The Bridegroom's Vow

For some strange reason, the admission didn’t sit well with Dimitrios. It sounded too cynical for Leon.

“To be frank, I’m glad you’d rather be with me this morning,” came the emotional response.

Dimitrios gave his nephew a hug. Minutes later their car was headed into the hills of Thessalonica overlooking the bay. While Leon drove, Dimitrios checked in with his assistant.

“Stavros? Can you spare me for a few hours longer?”

“The truth?”

His question surprised Dimitrios.

“Always.”

“Ms. Hamilton and I may work an ocean apart, but since she became your private secretary, I’ve begun to feel superfluous.”

“You’re indispensable to the company, Stavros. You know that,” he rushed to assure him. The sixty-six-year-old man had kept the Greek end of the Pandakis Corporation running smoothly for decades.

Ms. Hamilton, the understudy of his former private secretary in New York until Mrs. Landau’s unexpected passing, was a six-month-old enigma, still in her infancy. Yet Dimitrios could understand why Stavros made the remark.

In a word, she was a renaissance woman. Brilliant. Creative. A combination of a workaholic and efficiency expert who, though she was no great beauty, happened to be blessed with a pleasant nature. She was many things—too many, in fact, to put a label on her. Mrs. Landau had known what she was doing when she’d hired her.

Before their trip to China, Dimitrios had wondered how he’d ever gotten along without her. During their week’s stay in Beijing while he’d watched her weave her magic before their inscrutable colleagues with the finesse of a statesman, he finally figured it out.

She had a woman’s mind for detail, but she thought like a man. Best of all for Dimitrios, she had no interest in him.

“Ms. Hamilton brings her own genius to the company, just as you brought yours many years ago and tutored me, Stavros. I’m looking forward to next week when the two of you meet for the first time. She holds you in great reverence, you know.”

“I, too, shall enjoy making the acquaintance of this American paragon. Spring greets Winter.”

“Since she’s in her late thirties, it would be more accurate to say summer, and you’re sounding uncharacteristically maudlin, Stavros.”

“You have to allow me the vicissitudes of my age.”

Dimitrios chuckled, but beneath the banter he could sense his assistant’s vulnerability. Perhaps a word in Ms. Hamilton’s ear that she leave something important for Stavros to handle for the fair would help.

“Just so we understand each other, I won’t allow you to retire until I do. See you later this afternoon.”

“What’s wrong with Stavros?” his nephew asked as he clicked off the phone.

Putting his head back to relax, Dimitrios murmured, “He’s suddenly aware of growing older.”

“I know how he feels.”

Dimitrios would have laughed if Leon hadn’t sounded so serious. “You said you wanted to talk. Since you brought up Ionna, I have to wonder if you’re not about to tell me you’ve fallen for a girl your mother doesn’t like.”

Leon shook his head. “That’s not why we argued. I told her I dislike my business classes and want to drop out of the university. It’s only September. I can still withdraw without penalty before the fall semester starts in three weeks.”

Dimitrios schooled himself not to react. “To feel that strongly, you must have a very good reason.”

“My heart isn’t in it!” he cried. “I don’t think it ever was. Mother’s always had this vision of me taking my place in the family corporation. She says I owe it to my father’s memory. But business doesn’t appeal to me. Do you think that makes me some sort of traitor?” he asked in an anxious voice.

“Of course not,” Dimitrios scoffed.

At this point he could have told his nephew a few home truths. Like the fact that Leon’s father hadn’t been interested in the family business, either.

There was information Leon didn’t know about his mother that would shed more light on her determination to make certain he held onto his birthright.

But Dimitrios’s hands were tied, because telling his nephew the truth about the past would hurt him more than it would help.

“What do you want to do with your life, or do you even know yet?”

His nephew heaved a sigh. “It’s just an idea, but it’s grown stronger with every visit to Mount Athos.”

Mount Athos.

“You took me there the first time. Remember? We did a walking tour, and ate and slept at the various monasteries.”

Yes. He remembered. Especially his nephew’s fascination with the monks…

Dimitrios straightened in the seat.

Like a revelation he knew what Leon was going to say before he said it.

“Uncle? Last night I told mother I’m thinking of entering an order. That’s when she ran out of my bedroom in hysterics. I’ve never seen her react like that to anything. Would you talk to her about it? You’re the only person she’ll listen to.”

Lord.

Was it possible that Leon’s hero-worship of him had caused his nephew to dismiss a woman’s love as unimportant?

Ananke’s unprecedented visit to his bedroom this morning was beginning to make sense in a brand-new way.

Since the death of Leonides she’d lived on sufferance under Uncle Spiros’s roof until his passing, then under the protection of Dimitrios.

If her son renounced all his worldly goods and went to live on a mountain, Ananke wouldn’t only have lost a son to the church, she would have no choice but to move into a house Dimitrios would provide for her. A comfortable enough pied-à-terre befitting the widow of Leonides. All her dreams smashed.

“Before I say anything to your mother, I’d like to hear more about how you feel.”

“As I said, I’m only thinking about it.”

“Our trip to Mount Athos took place ten years ago. That’s a long time to give a young man to think.”

Leon blushed. The reaction tugged at Dimitrios’s heart. Perhaps his brother’s son truly did have a vocation for the religious life. If it was the path he was meant to travel, far be it from Dimitrios to try to dissuade him.

Then again, like greener pastures, the monastic life might sound good to him because he was still young and lost.

Dimitrios had never questioned what direction his own life would go. He couldn’t relate to Leon in that regard, but he was his guardian. As such, he felt it incumbent to listen as his nephew poured out his heart.

Afterward he would point out the ramifications of a decision that a twenty-two-year-old mind wasn’t capable of envisioning yet. For one thing, it would break his mother’s heart. Ananke might be many things, but she loved her son.