That was what they’d planned, but suddenly she was crumpled, broken, sobbing about having to leave.

‘I need to go. I just need to go. Please, Nikos, don’t make it any harder.’

He’d thought it was her writing that was driving her. ‘You’ll come back?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t. Nikos…’

She’d run out of words. He’d been angry, shocked, bewildered.

That night in his family’s boatshed…Their last night. He’d played music by John Lennon on his tinny little sound system.

Imagine…

He thought now: Nicky must have been conceived that night.

No matter. He had to get rid of the white noise. There was only one absolute. ‘You need to come home,’ he told her.

‘No.’

‘Then Demos wins.’ He made an almost superhuman effort to rid himself of his emotional tangle and concentrate on what was important. ‘I need to go home tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I thought I had a week to persuade you, but Demos has already contacted mining companies. He’s acting as if he owns the place. I daren’t stay longer. But it’s your birthright, Athena. And,’ he added, ‘it’s your son’s.’

‘And your…’

‘And my daughter’s,’ he finished for her, harshly. For maybe she was going places he wasn’t ready to go just yet. ‘Our children’s. You must come home.’

‘No.’

‘Think about it,’ he said briefly, harshly. ‘There’s so much happening here I can’t take it in. Whatever’s gone on in the past…’ He glanced at Nicky and felt as if he was on a shifting deck, unsure of his footing, unsure of anything. ‘For now we need to put that aside. If you don’t come home, then some time soon I’ll be back here to…sort what’s mine. But my priority right now has to be the islanders. Thousands of livelihoods, Thena. Princess Athena. They’re your people. You answer to them and not to me. Except…’