Chapter Thirteen
Zervou did not know what had gotten into him. He dreamed of Ari nightly. He thought of her constantly. He could not distract himself with anything.
She was a curse.
And still, every evening he had to go parade her about.
He thought he’d had a handle on it, until last night when he’d had to take her to a play with that ring on her finger.
Perhaps a party or dinner would have been better, but he’d had to sit next to her in a darkened theater, where the glow of the gold on her finger matched the gold hoops in her ears.
He’d wanted to play with the ring. Twirl it around. Feel the weight of it on her finger. He’d wanted to memorize what her hand looked like with his ring on it. Perfect. Just as he’d known it would be when he’d gone to the jeweler.
It hadn’t been the plan. The plan had been something outrageous. Something to get every gossip at every party, event, whatever to whisper about it.
Instead, he’d seen this vintage ring and…
Well, it didn’t do to think about getting her a ring that suited her. It was just a ring. It was just money. And it got the job done regardless.
His phone rang, a welcome distraction from the frustrating circle of his thoughts. He answered, only to be shocked to hear his name in his mother’s voice.
“Mother.” He was surprised to hear from her. He always was. She rarely reached out herself. He had to make most overtures. They did not see eye to eye and likely never would. She wished to suffer. He did not wish her to. It was a stalemate even he could not cross.
“Zervou, thank you for taking my call.”
Always so formal. So distant. Because he could never quite figure out what she wanted from him. Not help, not money. Nothing to make her life easier. But she was never happy with him staying away, either.
He simply could not make her happy, so he stayed out of her life beyond taking care of what he could without her refusal.
“Of course. Is there something I can do for you?”
There was a beat of silence, that frustrated sigh he was so used to. She’d been a warm, happy woman once. Sometimes he wondered if that vision of her he had in his mind from before his father was murdered was made up. Some trauma-induced fiction. Maybe she’d never been that woman.
But Zervou knew better. He was too much of a realist not to know better.
His father’s death had broken something inside of her, and no amount of trying to mend it on his part could repair it.
He could not repair it. Because she did not wish it to be repaired.
She wanted to be broken, miserable, crushed by the weight of life and its unfairness.
Sometimes, he couldn’t even blame her for that.
Sometimes.
“Your grandmother has…deteriorated,” Mother said after a time. “Even the in-home nursing is not meeting her needs at this point. Our head nurse has recommended palliative care.”
He waited to feel something, but the truth of the matter was he had little to no relationship with his grandmother.
She had not been a part of his childhood, having disapproved of his mother marrying his father, who had been poor.
It had been a little joke when he’d been a young boy: Mama’s rich, snobby parents thumbing their nose at true love.
Some joke. Love was but a temporary thing, for his mother had loved nothing and no one since Father had died.
After the murder, Mother had refused help from her affluent family. At first, Zervou had assumed it was pride. Hurt that her family had turned its back on her for following her heart.
Eventually he’d learned whatever heart his mother had once had was long gone. He didn’t even think it was pride in her way. It was that dedication to misery. Because only when his grandmother’s health had failed did his mother go back into the family fold. Always eager to make a martyr of herself.
Zervou had been long gone by that time, since his mother wanted nothing from him. Wanted to give him nothing. So he hadn’t interfered. Only offered the necessary funds—mostly refused, occasionally accepted as a last resort.
“You have the funds at your fingertips, if you’d use them.” He tried to ensure his remaining words would not come off bitter. He knew the answer before he even asked, and still… “Would you like me to make the arrangements for you? I can arrange for the best—”
“Of course not. This is not why I called.” So offended. So…familiar.
It was his turn to sigh. “Then why have you called, Mother?”
“You cannot simply throw money at this,” she said, so cloaked in her disapproval.
“Then what do you require of me?” He pinched the bridge of his nose where a headache began to drum. “You have never wanted more than monetary help, and even that you have not wanted until you could not care for your mother yourself.”
“She is your grandmother.”
