Chapter Three #3
His gaze dropped to her mouth again for a brief, unmistakable second.
When she moved, it took enormous effort, as if she were nothing but a planet orbiting his sun.
As if she was only kidding herself that she could remain whole when it was all over.
The terrace door clicked shut behind her, and silence settled like a second skin.
Constantine exhaled slowly, turning back toward the edge of the rooftop. Athens sprawled out beneath him, ancient and electric, marble ghosts nestled beside glass towers. From this height, the city looked like something he owned. Streets like veins. Buildings like chess pieces.
He had spent his sweat, blood and toil to be the master of everything he surveyed. It should have filled him with triumph.
Instead, it felt…hollow.
No, she made his triumph feel hollow.
The night air carried the scent of sea salt and exhaust, layered with the faint perfume she’d left behind—something expensive, something bitter. Like her again, although the latter made him…a bit nauseous.
Aliyah being bitter didn’t sit well with him. And the niggling worry that he had been the cause… Why the hell was he turning so maudlin?
He braced his hands against the stone ledge, eyes tracking the glittering city lights below. So much about her was different even as some things were the same.
So who was the real her and what was fabricated?
She’d asked for a child. Calmly.
He’d expected anger, demands for a nice payout, maybe even retreat. But not a child.
His child.
The thought sat heavy in his gut. He’d never wanted that, never even entertained it.
He didn’t know how to be a remotely caring person, much less a father.
He’d barely had one, after all. His own father had been a mean drunk who’d disappeared before Constantine was old enough to hate him properly.
His mother had been a ghost who had died giving birth to him.
It had been his grandfather, the Androses’ groundskeeper—brutal, proud and exacting—who’d raised him like a soldier bred for war, not a boy shaped for love. And the old man had died before he could witness Constantine claim his kingdom.
There had never been anyone else. No family. No love.
Any softness or attention or affection he had received had been from Julian first and then Aliyah. And that was before she’d deserted him and carved any remaining softness out of him.
All he’d known had been ambition, clawed and earned.
His grandfather had wanted him to prove himself.
Theo had wanted to use his genius with numbers for his own gain.
And now Aliyah wanted to bind him to her with the one thing she could get out of him. Use him again to achieve her goal, no doubt, the conniving princess that she was.
The bitter thought didn’t sit well with him though. For her conditions surrounding the baby had been nothing but reasonable.
She had asked that they both have equal custody. That a legal trust be created in the child’s name. That no matter how their marriage fell apart—and it would, she clearly believed—it would never touch their child. Never make their child collateral in their war.
That shook him.
She didn’t trust him. But she trusted that part of him wouldn’t harm the innocent. And disturbingly, she might be right.
Was that what she was counting on? That Constantine Xenakis, who had built empires from the bones of men more powerful than him, would one day grow bored of marriage, of her, and let her go?
Did she think parenthood might bore him? Or worse, change him into some sentimental sap again? Did she think she would corral him this way?
A hollow laugh scraped the back of his throat. It was admirably clever, how thoroughly she’d mapped the shape of his ruthlessness and carved out a path around it.
And yet, she had still dared to demand it. Not as a ploy. But as something essential. As something she had desperately wanted for herself.
He had seen the truth of it in her eyes.
That single request unraveled things inside him more deeply than he wanted to admit. The idea of being responsible for a life that carried his name. Of failing it. Of seeing his own flaws reflected back in smaller eyes. Of proving every fear he’d buried was true.
That he wasn’t enough. Hadn’t been enough for his mean drunkard of a father, or his stubborn grandfather, or Theo with his exacting conditions and dangling approval while he used his brain like a supercomputer.
Or for Aliyah, who had given him a taste of what his life could be, but had yanked it away just as fast.
He didn’t feel ready. He never had.
But instead of recoiling, something within him—stubborn and sharp—tensed in recognition.
Maybe it wasn’t just fear. Maybe it was the echo of something he hadn’t dared hope for.
He stared out over Athens, pulse steady now, gaze fixed on the skyline. She thought she could predict him. That he’d play by the rules of the man she thought him to be.
But what she didn’t realize was that he didn’t know himself when it came to her. So, maybe they both were in for a surprise of a lifetime.
And that made him grin into the darkness of the night.