“Does he love you?”
In spite of Holly’s efforts to convince herself she didn’t need her husband’s love, a lump rose to her throat. She looked away.
“That’s what I thought,” Nicole said quietly. Putting her hand on her shoulder, she repeated the same words Holly had just said to her. “You deserve more.”
Suddenly, Holly was the one who was crying. Angry at herself, she wiped her eyes. “We can still be happy. Stavros just loves me differently, that’s all. He cares for me. He shows it through his actions. Like the party tonight...”
Nicole frowned. “What party?”
She smiled through her tears. “You don’t need to pretend. I know he’s throwing me a birthday party. He insisted on doing it, since I didn’t want a wedding reception. There’s no way he wouldn’t invite you.” Holly’s lower lip trembled. She desperately needed to feel some hope. “So you can tell me about it. It’s not a surprise.”
“I’m not trying to keep anything a surprise. There’s no party, Holly.”
She stared at her sister. As a waiter came and asked if they needed anything, Nicole shook her head. Holly didn’t even look at him.
“No party?” she said numbly.
“I’m sorry. Maybe he’s doing something else to surprise you?” Her sister tried to smile as she pushed the small, brightly wrapped present toward her. “Here. Wrapped in birthday paper, like you always wanted.” She smiled ruefully. “Not Christmas paper, which you’ve always had to put up with from me.”
Holly looked down at the present. It was beautifully wrapped, in pink and emerald, her two favorite colors.
“What’s inside is even better. Something I know you’ve always wanted but were never selfish enough to admit it. Open it.”
Slowly, Holly obeyed. And gasped.
Inside the box, nestled in white tissue paper, was the precious gold-star necklace that had once belonged to their mother.
“Told you I’d find it,” Nicole said smugly. “It was tucked in my old high-school sweatshirt buried at the bottom of my keepsake box.”
A lump rose in Holly’s throat as she lifted the necklace. Their mother had worn it every day. It had been a gift from their father, who’d always called Louisa his north star.
“I know you wanted me to have it, so I’d never lose my way,” her sister said in a low voice. “But I think you need it more than I do now.”
Nicole’s husband had left her, they’d soon be going through a divorce, but she still thought Holly needed it more? Her hand tightened around the necklace as she said hoarsely, “Why?”
“You told me love makes a marriage, not money.” Nicole shook her head. “Are you really going to spend your life waiting for Stavros to love you—waiting hopelessly, until you die?”
Holly stared at her little sister in the small New York café. As customers and waiters bustled around them, the smell of coffee and peppermint mochas in the air, the heat of the café made her feel sweaty and hot, then clammy and cold.
Then she realized it wasn’t the café, but her heart.
She’d spent her whole life taking care of others, imagining herself in love with unobtainable men—first Oliver, then Stavros. Even now, she’d been ready to settle for a dream to keep her warm, so she didn’t feel so hopeless and alone, rather than be brave enough to hold out for the real thing.
Her gaze fell on Freddie, wrapped in blankets, sucking his pacifier in the stroller. Was this the example she wanted to set for her son? That marriage meant one person martyred by love, and the other a tyrant over it?
Love always has a winner and a loser. A conqueror and a conquered.
Which one was she?
Closing her eyes, Holly took a deep breath.
Then she slowly opened them.
No. She wouldn’t settle. Not anymore. Not when her and Freddie’s whole lives were at stake.
And Stavros’s, too.
He’d never wanted to hurt her. He’d said from the beginning that he had no desire to be a conqueror. And yet her love for him would make him one.