One Hour to Midnight (16 page)

"Sonia," José laid a placating hand on her arm. "There is a lot of sense in what Karvasis is saying. You know you were worried about how Andreas would settle in with us, especially as he doesn't speak the language."
 

Sonia rounded on him. "If that isn't just like a man."

Veronica stood and slipped out the French doors and into the bedroom, closing the door and shutting out the increasingly heated argument.

As for Sonia approaching her to persuade Leon…she shook her head. There was no mistaking Leon's concern for Yannis's children and yet to listen to Sonia, he was the uncle and guardian from hell. Ensuring Katya and Andreas were educated in the top schools was far from being vindictive or cruel.

A short time later Leon stepped through the door into the bedroom, walked across to the window seat and sat beside her.

"I'm sorry you were embroiled in that."

"So am I." She noticed his strain and fatigue. "How did you know they were here?"

"Cassie. We have a coded message system."
   

She fixed him with a steady look. "When were you going to tell me about Andreas and Katya? That they were a part of the family deal?"

Leon sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "I had every intention of telling you. But with so much else going on, I didn't want to overwhelm you."

"I see." Veronica stood and walked across to the dresser and stood fiddling with the brushes there.

Leon walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders and their gazes met in the mirror. "There's no way I expected you to take on Yannis's children full-time as Sonia suggested."

"What has she told them about me?"

"She's been filling their heads with poison for years." Leon sighed, his breath warm against her neck. "Boarding school really is in their best interests. They need to broaden their horizons and have a chance to develop a life and friends outside their mother's sphere of influence."
 

"And you didn't think I needed to know this?"

"Of course you needed to know it and I'm sorry you had to hear it from Sonia."

"She came to see me at the clinic, told me you asked her to visit."

"As if? And I expressly forbade her to come here and upset you. Marriage to Moreno and a shift to Argentina is the best thing for her. She can well afford to fly over to visit them or have them visit her," he said, pulling Veronica back against him. "And to be honest, I'd put the problem of Andreas and Katya on the back burner. Katya can't start at Royden until after the summer recess and it makes no sense to shift Andreas, mid-term."

"And you've been too worried about Jordan?" A slow breath leaked from her lungs as she rested her head back on his shoulder.

His explanation made sense without any of Sonia's embellishments.

He nodded, closing his eyes on a harsh sigh as his grip on her tightened. "I have at that."

"He's sleeping?"

Leon nodded, the hands on her shoulders tightening. "The chemo knocks him down and each time it seems to take him longer to come back."

She turned in his arms and he held her close, his face buried in the cove of her neck. And the problems of his involvement with his niece and nephew became secondary. "He's a fighter, Leon, and he knows I'm here to help him."

"Seeing you buoyed up his spirits." His grey gaze met hers in the mirror. "Have you thought any more about marrying me?"

Veronica sighed softly. "I'm thinking."

Leon bent his head and lifted her face. His eyes glittered, his hand gentled on her shoulder, as his thumb caressed the corner of her lips. Veronica didn't know what he saw when he looked at her. Perhaps it was the years of suppressed hunger, the yearning.
 

At that moment she didn't care. She was where she wanted to be.
 

He tipped her head and covered her mouth with his in a demanding, explicit kiss. And then she was free.

"You keep thinking," he said softly. "I need to go back to Jordan. Feel free to explore the house."
 

With an expansive gesture of his hand, he was gone.

Veronica stood in the centre of the room, fingers on her lips, wanting to retain the warmth of his kiss.

~***~

Unsettled by Sonia's visit and Leon's fleeting appearance, Veronica decided she'd take him at his word and explore Claremont. She walked down the wide corridor and went upstairs. She'd never been in this part of the house and was curious. She always known the house was big.

She was wrong. It was huge.

Jordan and Leon had to rattle around in this much space? Heck ten children, and all their friends, would hardly fill up this mansion.
 

On the landing she opened doors. There was only one room she wanted to find. Jordan's room.

Not the ornate bedroom where Julia's perfume still lingered, not the library with its book lined walls nor the newly added conservatory. None of those rooms mattered.
 

Jordan's room must be on the ground floor. Nothing up here suggested either Jordan or Leon used these rooms, the whole floor held the still, sullen air of disuse.

Veronica returned downstairs, to the older wing of the homestead.
 

This late in the afternoon, daylight barely penetrated the dim passage, the half panelled walls made it even darker. She opened each door she came to.

At last she found her objective and for a few moments Veronica hesitated, sucking in a shaky breath.
 

This room belonged to a child.
 

Her child
.

And in the moment, Veronica knew her thoughts had suffered a seismic shift. Jordan was no longer a vague entity. He was now a child, with features she could identify.

And in a moment of perspicacity, she knew she could never go back.
 

But am I ready to go forward?

She hovered in the bedroom doorway, absorbing every detail. Dirt-bike posters, photographs, toys, play station. And that suddenly, the sense of wellbeing Leon's presence engendered, evaporated.
 

This room held the essence of Jordan's life, the things that interested him.

Veronica's hungry eyes skimmed over a bookcase crammed with books, photographs, painstakingly crafted models of trucks and motorbikes were cheek by jowl with brightly coloured Lego models. A child size helmet in red and black with a fluorescent white zigzag on the side was looped over one corner of the bedhead, the walls were covered in posters of motorbikes, dirt-bikes and monster trucks.
 

