Tiana (Starkis Family #3) (29 page)

Finally,
she
opened the door, stealing the air from my lungs all over again. God, she was gorgeous. With long dark hair, olive skin, dark eyes, and a petite figure, I had no trouble seeing how she’d turned Damon’s head.

“Hi,” she said, smiling. “You’re Eleni, right? I’ve seen your picture in a few magazines with Damon.” Without waiting for me to respond, she stepped back, gesturing for me to enter. “My name’s Andra. Damon told you he invited me and my daughter to stay with him for a while, right?”

“He did.” I wanted to remind her she’d had plenty of time to find a new place, or better yet, work things out with her husband, but I didn’t want to sound petty and jealous.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be out of his hair soon.” She laughed. “We’re due to fly out tomorrow morning.”

“Oh?”
Thank God.

“Yes, my husband’s anxious to have us home, and Dalia can’t wait to get back to her dance classes.”

“Were you calling me, Mommy?”

A beautiful little girl with dark ringlets rounded the corner, and déjà vu hit me full force. I didn’t think I’d met Dalia before, but I felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Then it hit me. When we’d been at Tiana’s house planning for the wedding, Mia had asked to see pictures of Deacon as a child, so Tiana had pulled out the family albums.

“She looks exactly like Tiana…” I whispered. Which meant…

I didn’t even realize I’d said the words aloud until the little girl grinned, dimples bracketing her gap-toothed smile. “You mean my Aunt Tiana?” She giggled. “I know. She showed me pictures of her when she was a little girl. Do you think that means I’ll grow up to look her?” She tilted her head, looking confused when I didn’t respond. “I hope so ‘cause she’s really beautiful. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I forced myself to mutter. “She’s very beautiful, just like you.”

“Um, Dalia,” Andra said, obviously sensing my shock, “why don’t you go play in your room for a while? Dinner should be ready soon.”

“Will Daddy be home for dinner?” she asked, gripping a stuffed pig against her chest. “It’s our last night, and he promised he’d try to make it home so we could all eat together. Did he call?”

“No, he hasn’t called,” Andra said with a tight smile. “But I’m sure he’ll make it home if he can. You know he’s a very busy man, and he said he had an important meeting he couldn’t get out of.”

Dalia pouted, fisting a hand on her hip. “Yeah, but he promised he’d always make time for me. You heard him. He promised.”

“I know, sweetheart.” With a quick sidelong glance in my direction, Andra said, “Damon said you could watch TV in the study. Why don’t you go pop in a video while I speak to Daddy’s friend for a while, okay?”

Daddy.
Damon was someone’s daddy.

“I should go,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Damon said I’d left a diamond earring here, and I just wanted to pick it up.” Thankfully that earring had given me a legitimate excuse for showing up on his doorstep when it was painfully obvious I didn’t belong there. “Do you happen to know where it is?”

Andra took my hand and guided me toward one of two sofas in the living room.

I tensed up, wanting to withdraw my hand from hers. I didn’t want to talk to this woman, the mother of
his
child. “I really should go.”

Andra sat, encouraging me to do the same.

I considered leaving, but I had to admit I was too curious, so I sat beside her, keeping a safe distance without being too obvious.

“He didn’t tell you about Dalia, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.” I cleared my throat before looking at my joined hands.
Whatever you do, do not cry in front of her.
“But it’s not like I expected him to. We weren’t all that close.”
Liar!
“You see, my best friend married his brother. That’s how we got to be friends.”

“According to Damon, you were much more than friends. He loves you very much.”

I didn’t know if I should be angry or relieved that he’d shared his feelings for me with his ex-girlfriend. At least I knew he wasn’t interested in her. But that was irrelevant now that I knew about the double-life he’d been living. “He obviously didn’t love me enough to tell me the truth about his daughter.”

“Dalia just found out herself.”

“She seems to have warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.” I wanted to bite my tongue when I realized I sounded like a petty bitch who begrudged a little girl a relationship with her biological parent. I smiled, trying to soften my jibe. “You and Damon must be relieved.”

