Hired by the Impossible Greek

by Clare Connelly

  But his lips formed a belligerent frown. ‘Please don’t go.’

  A tear slid out of her eye. She wiped it away discreetly as she stood. ‘I have to.’ That was firmer, her ‘strict teacher’ voice. She pressed a hand to his shoulder, squeezing it gently. ‘You be a good boy for your daddy, okay?’

  Cameron’s response was muffled.

  Santos crouched down, his eyes at Cameron’s height. ‘Why don’t you go get your shoes on and this afternoon we can go to the very top of the Eiffel Tower?’

  ‘Without Amelia?’

  Santos’s jaw tightened. ‘The view is exceptional. Go and get your shoes.’

  Cameron hovered for a moment and then turned on his heel, half-running into his room and slamming the door.

  Amelia startled. ‘He’ll be okay.’

  Santos’s head jerked in silent agreement and his eyes locked to hers for a moment that filled her with a whole new type of pain. He began to walk towards the door, his stride long. Amelia moved more slowly, aware that every step brought her closer to the end of this.

  Everything inside her was pulling, tightening, making her ache in her entire body. Her heart was screaming at her to say something, to suggest they have one more night together, but it was too late for that even if she’d wanted to. She and Santos were consenting adults who’d gone into this with their eyes wide open but Cameron didn’t deserve to have his little heart broken any more than it already had been.

  They’d agreed this would be the end of it; they had to stick to that.

  At the door, she lifted the handle of her suitcase, propping it to her side. ‘Leo will take you to the airport.’

  ‘I would have been happy to take the train.’

  His smile seemed distracted. Was he already wishing she’d leave? Planning how he’d fill his nights when she was no longer around? The idea activated her pride; she wouldn’t let him know how hard she was finding this. ‘It’s a door-to-door service.’ He lifted a hand then, cupping her cheek, running his finger over her lips so she closed her eyes and inhaled, breathing him in. Every fibre of her being was shouting at her to say something. But what?

  ‘Thank you.’ Her heart exploded. ‘For everything.’

  He lifted his other hand, cupping her face. ‘I am the one who should thank you, Amelia. I won’t forget you.’ His eyes were earnest, his voice throaty. She believed him. But that didn’t change the fact he’d also replace her swiftly, as was his habit, and never contact her again.

  Her stomach rolled; her heart splintered. She had to get out of there. ‘Take care of him, okay?’

  Their eyes clashed and there was so much in that look, so much unspoken and important. ‘I will.’ A gravelled admission that exploded through her.

  She could barely look at him as she walked away, and every step towards the lift was an agony. The doors opened and she stepped inside, only then trusting her gaze to flip back to the door of the penthouse, craving one last look at Santos despite the fact she could see him with her eyes shut.

  The door was closed.

  * * *

  He pressed his back against the door, his breathing rough, his body tense. Adrenalin hammered through him.

  Go after her.

  But what the hell for? Another night? Two? Until he no longer felt this addictive yearning for her?

  He had always had the deepest determination not to hurt women—women as an abstract concept. With Amelia, that became very specific.

  He wouldn’t hurt her. With his life, he pledged that.

  Inviting her to stay longer would be a doorway to pain and he couldn’t do it. Already he could see her ambivalence and uncertainty. She’d been carefully measured but he knew her better than that now.

  He had to let her go. He wasn’t his father. He didn’t use women for his own selfish purposes, disregarding how that might affect them. Santos was perfectly capable of having a sexual affair without letting his emotions into the equation, but he wasn’t so sure about Amelia. The street artist’s comment had simply cemented his doubts on that score. She deserved a family—not the illusion of one but the real deal. And, the longer she spent with Cameron and him, the more likely she’d be to imagine... He shook his head against the door, his lungs bursting. It was impossible.

  He stayed pressed to the door for several minutes. Long enough for Amelia’s lift to have reached the lobby, for Leo to have lifted her suitcase into the boot, for him to have pulled the SUV out from the kerb and begun the drive to Charles de Gaulle.