He’d hardly call her that, but there was no point in the old argument.
“So you want me to suffer as you suffer? Tell me how. Perhaps I can pretend.” That was bitter and pointed, but he found he could not care in the moment.
Nothing he had ever done had touched his mother after his father’s death, and he had no hope it ever would.
Anything he offered now was a kind of…gesture to his long dead father.
“That is not what I want.”
Isn’t it? But he did not say this out loud. The arguments were old. Stale. He’d had to make his peace with never getting through to his mother. He’d had to make his peace with this being what they were.
Without his father, she had no love to give. And so he had lost both parents that day. It had been difficult. Perhaps there were still scars there, but he was a grown man who had learned how to deal. His money would always be available to her, but he would not drown in her misery.
She wouldn’t tell him how, so how could he?
“You should be here,” she told him. “You should hold her hand.”
Zervou frowned. It was perhaps the first actionable directive she’d ever given him. But he did not understand it. “And what will that do? I’m not sure she would know who I am even without the dementia.”
Everything went silent. It took him long seconds to realize it wasn’t just his mother not speaking.
She’d ended the call.
He stared at the phone in his hand, more than a little shocked. No, they did not get along. They did not see eye to eye. But for his mother to give him a directive, then hang up…
It left him churned up. Old feelings creeping back into his mature, adult certainty that he wouldn’t be bogged down by her issues.
Would things change if he booked a flight home? Would his mother be more accepting of help if he dropped everything to do what she asked now? Sit next to the grandmother he did not know, did not even like, and hold her hand as she slipped away from life?
She will never be happy. She will never accept your help.
A good reminder, but—
He heard something shuffle and looked up.
Ari.
She stood in his doorway. She was dressed for the gym, a duffel bag over her shoulder, though his ring winked on her finger. Her hair was braided back away from her face. Her skin was dewy, and she had a fresh bruise on her upper arm.
She was back from her classes and training. He hadn’t realized it was quite so late. He tried to find some center within himself but found himself only at a loss for words.
“I did not mean to interrupt,” she greeted, taking a hesitant step into his office. “I heard you talking, and you sounded…” She trailed off, adjusting the grip on her bag, clearly uncomfortable. “Is everything all right?”
What a question. But that wasn’t what she meant.
“Yes. I was simply talking to my mother.” He stood behind his desk, thinking it would give him some kind of action, but instead it left him feeling even more unmoored.
He looked down, unseeing, at the glossy shine of his desk.
“My grandmother has taken a bit of a turn for the worse.”
Ari stepped in farther, her features quickly arranged into concern. “Do you need to go see her?”
“No.”
“But—”
“She is my grandmother by blood, but that is all.”
Ari did not offer any arguments to that; how could she? But she did not leave. She stood there, looking like she wanted to say more.
Making him feel guilty.
Which was ridiculous. He had nothing to feel guilty about. She simply didn’t know the situation.
“I have no real memory of her. She did not approve of my father and so withheld herself from my mother, our family. After my father died, she offered help, but my mother refused as she did everyone who wanted to help. It was only when the woman became sick that my mother returned to her side, and by that time I was far away.”
“So why did your mother call?” Ari asked gently.
“Speaking of mothers, how does yours fare?” he asked, meeting her gaze. Holding it. Because he felt no guilt, no need to continue this conversation. He felt nothing. His mother’s call was a nonissue.
But Ari frowned. And doubled down, moving closer to his desk. “Zervou. Why did your mother call if you have no relationship with your grandmother?”
He did not know why she’d push this, but if she must, what was the harm in a little truth? “Honestly? I do not know. She certainly did not want my help.”
You should hold her hand. And how would that help? Any of them? No, she didn’t want his help.
She wanted his pain. He understood this, more a little every year, that pain was the only currency his mother understood. And he could have drowned in that if he’d been more devoted to her, perhaps, but he’d seen no point.
Life was pain enough, why drown himself in it and become a living ghost to anyone who might care?
