Claiming His Own

Chagrin filled Kassandra’s eyes more with every word. “And your mother just took him back?”

Cali nodded, more uncomfortable by the second at the associations this conversation was raising.

“Aristedes said she didn’t know it was possible for her not to. He understood it all, having been forced to mature very early, but could do nothing about it except help his mother. He was only seven when he was already doing everything that no-good father should have been doing while mother took care of the younger kids. By twelve he had left school and was working four jobs to barely make ends meet. Then when he was fifteen, said nonfather disappeared for the final time when I was still a work in progress.

“Aristedes went on to work his way up from the docks in Crete to become one of the biggest shipping magnates in the world. Regretfully, our mother was around only to see the beginnings of his success, as she died when I was only six. He then brought us all over here to New York, got us American citizenships and provided us with the best care and education money could buy.

“But he didn’t stick around, didn’t even become American himself, except after he married Selene. But his success and all that we have now was in spite of what that man who fathered us did to destroy our lives, as he managed to destroy our mother. All in all, I am only thankful I didn’t have the curse of having him poison my life as he did Aristedes’s and the rest of my siblings’.”

Kassandra blinked, as if unable to take in that level of unfeeling, premeditated exploitation. “It’s mind-boggling. How someone can be so...evil with those he’s supposed to care for. He did one thing right, though, even if inadvertently. He had you and your siblings. You guys are great.”

Cali refrained from telling her that she’d always thought only Leonidas had been deserving of that accolade. Now she knew Aristedes was, too, but she felt her three sisters, though she loved them dearly, had been infected with a degree or another of their mother’s passivity and willingness to be downtrodden. Andreas, sibling number five out of seven, was just...an enigma. From his lifelong loath interactions with them, she was inclined to think that he was far worse than anything she’d ever thought Aristedes to be.

But while she’d thought she’d escaped her mother’s infection, perhaps she hadn’t after all.

Apart from the different details, Cali had basically done with Maksim what her mother had done with her father. She’d gotten involved with someone she’d known she shouldn’t have. Then, when it had been in her best interest to walk away, she’d been too weak to do so, until he’d been the one who’d left her.

But her mother had had an excuse. An underprivileged woman living in Crete isolated from opportunity or hope of anything different, a woman who didn’t know how to aspire to better.

Cali was a twenty-first-century, highly educated, totally independent American woman. How could she defend her actions and decisions?

“Look at the time!” Kassandra jumped to her feet. “Next time, just kick me out and don’t let little ol’ kidless me keep you from stocking up on sleep for those early mornings with Leo.”

Rising, Cali protested, “I’d rather have you here all night yammering about anything than sleep. I’ve been starving for adult company...particularly of the female variety, outside of discussing baby stuff with Leo’s nanny.”

Kassandra hugged her, chuckling as she rushed to the door. “You can use me any time to ward off your starvation.”

After setting up a meeting to discuss the next phase in their campaign and to go over Cali’s progress reports, Kassandra rushed off, and Cali found herself staring at the closed oak door of her suddenly silent apartment.

That all-too-familiar feeling of dejection, which always assailed her when she didn’t have a distraction, settled over her like a shroud.

She could no longer placate herself that this was lingering postpartum depression. She hated to admit it, but everything she’d been suffering for the past year had only one cause.

Maksim.

She walked back through her place, seeing none of its exquisiteness or the upgrades she’d installed to make it suitable for a baby. Her feet, as usual, took her without conscious volition to Leo’s room.

She tiptoed inside, though she knew she wouldn’t wake him. After the first six sleepless months, he’d thankfully switched to all-night-sleeping mode. She believed taking away the night-light and having him sleep in darkness had helped. She now only had the corridor light to guide her, though she’d know her way to his bed blindfolded.

As her vision adjusted, his beloved shape materialized out of the darkness, and emotion twisted in her throat as it always did whenever she beheld him. It regularly blindsided her, the power of her feelings for him.

He was so achingly beautiful, so frightfully perfect, she lived in dread of anything happening to him. She wondered if all mothers invented nightmares about the catastrophic potential of everything their children did or came in contact with or if she was the one who’d been a closet neurotic, and having Leo had only uncovered her condition.

Even though she was unable to see him clearly in the dark, his every pore and eyelash were engraved in her mind. If anyone had suspected she’d been with Maksim, they would have realized at once that Leo was his son. He was his replica after all. Just like Alex was Aristedes’s. When she’d first set eyes on Alex, she had exclaimed that cloning had been achieved. Now their daughter Sofia was the spitting image of Selene.

Every day made Leo the baby version of his impossibly beautiful father. His hair had the same unique shade of glossy mahogany, with the same widow’s peak, and would no doubt develop the same relaxed wave and luxury. His chin had the same cleft, his left cheek the same dimple. In Maksim’s case, since he’d appeared to be incapable of smiling, that dimple had winked at her only in grimaces of agonized pleasure at the height of passion.