  And so she was gone.

  * * *

  He wasn’t a fool. The fact he hadn’t been with another woman a month after he’d last seen Amelia was an indication of how much their arrangement had affected him.

  He wasn’t interested in being with anyone else. Not yet. The idea of having sex with any other woman left him cold.

  He told himself it was just as well—Cameron wasn’t adjusting well to life in Athens and was taking more of Santos’s time and attention than he’d anticipated. But, still, his nights were free. Once the six-year-old was in bed, Santos was able to do as he wanted.

  And yet he spent his time alone, in his study, catching up on work or losing himself in board reports. He also cursed the day he’d ever met Amelia Ashford.

  * * *

  Teaching made Amelia happy. Winscott Village made Amelia happy. Playing chess with Brent made her happy. Her work on the Hayashi Analysis made her happy.

  But in the four weeks since leaving Paris—since leaving Santos and Cameron—Amelia had felt a heaviness deep inside her that nothing was able to shift. There was no happiness in anything any more.

  It was a grief—but different from what she’d gone through when her parents had cut her from their life. Those emotions had made sense.

  This didn’t.

  She and Santos had been clear from the start. She’d known all along that she’d be coming back to Winscott to take up her teaching position. She’d known it would end and she’d simply enjoyed the time they had.

  So why did she feel as though she was barely holding it together?

  The days were something to be got through. She taught, and she went through the motions of being the teacher her pupils needed her to be, but at the end of the day she locked up her classroom and went home, stripping off her clothes as she walked to her bedroom, where she would curl up in bed, pull the duvet to her neck and simply stare at the wall.

  The nights were the worst.

  She’d outgrown nightmares as a ten-year-old but they were back now. Awful, terrifying nightmares—Cameron running through fire and her not being able to reach him, Santos following behind, neither of them coming out. It was all so vivid that she’d wake up in a sweat and take several seconds to remind herself that it was just a bad dream—they were fine. So far as she knew, at least.

  The nights when she didn’t have nightmares were even worse, because then her head was filled with Santos—all the ways he’d made himself some sort of master to her body and its impulses; all the ways he’d made her feel more alive than she’d known possible. Those dreams were a form of torture from which she never wanted to wake.

  The loneliness was awful.

  Having accepted that she was binary within the universe, for the summer she hadn’t felt that. She’d felt like she was part of something.

  A sob filled her throat. She swallowed it, staring at the wall, squeezing her eyes shut. It was no good. Tears ran down her cheeks. She dashed at them, her heart unbearably heavy, and pulled her knees more tightly to her chest.

  She’d felt like she was part of something, but she hadn’t been. It had been an illusion and Santos had warned her about that right at the very beginning. She’d told him she was capable of separating a physical relationship from anything more.

  And can you say with confidence that you will feel that way in five weeks, when
you leave the island?

  ‘Oh, God.’ She sat up in her bed, brushing her hair from her brow.

  She’d done the exact opposite of what she’d promised him. She’d fallen in love with him. It wasn’t just sex. Maybe it had never been. Maybe she hadn’t just been being trite when she’d said their stardust had aligned.

  Santos had been different.

  On the first day they’d met, she’d wanted to kiss him so badly. Why? Because he was different and something about him called to her. Generally, her understanding of the world was informed by science, but in this moment she subscribed to every theory she’d ever heard about soul mates and fate.

  ‘I’m in love with Santos.’ She pressed her palms into her eyes, shaking her head from side to side in disbelief. And yet there was also a bubbling euphoria, a feeling that almost bordered on the edge of hysteria. She was in love with Santos. Completely. Completely and utterly in love with him. Pushing off the duvet, she stood, a sense of purpose flooding her body for the first time since leaving Paris. Perhaps even sooner than that, for the last week or so of their time together had been tinged with a sense of powerlessness, as though she’d been on a train and couldn’t get off.

