Mairi was seated on the rug, legs tucked under her and bent over a sheet of plastic. “Maybe it’s time we don’t read about Greek billionaires. They’re so predictable, don’t you think? That makes them boring…” The words came out of nowhere, and Mairi spoke them without bothering to look up from her task. Her attention was entirely focused on cutting a straight line through the plastic.
Vilma saw Mairi gazing musingly at the cover of a Lynne Graham novel, one with another Greek billionaire hero whose wife had been an expert on ferns. It was a very good book, that one. It gave Vilma hope that one day a nice and rich young man would not think Mairi odd for being such a hopeless romantic.
Norah looked like she wanted to cross herself at the blasphemous words. “What are you saying? Boring? How can they be boring? They’re excitingly unpredictable because of how they’d go to such lengths to show their love!”
Vilma asked, “Anyway, what do you suggest we read? Some Arab sheikh who’s sure to force a woman to live in the desert with him and die of heat stroke?”
Norah still seemed extremely offended and wagged a finger at her niece’s face. “And do not start again,” she warned starkly, “about Dutch surgeons! Maybe some women dig men who have ice in their veins, but not us!”
They had been so offended by Mairi’s protestations about Greek billionaires that it had completely surprised them when their niece suddenly burst into laughter.
It was then they realized in chagrin that the young girl had only been pulling their legs off.
Seeing the glowers on their faces, Mairi had gotten up from where she was seated and threw her arms around both aunts. “Oh, come on, you two! Of course I wouldn’t stop reading or dreaming about Greek billionaire heroes. I was just teasing you guys.”
Mairi had sighed wistfully, her gaze distant as she returned to her place on the floor. Absently tracing the now plastic-wrapped cover of her book, Mairi said softly, “I won’t stop dreaming about my future husband, but do you think it’s possible I could be the kind of girl he’d dream of?”
The memories pained Vilma. Her usually strong voice became uncharacteristically weak as she admitted shakily, “I no longer know what to do. I don’t even know if what we did was right.”
They had never really known about what Mairi had gone through when she was in high school. If their niece had her way, they wouldn’t have known at all. But then that odious woman Farah had entered the picture, and there was Stavros, too. It was as if the past had suddenly come to life, and it demanded Norah and Vilma to revisit the facts.
And when they did, what they learned broke their hearts.
Mairi had chosen to be expelled, had chosen not to fight for herself and her rights, had swallowed everything people threw at her because she did not want anyone blaming Norah and Vilma for who she was. Their sweet gentle Mairi, who had not one mean bone in her body, had gone ballistic when her school’s principal suggested Norah and Vilma were bad influences on her.
And they were, Vilma thought sickly. Everything that had happened to Mairi was their fault. They had encouraged Mairi to dream, foolishly, and they had lived vicariously through her dreams, never pausing to think what those dreams could do to Mairi.
Tears stung Vilma’s eyes as she remembered the time Mairi had flown home to them from Greece. She had been trying so hard to smile, not wanting to worry her aunts.
“Are you all right, Mairi?” Norah had demanded brokenly.
“I’m fine, Aunt. I just…I just need to…” Mairi’s voice had caught, and the pain that had flashed in her eyes was so bleak it made Norah start to cry and had Vilma feeling like she was about to lose control in public for the first time.
“I need your help,” Mairi whispered. “Can you help me to stop…dreaming? Because the dreams…they’re not real. And I just want to stop dreaming.”
Vilma began hoarsely, “When I found out what Damen Leventis did to her, all I wanted was to protect Mairi…to make her strong. I thought giving her Drake Morrison to protect her was right. I thought with Drake, she would learn to be strong and learn what we couldn’t teach her. I wanted her so strong that no one would ever have the power to hurt her.” She shook her head wearily. “But she ran away from us, Norah. She ran away.”
Norah inhaled painfully at her sister’s words. In her mind, she remembered the blood on the ground that the guards had shown them – blood that their little Mairi had shed in order to escape the dogs. In order to escape them.
They had forced Mairi to bleed, to run away like a common criminal, to hide from them just so she could be with Damen Leventis, a man who had never stopped hurting her.
Norah gripped her sister’s hand tightly. “I don’t know any more than you do, but maybe this time we can…we can trust her. If she wants to be with Damen Leventis, then we can just be there for her, the way she’s always trusted us.”
Vilma slowly nodded. “We may be able to pull some strings and get information about what’s caused Damen Leventis’ rights to be taken away and make it a matter of legal dispute. But if we do this, Esther Leventis and perhaps the Kokinos clan will be our enemies as well.”
“Let her do her worst.” Norah’s voice, normally gentle, became hard and uncompromising. “This time, we will truly stand by Mairi’s side and we will do our best not to let her down.”
Chapter Three
Now he understood why he had been so damn determined to push Mairi past her limits and force her to be strong. If Mairi had been able to cope, even when it felt like the man she loved more than life had abandoned her, then it would have meant Paige could also have survived.
And Mairi had survived, but at what cost?
If he had the chance to turn back time, would he have changed his mind?