The only difference between father and son was the eyes. Though Leo’s had the same wolfish slant, it was as if he’d mixed her blue eyes and Maksim’s golden ones together in the most amazing shade of translucent olive green.

Feeling her heart expanding with gratitude for this perfect miracle, she bent and touched her lips to Leo’s plump downy cheek. He gurgled contentedly and then flounced to his side, stretching noisily before settling into an even sounder sleep. She planted one more kiss over his averted face before finally straightening and walking out.

Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it. But instead of the familiar depression, something new crept in to close its freezing fingers around her heart. Rage. At herself.

Why had she given Maksim the opportunity to be the one to walk out on her? How had she been that weak?

She had felt his withdrawal. So why had she clung to him instead of doing what she herself had stipulated from the very beginning? That if the fire weakened or went out, they’d end it, without attempts to prolong its dying throes?

But in her defense, he’d confused her, giving her hope her doubts and observations of his distance had all been in her mind, when after each withdrawal he’d come back hungrier.

Still, that had been erratic, and it should have convinced her put a stop to it.

But she’d snatched at his offer to be there for her, even in that impersonal and peripheral way of his, had clung to him even through the dizzying fluctuation of his behavior. She’d given him the chance to deal her the blow of his abrupt desertion. Which she now had to face she hadn’t gotten over, and might never recover from.

Rage swerved inside her like a stream of lava to pour over him, burning him, too, in the vehemence of her contempt.

Why had he offered what he’d had no intention of honoring? When she’d assured him she hadn’t considered it his obligation? But he’d done worse than renege on his promise. Once he’d had enough of her, he’d begrudged her even the consideration of a goodbye.

Not that she’d understood, or believed that he had actually deserted her at the time.

Believing there must be another explanation, she’d started attempting to contact him just a day after his disappearance,

The number he’d assigned her had been disconnected. His other numbers had rung without going to voice mail. Her emails had gone unanswered. None of his associates had known anything about him. Apart from his acquisitions and takeovers, there’d been no other evidence of his continued existence. It had all pointed to the simple, irrefutable truth: he’d gone to serious lengths to hide his high profile, to make it impossible for her to contact him.

Yet for months she hadn’t been able to sanction that verdict. She’d grown frantic with every failure, even when logic had said nothing serious could happen to him without the whole world knowing. But, self-deluding fool that she was, she’d been convinced something terrible had happened to him, that he wouldn’t have abandoned then ignored her like that.

When she’d finally been forced to admit he’d done just that, it had sent her mad wondering...why?

She’d previously rationalized that his episodic withdrawal was due to the fact that her progressing pregnancy was making it too real for him, probably interfering with his pleasure, or even turning him off her.

Her suspicions had faltered when those instances had been interrupted by even-wilder-than-before encounters. But his evasion of her attempts to reach him had forced her to sanction those suspicions as the only explanation. Then, to make things worse, the deepening misery of her pregnancy’s last stages had forced another admission on her.

It hadn’t been anguish, or addiction, or needing closure.

She’d fallen in love with Maksim.

When she’d faced that fact, she’d finally known why he’d left. He must have sensed the change in her before she’d become conscious of it, had considered it the breaking point. Because he’d never change.

But if she’d thought the last months of her pregnancy had been hellish, they’d been nothing compared to what had followed Leo’s birth. To everyone else, she’d functioned perfectly. Inside, no matter what she’d told herself—that she had a perfect baby, a great career, good health, a loving family and financial stability—she’d known true desolation.

It hadn’t been the overwhelming responsibility for a helpless being who depended on her every single second of the day. It had been that soul-gnawing longing to have Maksim there with her, to turn to him for counsel, for moral support. She’d needed to share Leo with him, the little things more than the big stuff. She’d needed to exclaim to him over Leo’s every little wonder, to ramble on about his latest words or actions or a hundred other expected or unique developments. Sharing that with anyone who wasn’t Maksim had intensified her yearning for him.

Her condition had worsened until she’d started feeling as if he was near, as if she’d turn to find him looking at her with that uncontainable passion in his eyes. Many times she’d even thought she’d caught glimpses of him, her imagination playing havoc with her mind. And each time this mirage had dissolved, it had been as if he’d walked out on her all over again. Those phantom sensations, that need that wouldn’t subside, had only made her more bereft.

Now all that only poured fuel on her newfound fury. But anger felt far better than despondence. It made her feel alive. She hadn’t felt anywhere near that since he’d left.

She was done feeling numb inside. She’d no longer pretend to be alive. She’d live again for real, and to hell with everything she...

The bell rang.