The Greek Boss's Demand by Trish Morey Read Free Book Online Page B

displayed all those years ago. They were all going to need it.
    The back door slammed and the tornado that was her son bowled into the house. ‘What’s for dinner, Mum? I’m starving.’
    Alex smiled and stepped into the kitchen, relieved at the change of subject. ‘Lasagne,’ she said, opening the oven door, ‘and it’s ready, so go wash up.’ She watched his rapidly departing back and shook her head.
    How the hell was she going to tell him?
    Tilly followed her into the kitchen, picked up the pile of plates and hesitated, as if sensing her sister’s mood.
    â€˜You can do this,’ she said.
    Â 
    Alex gently smoothed out the folds in the old papers with the flat of her hand, wishing she could iron out the creases in her own life just as easily. Her mouth twitched into a smile. Some hope. If anything, her life was about to get a whole lot rougher.
    She looked down at the collection of letters and the pile of envelopes lying alongside the mussed ribbon and the old chocolate box she’d found after Tilly had gone home—when she was supposed to be putting away the laundry.
    Letters from Nick. Love letters.
    She looked at the stack of towels and sheets, still sunshine-fresh, sitting neglected on the floor nearby. She’d put them away in a moment—just as soon as she’d read one or two. She’d shoved the box in the back of the cupboard when she’d moved in, refusing to think about its contents. Now it seemed impossible to ignore.
    Casting an eye through the nearby French doors, and satisfying herself that Jason, freshly bathed, was still happily attending to his weekend homework, Alex started to read.
    The ink was faded in parts, and the words were sometimes difficult to make out in the folds, but the meaning and intent of the letters were crystal-clear, and as she began to read the years faded away.
    She smiled when she looked over his earliest letters, written soon after their shared holiday. They were full of optimistic talk about how the archaeological dig he’d been working on in Crete had finished, what he was doing at university, how he missed her and when next they would have the chance to be together again.
    In the months that followed the letters contained more family talk. He was increasingly worried about his brother, and the rift between him and his father over his unhappy marriage, and his anger at the woman who had forced him into it. He still missed Alex madly, he said, and worried that her letters seemed more distant, less personal.
    Alex sighed as a single tear squeezed its entry into the world. He’d been right. She’d known about the baby coming by then, and known she couldn’t tell him. Towards the end of the pregnancy she’d found it hard to write at all. It had been too hard to write small talk when she was keeping the biggest secret she’d ever had from the one who had a right to know but wouldn’t want to.
    Alex sighed again and turned up one untidily scrawled letter. She looked at the date. He’d sent it after Stavros’s funeral. He must have been crying when he wrote it, and his tears had smudged the ink where they fell. It was such a pained letter. He was mourning for his brother, and at the same time mourning for what they’d lost. He seemed to sense that their relationship was over, and was reaching out in one last bid for Alex to give him something she’d desperately wanted to but now never could.
    The one time he’d really needed her, she hadn’t been able to help. The only fair thing she could do was set him free. So the family couldn’t be tainted by another scandalous pregnancy.
    There were more letters, but increasingly less frequent after that. Alex skimmed through their content, noted the bitterness that infused his final words.
    He’d finished with her. Who could blame him? She’d betrayed his trust. And all because of a secret—a secret bigger than both of