Not that he let anyone that close.
A strange thought in the midst of a damn strange moment. He needed to shove it away.
Like Mother always shoved you away when you tried to soothe, help, love?
“Maybe you should go, even if she didn’t ask,” Ari was saying around the aftershocks currently rocking his system. “Even if you don’t have a relationship with your grandmother, that must be a terrible weight on your mother. She might need support herself. If you go—”
“I have offered her every conceivable help,” he said, sharp and firm. “She wants none of it.” A good reminder to himself as much as telling Ari.
She pressed her lips together, then took another few steps so only the desk was between them. “Perhaps she wants your presence over what your money can buy to help, Zervou.”
He laughed, low and harsh. Bitterness seemed to seep into his very bloodstream. “You do not know my mother.”
“No,” she agreed. “But I do know help and support do not have to mean the same thing.”
He frowned at her. The words made no sense. How did one support if not with help? And if his mother wanted none of his help, what did his support matter? Being there solved nothing if she wouldn’t allow him to take on any of the burden.
Then Ari did the oddest thing. She set her bag on the floor and skirted the desk to come stand next to him. Then, without any sort of preamble, she wrapped her arms around him.
She was warm. Her hair smelled of whatever she sprayed in it before she went to the gym in the mornings.
His heart felt heavy in his chest. An old ache stationed there, courtesy of his mother.
But with new hooks. All belonging to Ari.
Ari felt him relax, bit by bit. And so she held on. Her arms around him, her cheek pressed to his chest. Slowly, his arms came up around her too.
So they were hugging.
She’d had no real idea how to comfort him, only known that she wanted to. Needed to. Yes, things had been…a little odd between them since Paris, but she could hardly let that oddness be a reason not to offer comfort.
He’d looked so utterly lost at the idea that support and help might be two different things. And maybe he felt nothing for his grandmother, she could understand that, but she knew he felt complicated things for his mother.
And she wanted to help, somehow, but there was no way. So all she had to offer was support. A friendly hug. Some compassion.
She should pull away now.
But Zervou’s large hand slid down her spine, and friendly and comfort began to fizzle into something else. Heat. Ache. All the things they’d been denying.
She cleared her throat and disentangled herself from him. She forced a cheerful kind of smile to beam up at him. But didn’t quite manage to hold it.
Because he found her mouth with his. Hard and unyielding. Desperate, if she had to find a word for it.
She’d wanted to offer comfort, and maybe this wasn’t the right way to go about it, but it felt too late now. Or maybe she’d just missed the feeling of his body on hers. It shouldn’t be something she’d had long enough to miss, and yet she had. If they’d ever had…this.
His kiss was soft, searching, seeking. And in return she offered herself to him. Not just heat and need but the softness inside of her. Into the kiss. Into him.
Her heart ached, as if he’d landed a nasty punch to it.
Perhaps he had. Because she could not deny this love she felt for him, swamping her. Swamping the moment. It was no doubt leaking into the kiss, into him, and he would be forced to reject her.
She needed to reject it. The lesson of her life. Don’t believe in anything too good to be true. It never was.
She pulled away, but that hurt nearly as much as the idea of loving him did, so she kept her arms around him and pressed her forehead into this chest.
And he held her there, like it was where she belonged.
Pain erupted in her chest, hurt so much, tears filled her eyes.
One even slipped over, and she moved to wipe it away quickly so he wouldn’t see.
It wouldn’t do for him to see. Whatever she was feeling, whatever was being rearranged inside her was her own.
All her feelings, always, her own. Everything her own responsibility.
But he made it seem like there was some strange world where it didn’t have to be.
Luckily, she knew better. Even if she gave into this—her heart, this love she felt—she knew better than to rely on it.
“Ari.” The whisper danced along her skin, but the ache inside her was her heart. “Come to bed.”
She knew she would be wiser to refuse. To talk this out. Set clear boundaries, not silent ones. She knew so many things.
But she went with feeling and went to bed with him.