“We are.” She adjusted the pillow behind her back before leaning into it. “For what it’s worth, I think Damon wanted to tell you about Dalia, but something was holding him back.”

Probably the things I’d said about never wanting to have a family of my own. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

Andra smiled slightly, as though she was considering her words carefully. “Damon did a really wonderful thing for me and my family, and I feel compelled to return the favor, if I can. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

I considered it but ultimately said, “Go on.”

“I’m sure you know Damon better than I do, Eleni. We only spent one summer together eight years ago, and I’ve just gotten to know him again since we’ve been staying here. But one thing is obvious—he’s not the same man now that he was then. I think you have a lot to do with that change.”

I now suspected his transformation had more to do with Dalia than with me. “Can I ask you something?” When she nodded, I asked, “When did Damon learn about Dalia?”

“Last summer.”

So he’d known he was a father even before he met me. I couldn’t help feeling duped, betrayed even. “I see.”

“Do you?” She studied me carefully. “Do you know what kind of man he is? The kind of man you may be walking away from?”

I wanted to leave, to run away from the painful truth as fast as I could. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

Instead of being insulted, she seemed amused. “He helped put our family back together, not because he had to but because he wanted to.”

I didn’t want to hear her life story. I just wanted to go back to my apartment, draw the blinds, pull the blankets over my head… or maybe dig into the container of Ben & Jerry’s stashed at the back of my freezer for emotional crises.

“I didn’t tell him about Dalia when I should have. Most men would have set out to ruin me when they found out the truth, but not Damon. He was angry and determined to get time with Dalia, but he was also fair. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”

I wondered if Damon had been so
fair
because he had residual feelings for his ex. “You mentioned something about him helping your family. What did he do?”

“We were having a really hard time financially,” Andra said, lowering her head. “My husband’s been out of work for a long while. I’ve been trying to keep us afloat, but I wasn’t making enough to keep the creditors from calling.”

I suddenly felt sympathy for this woman, probably because I’d always had a soft spot for women who were struggling to survive. “So Damon helped you?”

“He did more than that.” Andra smiled. “It would have been easy for a man like Damon to throw money at our problems, but he didn’t.”

Now she’d really piqued my curiosity. “What did he do?”

“He took me and Dalia back to Boston and let us pick a house. You should have seen the look on his face when Dalia ran up and down that staircase as though we’d just won the lottery. I knew how happy it made him, being able to do something like that for her.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the picture Andra painted. I knew Damon was a generous lover, but hearing about his generosity as a parent was bittersweet. “I’m sure it did.”

“But that’s not all.” She drew a deep breath before looking me in the eye. “I lied to my husband about Damon. I told him that Damon knew about Dalia and didn’t want her.”

“But that wasn’t true?” I didn’t even have to ask. The Damon I knew would never turn his back on his child the way my father had turned his back on me.

She shook her head sadly. “Nic hated Damon for so many years because he couldn’t understand why a man would reject this precious child.”

“That’s understandable.”

Andra nodded. “So when Nic found out that I’d never told Damon about his daughter, he was outraged. He couldn’t believe I’d lied to him. He said that because of my selfishness, we could lose our little girl. He said with Damon’s money and power, he could sweep in and take her from us.”

I couldn’t imagine Damon taking a child away from the only parents she had ever known, but I understood why Andra and her husband had been terrified. They didn’t know Damon the way I did. “Clearly you found a compromise. You mentioned you and your husband are back together?”

“Thanks to Damon.” Her smile lit up her pretty face. She leaned in and squeezed my hand, almost as though she were sharing her excitement with a girlfriend instead of a total stranger. “He went to Nic and told him he wanted to be a part of Dalia’s life but that he appreciated everything Nic had done for her and felt there was room in her life for two fathers and more than enough love in her heart.”

“That’s very sweet.” I felt tears rush to my eyes at the sight of Andra’s tears.

“He’s an amazing man, Eleni, and he loves you. Please don’t make the mistake of holding this against him. We all make mistakes.”

