Tanja sank into the chair opposite, surprised and not sure how much she should reveal.
“Please don’t be alarmed. Leon wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t trust me to keep the information to myself. We have our difficulties and I was shocked to learn he’d been married all this time, but he wouldn’t lie to me about having a child.”
“I very much appreciate the lengths he’s been willing to go to help me keep her,” Tanja said tentatively.
Ophelia studied her for a long moment, looking as though she wanted to say something. A small frown dented her expression.
“I disappointed him by inviting a crowd last night,” she finally decided to say. “We have a relationship that is... I find it easier to have people around. A buffer.” Her brief smile was deeply pained, then gone. “It’s an old habit, but it wasn’t fair to you. I apologize.”
“That’s not necessary, but thank you.” Tanja’s heart instinctively went out to her, reaching across the space that felt like a chasm because Ophelia was clearly clinging hard to her side, terrified to reach out.
Illi was kicking and grabbing at the toys, burbling away, easier to watch than looking at each other, so they did that for a few minutes.
Tanja snuck glances at Ophelia, though, and watched as her expression grew poignant. Her hand twitched and she leaned forward a little, almost as if she wanted to bend and reach out, catch at a flailing foot, but she seemed to think better of it and straightened again.
I think she quit showing affection for me so he wouldn’t use me against her.
Tanja’s heart clutched. “Would you like to hold her?”
“Best not to get attached,” Ophelia said with a valiant smile. “Leon tells me this isn’t a permanent arrangement.” She met Tanja’s gaze, and that suggestion of words wanting to be spoken was there again. This time she was a little braver, her voice holding a hint of emotion. “I take heart from the fact he’s come this far. Until his call the other day, I was convinced he would never marry or have children. Even... Well, baby steps as they say.”
“Wait until you see him with her,” Tanja said with emotion-laden humor. “He’s so sweet, you’ll die.”
“Oh, he won’t let me see that,” Ophelia assured her with another of those smiles that painted over what Tanja was beginning to realize was profound pain. “He was torn last night, afraid to hover over you too closely in case I guessed how much you mean to him. The lecture this morning was very telling, though.” Her mouth twitched.
“What did he say?” Tanja asked with a rise and fall of hope and dread. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry. Honestly, I was overreacting. Suffering a case of imposter syndrome.”
“Nonsense.” Ophelia held up a hand. “You are not an imposter, and his anger isn’t anything I don’t deserve. I’m extremely sensitive to any sort of disapproval or criticism from him, though.” She tucked her hands in her lap. “My first instinct is to protect myself proactively, thus the crowd. It always goes wrong, of course, but he does the same with me. The fact he kept his marriage from me for five years tells me how much you meant to him.”
So many words of protest and correction jammed into Tanja’s throat that she couldn’t make any of them come out in a sensible way. They simply sat there with their sharp edges, suffocating her while Ophelia flicked a speck of lint from her sleeve.
“I had hoped after his father passed that Leon and I would develop a new understanding between us, but—” Her sigh was the epitome of despair. “Leon was faced with incredibly difficult challenges. I didn’t help. I pushed him so hard to fight for what was rightfully his. If I’d known he had a wife to go back to... Well, I don’t know what I would have done,” she admitted heavily. “I can see now he was angry over what he was forced to give up in order to stay here. I won’t say he blamed me,” Ophelia continued in a tone of reflection. “But he must have seen me as part of the reason he was forced to stay here instead of returning to you. That’s why we haven’t been able to mend things.”
“I’m so s—”
“Please.” Ophelia forestalled her with a smooth show of her palm. “You are not the source of my troubles with my son. That lies entirely with me.”
“I think you’re being very hard on yourself,” Tanja said tentatively. “Leon has only said a few things about his early years, but I get the sense there was quite a bit of tension. That your husband was a difficult person and bears much of the responsibility.”
“You’re very generous. I can see why Leon is so attracted to you. His father was a terrible bully, but I can’t say I was at my best in the way I chose to fight him. I sank to his level far too often. When it comes to Leon, I’m reaping what was sown.”
“Well, you can sow new things,” Tanja said earnestly. “I hope you see me and Illi as a fresh field. You and I don’t have to let any of those old weeds grow between us. We can define our relationship however it suits us.”
Ophelia didn’t say anything for a long minute, but a faint sheen of tears seemed to glimmer in her eyes. Her mouth might have trembled. It was hard to tell. She was very good at hiding her emotions.
“It would mean a lot to me if you and I were to become friends. It’s difficult to feel close to my son.”
You love him, Tanja wanted to say, but she had the feeling it was the sort of incantation that wasn’t allowed to be spoken aloud in Leon’s world for fear of breaking a spell. It explained so much about him.
“We are friends,” Tanja assured her huskily. “Please join us anytime.”
Leon was both pleased and disgruntled at his mother visiting, proclaiming, “She owed you an apology, but she had no right to invite herself into our home.” Then he added gruffly, “How was it?”
“It was nice,” Tanja said, privately breathless over him saying “our” home.
Everything seemed to be smoothed over two nights later when they invited Ophelia and Cornelius to dine with them. Cornelius was comfortable to be around, engaging and easygoing and smitten with Ophelia. She wasn’t the most effusive person. Her tension around Leon seemed to feed his own so there was a constant static in the air, but she seemed sincere in her desire for Tanja to feel more comfortable in her world and offered gentle advice.
Ophelia’s support bolstered Tanja’s confidence when she and Leon attended Georgiou’s wife’s fund-raiser.
Tanja kept hoping she and Leon would find a comfortable set of boundaries, clear lines they couldn’t cross, but they were blurry and forever shifting. They made love before they dressed and sent each other sly looks filled with sizzling memory, but she had to keep reminding herself this wasn’t real. Tanja could put on a figure-hugging strapless gown in diaphanous pink with gorgeous beadwork in metallic silver and rose gold, but that didn’t make her Leon’s wife any more than it made her the movie star who ought to be wearing this for her own performance.