Yesterday's Sins by Shirley Wine Page B

an apology. Mr. Carmichael and Dr. Hart have told me about that crash. Why didn't you tell me? And about Daddy having a heart attack?"
He gave one of his expressive shrugs. "I didn't think you needed to be burdened with anything more at the time. With hindsight, I may have made the wrong decision. But there's no way we can change it. All we can do is accept it, and move on."
"I suppose." Now, with the benefit of maturity she understood his reasoning.
After the trauma she'd been through, would knowing of her father's non-fatal heart attack have tipped her over the edge?
Who could say for certain now?
Alex hadn't pandered to her every whim as Dr. Hart suggested. He'd really feared adding to her emotional burden. But decisions made then could never be changed.
Kate stared without seeing, out the car window until Alex's deep voice broke her absorption.
"What are you planning to do?"
She looked at him. "Do?"
"Are you intending to stay here, or go back to Clevedon?" Impatience crept into his voice, his black brows coming down in a forbidding frown.
"I don't know." She twisted her fingers in her lap. The car cruised to a halt outside her old home.
"Will you sell this house? Emily is wondering."
Kate crushed a tiny spurt of anger. Was he impatient to tie up all the loose ends involving her? Want her out of his life so he could write finish with the whole unsavoury episode?
"Don't push me, Alex. I'll decide when I'm ready. I won't put Emily out on the street," she said, adding with gentle sarcasm, "Thank you for the ride home but don't bother coming in. I'm a big girl now."
She opened the car door and stepped from the car, ignoring his tightening lips and thunderous scowl.
Their gazes clashed and her heart leaped as she saw the anger glittering in his grey eyes.
He was not used to being dismissed.
Wry humour surfaced.  
In a world where everyone pandered to Alex's wealth and influence, she remained immune. Without looking back, Kate let herself into the house, shutting the door with a decided bang that brought Emily from the kitchen. "You're back."
Emily's relief left Kate feeling guilty. "I never meant to worry you. Alex brought me."  
"You're not angry?"
"No," Kate admitted, surprised by the truth. She unwound the black chiffon scarf. "I can't like Alex, but at times only he understands. Is that stupid?"
"No. A child bonds the most unlikely people together with an unbreakable tie." Emily's eyes dimmed with sadness.
Instinctively, she knew Emily wasn't referring to her and Alex.
The older woman's relationship with Alex's father piqued Kate's curiosity. As Emily went back to the kitchen, she followed, running the black chiffon through her fingers as she watched the older woman set out afternoon tea, before sitting opposite her.
"How did it go?"
"Ghastly." Kate picked up her coffee and sipped at it, desperate for the stimulus.
"It is isn't it?" Emily's grimace was rueful. "It's even more horrifying when you have no legitimate reason to be there. Mistresses have no right to grieve."
The two women, separated by a generation but each bonded by an inescapable tie to men filled with the fierce pride and arrogance of an ancient race, looked at each other with wry understanding.
"Tell me about Alex's father." Kate leaned across the width of the pine table, gripping Emily's hand in silent empathy.
"Dimitri Korda emigrated from Greece after the war. He thrived in Australia. He was strong, in build and in character, and dark, like all his sons with a fierce family honour." Emily toyed with the handle of her coffee mug as she looked backward to something only she could see. "I was eighteen when I met him. His wife, the very beautiful Helen died when young Marcos was born. Dimitri took her death hard."
"How did you meet?"
"At an amusement park." Emily looked up, her eyes twinkling. "His nursemaid took the boys to the park and lost Alex. I found him. He was all of six. Dimitri was summoned. He sacked the nanny on the spot and asked me out to