Chapter Eleven
TIME SEEMED TO move at super speed, fall bringing with it the first hints of crisp air that made the evenings feel alive with possibility. The sun dipped low, casting a soft golden hue across the horizon.
It had been more than a month since the wedding and nearly three weeks since she’d moved into this villa by the sea. Constantine was moving heaven and earth to pin down Richard’s brother, Aliyah herself felt content and Rose seemed to be thriving at school, for the first time since Richard’s death.
The villa, on an island nearby Athens, acquired overnight by her husband, matched the exact specifications that Aliyah had rambled on about in the postorgasmic haze on that night on the rooftop.
She floated in the infinity pool, the cool water gently lapping at her skin as she gazed out at the vast, endless sea stretching into the distance. It blended into the sky, as if the two were one, and for the first time in her life, she felt a peace she hadn’t known before.
This villa, this space, was their home, fully, wholly theirs.
Only theirs.
For the first time in her life, it wasn’t just about a place to live, a place she floated through without connection.
Richard’s home had been warm and inviting, but it had been full of his wife’s memories and mementos.
Even after marrying him, Aliyah had always felt like a guest in his home, albeit a long-term one.
Here, she found the belonging she had craved all her life. It wasn’t just the villa, though, however much she tried to hide from that kernel of truth.
It was Constantine who gave her the sense of belonging.
He had practically bought them an entire island because of a throwaway comment she made about preferring privacy for herself and Rose over the crowds, the country over city life.
Here, she was needed. She was wanted. She was seen by him in a way she never had been by her parents or Richard.
The property was everything she’d ever envisioned in a home.
The large grounds, perfect for any future children, stretched out around them, peaceful and secure.
The villa itself was cozy but spacious, a place for a new beginning.
It was a place where she could see herself spending the next ten years, a space to pursue her music, to travel from and come back to as her career demanded.
The place where she had unexpectedly found herself in the role of a traditional wife—something she hadn’t planned for, but surprisingly, enjoyed for the simplicity and ease it brought her.
She’d already performed in Paris and London, both times with Constantine in the audience, front and center. At first, she had worried his presence would distract her, but strangely, it grounded her. His quiet support and his steady gaze were more comforting than anything she could’ve imagined.
Sometimes, she found herself enjoying the little things: cooking easy meals for her and Constantine to share, something she never thought she’d enjoy, but now it felt…
right. And the walks they took on the beach, those moments when the sea wind brushed against her skin, and she could almost believe that this was the dream life she had hoped for as a teenager with him.
The villa had ample room for Rose when the time came.
Aliyah talked to her stepdaughter every day, and though progress on the custody front had been slow, there were glimmers of hope. Rose’s uncle was still avoiding Constantine, but she had no doubt that Constantine would soon rectify the matter.
In the meantime, a selfish part of her was enjoying it being just them. No external pulls on their time, no demands on how they were with each other, nothing but peace and passion and a tenuous but growing connection.
She kicked lightly, floating on her back, and smiled like a fool at the sky.
In the evenings, when Constantine worked out in the state-of-the-art gym, she found herself drawn to him. He did it to give her space if she was at the piano, but she followed him like a faithful, drooling puppy.
She would watch him, the muscles of his back flexing, and before long, she devolved into teasing him.
Once, by begging him to show some strength training moves, once, by taking off her tank top and wrapping herself around him.
Once—when he had proved resistant to her rusty seduction skills—by pushing her panties down and fingering herself right where he could see her.
He gave in, every single time, and he made her pay for teasing him by prolonging her climax, keeping her right at the edge. But Aliyah liked it best when he lost the battle with himself and simply gave in.
Other times, when she was stuck in a particularly knotty passage of music, she persisted over the piano, unaware of time passing, night falling.
Her husband, not known for his patience, lingered close by, for hours, working away on his laptop.
Bringing her water sometimes. Giving her cramped neck a quick massage.
Once he’d urged her into taking a quick walk on the beach, promising to not utter a word.
When she had returned to the piano refreshed, she had progressed past the difficult passage within minutes.
Of course, she had kissed him for making her take a break and in return, he had taken her on the rug right beside the piano, demanding his due for helping. And every single time, she hoped she would want him a little less, that the hunger in her blood would simmer down instead of blazing anew.
They attended parties and charity galas, of course. And on those occasions, she only saw his pride in her, his possessiveness when a man had gotten too close, and his genuine alarm when she’d once admitted to feeling ill.
They had rushed home, her father joining them on the chopper, only to find that she had eaten shellfish, to which she was allergic.
Her thoughts drifted to her father, who visited nearly every other day, without being invited even once.
Their getting to know each other again was awkward, sure, but not painful.
She liked that he was teaching her chess, that he was genuinely curious about her career, if a little extra enthusiastic about her marriage to Constantine.
Every time he asked if she was happy, if Constantine was happy, about their future plans, a small part of her sat petrified.
While another part of her wanted to scream at him to not ask her about the future, to let her live in the present.
Instead, she simply told him that their marriage was a contractual arrangement that she was happy with. Hoping it would serve as a reminder to her poor, naive heart too, which was already weaving deep delusions about what Constantine felt for her now.
Neither did she miss the way he disappeared when her father came around.
She knew it pained him to see this change in her father, that he didn’t trust it, but neither did he forbid Papa from coming there.
She wouldn’t blame him if he did—this was their home, their fresh start, albeit with a lot of conditions attached to it.
And she also knew why he didn’t forbid her Papa from coming here—it was for her.
For all that he made her sign over her stock to him, for all that he had celebrated his final ascent as the highest stockholder in Andros International, for all that he had visited his grandfather’s resting place without telling her, he cared about her happiness.
That fact was becoming as clear to her as the days rushing by past her, refusing to let her pin them down, carrying her away into a near-idyllic haze that she couldn’t fight against.
She was living the dream life she wanted, with the man she’d always yearned for, and yet, she couldn’t help feeling as if someone or something might pull the curtain back and shout loser at her.
The slap back to reality that Aliyah had been bracing for came with a one-two punch.
The first was the sudden arrival of nausea in the mornings, and a near-feverish lethargy that made it hard to get out of bed.
She hated being sick—once Constantine had commented the very devil in her came out when she was a patient—and she spent a few days lolling around in bed, refusing to peer at anything too closely. She’d hoped to just out-wait and out-sleep whatever virus was working its way through her.
Luckily or not, the illness had precisely coincided with Constantine traveling to London to meet Rose’s uncle. Somehow, he had convinced the cunning, greedy man to meet him face-to-face.
She simply lounged in bed, having a Netflix watch party with Rose over a teen show that they were both obsessed with, and slept for hours at a time.
Almost a week went by like that.
The nausea refused to go away, whatever she did.
Finally, the afternoon before Constantine was due, Aliyah showered, did her hair and asked her once-daily housekeeper—an older woman who’d thanked her effusively on day three for Constantine’s financial assistance and recommendation with her son’s college education—for advice.
The older woman, with twinkling eyes, asked her if she had checked her calendar.
Aliyah raced back to her bedroom to look for her phone but she already knew.
Her body had been giving her signals for more than a week now.
She hadn’t had a period since she’d arrived in Greece more than two months ago.
Not that it had bothered her much because she had never been regular.
She had also been told when she’d met her ob-gyn back in New York that they would have to work on making her cycle regular before she could start a very expensive round of IVF.
So she’d resigned herself to having to wait a few months before even expecting any news.
And yet, as she stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, her complexion blotchy, she knew she was pregnant.
She made a note to pick up pregnancy tests, to find a new ob-gyn, to pay attention to her nutrition, but the practical details fell away in the face of the wonder that filled her.