeze is pleasant.’
‘You know I’m not talking about the weather.’
‘No.’ His forehead furrowed, he glanced at Sofia, who was now kneeling in the sand, scooping it up in handfuls.
‘How about we make a sandcastle?’ Talia suggested, waving a bucket, and clearly taking her meaning, Sofia clapped her hands. Angelos looked nonplussed.
‘A what?’
‘A sandcastle? You have made one, haven’t you, when you were a child at least?’
‘No, not as a child.’ He drew his legs up and rested his forearms on his knees, his expression becoming distant and veiled. ‘I... I used to make them with Sofia.’ He glanced at his daughter, who was watching him warily, not understanding the English. ‘But she’d always eat the sand.’
‘I’m assuming she was a baby at the time?’ Talia said. She was oddly moved by the arrested look on Angelos’s face, the sense that this was a precious memory, and one he didn’t access often. Again she felt that sense of grief and even torment, so private it felt as if she were glimpsing something she wasn’t meant to see, an emotional peeping Tom.
‘Yes, she was a baby,’ Angelos said, and he looked away. ‘Not quite a year old.’
No one spoke, and Talia tried to think of something to say, some way to bridge the moment between darkness and light, between painful memory and carefree present.
Then Angelos turned back to them and gave his daughter a rusty smile, his gaze deliberately averted from Talia. ‘Do we have a spade?’
Talia handed him a plastic shovel, her heart precariously full as she watched Angelos begin to dig. They were merely making a sandcastle, and yet it felt like they were building something more, the beginning of something important, its foundation the memories that had gone before.
After a few minutes of them all working together Talia scooted back, content to let father and daughter create their palace. She started to unpack the food Maria had made them, casting a glance every so often to Angelos and Sofia. Neither of them was speaking, so she couldn’t say it was a huge bonding success, but at least they were doing something together. It still felt like a lot.
* * *
Carefully Angelos turned the bucket over and lifted it so a perfect dome of damp sand emerged. Sofia peeped up at him, a shy smile lighting her features, making the old guilt and grief inside him twist painfully. He could tell his daughter was pleased to have him here, and it made him wonder if he’d been remiss, even wrong, in staying away for so long.
But he’d felt he’d had no choice. He’d honestly believed he was doing the best thing for Sofia. And maybe he had been. A single, sunny afternoon was simply that. A moment in time. The reality of his presence in Sofia’s life was that he was inept, inexperienced, and it brought back painful reminders of everything his daughter didn’t have.
He glanced at Talia, who had unpacked several containers of food and was now sitting on the edge of the blanket, her hands clasped around her knees as she stared out at the sea. Her hair blew in tangles around her face, making Angelos itch to tuck it behind her ears, let his fingers skim the silky softness of her cheek.
His insides clenched at the thought as he grimly acknowledged that he was attracted to his temporary nanny. Ironic, really, that he’d had his choice of svelte beauties before and he’d always refused them. He hadn’t felt so much as a flicker of desire for the other nannies, not to mention the women at work and in Athens who had offered themselves to him. It had been so long he’d wondered if his libido had simply gone for good. He hadn’t even minded; life was simpler that way, and pleasure was something he hadn’t so much as considered in a long, long time.
But since Talia Di Sione had catapulted into his life, his libido had become positively wakeful. Desire had roared through him last night when she’d touched his shoulder. His shoulder. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t as if she’d rubbed up against him, or tried to kiss him, those petal-soft lips opening and yielding under his...
At these thoughts his body stirred to life and Angelos shifted where he sat. What was he doing, thinking like this?
Talia caught his glance and smiled at him. Sofia was busy completing her castle, and so they had a moment of private conversation.
‘So you didn’t make sandcastles as a child? How come?’
Jolted by the question, as well as the nature of his own recent thoughts, Angelos answered without thinking. ‘I had no opportunity. I grew up in Piraeus.’
‘Piraeus?’ Talia wrinkled her nose. ‘But isn’t that near the beach?’
Angelos shook his head, wishing he hadn’t said so much. He never talked about his childhood, not even to Xanthe. She hadn’t wanted to know, had preferred to think they were starting something new and better together. ‘The docks,’ he explained succinctly. And then, for no reason he could fathom except that Talia was looking at him with such honest, interested curiosity, he clarified, ‘I was a street rat.’
‘A street rat?’ Her eyebrows rose in disbelief even as her expression clouded with sympathy. ‘What do you mean exactly?’
Angelos shrugged. ‘I was—am—an orphan. My father was never around and my mother gave me up when I was a baby. I grew up in a home for children, but when I was fourteen I left to work on the docks.’ He looked away, not wanting to see the revulsion and pity he knew would be in her eyes. Xanthe had been horrified by his past. She’d accepted it, accepted him, but she’d wanted to pretend the ugly parts of his story didn’t exist. And so Angelos had acted as if they hadn’t.
‘That’s terrible,’ Talia said quietly. ‘And it must have been so hard for you. I’m so, so sorry.’
Her obvious sincerity left him feeling nonplussed, even disoriented. ‘I survived.’
‘But how did you go from working the docks to owning your own management consultancy?’ she asked. She sounded quietly awed, which made no sense. Angelos turned back, still expecting to see pity, and instead he saw admiration shining in her eyes.
It felt like a kick to the gut, to the heart. Suddenly he was breathless. ‘I had a lot of luck,’ he said gruffly. ‘I went to night school and received my high school accreditation, and then a scholarship to university. I started my own firm fifteen years ago, a single room in a shabby building in the wrong part of Athens.’
‘That doesn’t sound like luck,’ Talia said. ‘That sounds like a lot of hard work and determination.’
Angelos just shrugged again. He didn’t know how to handle her admiration; he was so unused to it. Xanthe had met him when he was already successful, and the people from his past had disappeared a long time ago. In any case, he didn’t deserve it, not really. So he’d worked hard. He’d made money. What did it matter? He hadn’t been able to protect his family at the most crucial time. He hadn’t been able to save his wife.
‘Angelos, I’m proud of you,’ Talia said, laying a hand on his arm. He tensed beneath her touch, every nerve twanging to life from the simple brush of her fingers. He had a mad, nearly irresistible urge to pull her into his arms and plunder the soft mouth he hadn’t been able to stop looking at. No one had ever said they were proud of him, not even Xanthe.
Talia’s fingers tightened on his arm and Angelos felt his insides coil in expectation. It would be so easy to turn to her, to take her face in his hands and draw her lovely mouth towards his. Everything in him pulsed with the desire to do so.
And