Ten years of her child's life had passed without her having one single memory. And no matter how she wished it otherwise, those years were gone. Now, Leon was giving her the choice to change this, to become close to her child. Was she brave, or perhaps that should be foolhardy enough to accept.

She walked across to the bed, sat down and stroked an unsteady hand across the motorbike printed duvet, the bright colours blurring before her eyes. A blink brought the dirt-bike posters into focus. She tried to imagine the weak, ill child in that hospital bed riding a dirt-bike, but the image wouldn't jell.
 

Anguish twisted her heart, would Jordan ever use this bed again?

While the loss of memories was painful, the thought of Jordan losing his battle with the disease ravishing his young body was unbearable.

Anguish brought her to her feet.

Restless and unsettled, Veronica roamed, touching books, models, things her child had touched, an action that hurt something deep inside her. On the painted bookshelves was an array of photographs, Jordan with Julia and Leon.

Her hand trembled as she picked them up and studied them. Her gaze lingered on one of Jordan astride a horse on a merry-go-round, his face split from ear to ear with a huge grin.
 

His likeness to Leon was uncanny.

She traced a finger over Jordan's square cut jaw, the shape of his forehead, but his eyes. A sigh leaked from her.
Jordan has my eyes and my grin.

She had an album of photos Kathleen had taken and there were several with the same gap-toothed grin. And for the first time since she'd come into this room, Veronica smiled.
 

Yannis had left his imprint on their son, but then so had she.

Pain, so exquisite, had her balling her fist and holding it in the hollow of her chest between her breasts. This was the child who'd grown under her heart, the child she'd loved with every fibre of her love starved heart.
 

And this healthy, fun loving boy was now the desperately sick child she saw imprinted on her eyelids every time she closed her eyes.
 

With great care she replaced the photo on the shelf.
 

Next to it was a portrait of Julia.

Veronica picked it up, studying it closely.
 

Julia's flawless beauty was as she remembered. Now, maturity enabled Veronica to see the determined chin, the upper lip that thinned in anger, and the hard, blue eyes.
 

The sensation of no longer being alone made her turn. Leon stood in the doorway watching her. Her heart stopped and then raced.

"Jordan?"

"He's sleeping." He rubbed a hand down his face. "The chemo really knocks the stuffing out of him."

He walked into the room and sat on the end of Jordan's bed, a big hand smoothing over the motorbike printed duvet. "He was so excited when we found this doona."

"Doona?"

"You Kiwis call them duvets."

"Jordan likes bikes?" Veronica sat down on the opposite end of the bed.

He gave a shaky chuckle. "He's motorbike mad. His dream is to own a Harley."

"And your nightmare," she said shrewdly.

"And some." Another rusty chuckle escaped. "Now, if it would ensure he got well, I'd gladly buy him two Harleys."

She put her hand over his. "No you wouldn't. You care too much for his welfare to put him on a bike that's far too powerful for him."

"You're right of course." He looked at her and something in his expression made her heart race. "What have you decided, Veronica."

Suddenly her throat was dry and she had difficulty meeting his steady gaze, her restless hand smoothed a patch of duvet. She stood and walked across to the crowded bookshelf and pulled out a volume, and then another.

Horror stories sat alongside model manuals and well-worn favourites like Goosebumps.
 
She flipped open the cover of
Huckleberry Finn
and read the inscription in what was obviously a child's handwriting: Leon Karvasis.
 

"This was yours?" She traced a finger over the spine seeking something—anything— to help her understand the man watching her with such unnerving intensity.
 

"Yes. I too, was once a boy and like Jordan, I loved to read."

She looked at him trying to imagine this strong, vital man as a boy and her imagination came up hopelessly short. She stroked the book cover.

"You look surprised."

"Not really." She glanced at him and shrugged and then went with her first thoughts. "After all I know very little about you. And it's obvious you don't know me at all."

Silence settled and she risked a glance and found him watching her with brooding concentration. "And what you do know you don't like very much."

That comment startled her but she just shrugged. It was true enough.

They barely knew each other. And to consider marriage when the only bond they shared was a ten year old child was surely little short of lunacy.

She was no longer seventeen with stars in her eyes and a head full of dreams.

At twenty-seven, she understood the pitfalls in an arrangement such as the one he was suggesting. Sure the sex was great. But marriage was so much more than great sex. She glanced at him again but gleaned nothing. His face was closed and as unreadable as always.

Putting the book back, she pulled out another, opened it and her breath caught in her chest. Inside was scrawled Yannis Karvasis. What had Yannis been like as a child?
 
"Does Jordan know that Yannis is his father?"

Leon stiffened and stood up, taking a step towards her. "I am Jordan's father. Make no mistake about that. A few sperm cells don't make a father."

The emphasis he placed on those words hit her like a slap in the face.
So what does that say about me?

For long minutes she stood, head bent, smoothing her hand over the worn binding, trying to bring Yannis's face into focus. To her dismay, she couldn't recall one, single detail.
 

"Let me put it another way." She lifted her head and looked directly at Leon, needing an honest answer. "Does Jordan know of Yannis's role in his life?"

He was silent so long she thought he wasn't going to answer. Veronica was filled with dread. What had Julia and Leon told Jordan about her and Yannis?