God, she was right on that score.

***

Damon

I followed the uniformed nurse down the hall to Mr. Litras’s room, trying to ignore the pervasive sense of impending death, desperation, and despondency surrounding me. I heard the cries of agony, saw the blank expressions of tired faces, and heard the whispered prayers. I couldn’t help but think how horrible it would be to spend my final days in a place like this, where the only thought running through everyone’s mind was how much time they had.

“Try to keep it short,” the nurse whispered before opening his door. “We gave him something for the pain a little while ago, so he’ll likely drift off soon.”

“I will.” I didn’t want to be there any longer than I had to, but I felt as if a magnetic force was drawing me to this man who held answers I had no other way of finding.

“Damon, you came.”

Walking farther into the small, stagnant room, I considered shaking the man’s frail hand but thought better of it. After the hell he’d put Eleni through, he didn’t deserve my consideration. “Mr. Litras.”

“Please call me George.” His voice was weak, as close to lifeless as I’d ever heard.

I ignored his directive as I walked to the window. I needed some source of light in the darkness, an assurance that there was still a strong life force beyond these walls.

“I tried to hang on ‘til you got here.” He shifted in his bed, wincing. “Glad I could.”

I’d never witnessed someone hovering so close to death. It was unnerving. “Why did you want to see me?”

“Had to tell you things…” He sucked in a sharp breath before curling his bony hands around the hem of the crisp white sheets. “Things she wouldn’t.”

“I think Eleni has already told me all I need to know.” I wanted him to understand that I had his number. Even though he was a sickly old man now, I knew he’d once been a tyrant who had ruined an innocent child’s life.

“She’s told you all she knows, but she doesn’t know the whole story.” He closed his eyes while pinching his pale lips together. “Her mother was cheating on me.”

I was stunned. Eleni had painted a picture of her mother as the victim, and I wanted to believe she was right.

“You probably don’t believe me, but it’s true. That’s why we fought, why she left.”

“She left?” I heard the derision in my voice, so I knew he did too. “That’s not the way I heard it.”

“I couldn’t tell Eleni the truth. It would have crushed her to think her mother chose to leave her.”

“If she had another man, how did she end up homeless?”

He raised one bony shoulder, bared by a hospital gown that was too big for him. “I don’t know what happened to her after she left me. I only know that when she left our home that night, she planned to go to him.”

“Eleni said you threw her out, that you tossed her and her clothes out in the middle of a winter’s night.”

His dark eyes were hard all of a sudden, and I saw a glimpse of the bully Eleni had described. “Let me ask you something. How would you feel if the only woman you had ever loved told you she was leaving you for another man?”

I couldn’t pretend it wouldn’t ruin me. “That’s why you wouldn’t help Eleni find her, because you believed your wife was living with someone else?”

“Like I said, I knew the truth would devastate my Eleni.”

“So you asked me to come here because you want me to be the one to tell Eleni this story?” When he didn’t respond, I asked, “What makes you think she’ll believe it coming from me?”

He nodded at a yellowed envelope on the dresser. “A letter from her mother to me. The truth is in there. She may not be able to translate all of it, but you can help her with that, yes?”

I didn’t want to give Eleni a letter that would change her view of her mother from a victim to someone selfish enough to leave her only child with a harsh and domineering man. I reached for the envelope, knowing that was what he expected. Sticking it in the back pocket of my jeans, I decided I would figure out what to do with it later, when I had time to consider the ramifications. “Well, if that’s all…”

I took a step toward the door before he said, “It’s not.”

I should have known there was more. “What else?”

“Did Eleni tell you why she left home?”

“I assumed it was because the two of you couldn’t get along.” I knew that was an understatement, but I didn’t want to get into an argument with a man who was clearly in no position to fight back. “She wanted to build a new life for herself, and she has.” I wanted him to understand that he hadn’t destroyed her, that she’d not only survived but thrived without him in her life.

“She left because I disowned her.”

Any empathy I’d felt was edged out by anger. “Then that was your loss.”