  She loved him.

  She had to tell him. Regardless of what he said, she needed him to know. He was scared of hurting her, but was he just letting that fear stop him from having what he really wanted in life? Did he want her like she wanted him?

  It was Thursday. The idea of having to get through a whole day at school before the weekend was a unique form of torture, but that same sense of purpose made it possible. She loaded up her phone and began the practicalities, booking flights, organising what she could.

  She had to tell him. She’d think about what came next afterwards.

  * * *

  She was sure Cameron would be asleep at eight o’clock on a Friday night, and that was important. As much as she was desperate to see the little boy, she understood how confusing it would be to him, and he deserved better than that. So she’d waited outside his Athens home, her nerves doubling by the minute, her doubts plaguing her, uncertainty ripping through her.

  But she knew she had to do this. She needed to tell Santos the truth.

  Finally, a minute after eight, she walked up the steps, memories of the last time she’d been here and taken these steps flooding her mind and body. That night had been perfect. If she hadn’t loved him before then, she’d definitely fallen hard for him on that evening in Athens.

  It was cooler now, autumn wrapping its grip around the country, so she wore jeans, a sweater and a scarf at her throat. Her fingers shook as she lifted them to the door, hesitating for a moment before pressing the buzzer there.

  A moment later, it pulled inwards and she braced herself, wondering if it would be Chloe or Leo, perhaps Talia.

  It was Santos.

  Santos Anastakos, looking so familiar and so different, so untouchably handsome and expensive in a bespoke suit that fit his body like a glove.

  ‘Amelia!’ Her name was torn from him, shock evident in all his features.

  ‘Hi.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. Inwardly she cursed and tried again. ‘How are you?’

  He frowned, his eyes shifting beyond her, as if he could somehow understand what she was doing there if he looked hard enough. This wasn’t a good start.

  Shock though was quickly set aside, his face assuming a distant expression, so he looked at her as though she were a polite stranger. Her stomach dropped to her toes.

  ‘I’m fine. And you?’

  As though she meant nothing to him. As though her being here was an inconvenience. Her knees felt weak, like they might not be able to support her for much longer.

  She had to do this. She needed to tell him and see where the chips fell.

  ‘Are you going somewhere?’

  A frown flashed across his face and he dipped his head forward in silent response. ‘Soon.’

  Great. A time limit. She toyed with her hands and then stopped, sucking in a deep breath and searching for courage. She loved him and, whatever happened, he deserved to know that. She couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t know how she felt. But the fear of being rejected by him was enormous. She braced for it, straightening her spine, her eyes awash with deep, raw emotions.

  ‘How’s Cameron?’

  His face tightened, his eyes stormy. ‘He’s—a work in progress.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ For a moment, thoughts of her own misery were driven from her head.

  Santos compressed his lips, a muscle throbbing at the base of his jaw. ‘Did you come to speak about my son?’

  Her heart squeezed. He was being so cold! Her stomach looped in on itself. ‘No.’ She shook her head, closing her eyes. This was a disaster. But she’d come all this way; she had to do it. Whatever fine beam of hope she’d had when she’d boarded the flight in London was now flickering to darkness inside her.

  ‘But I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been thinking about him since I left.’ She swallowed. ‘And about you.’

  The sharp intake of air, signalled by the rising of his chest, was the only indication that her words had any impact on him. His features were blanked of emotion but there was agony in his eyes, a torment that made her heart ache.

  ‘Come in.’ It was a command, short and sharp. Hope lifted through her. She looked beyond him but memories flooded her, memories that would eat her alive if she wasn’t careful. She shook her head. Whatever he said, being out here felt like a tether to her real world and like a slipstream to escape, if she needed it.

  ‘This won’t take long.’

  He nodded. Was that relief she saw on his face? Her heart dropped.

  ‘You were so specific, Santos. Right at the start of all this, you were abundantly clear about how you felt and what you wanted. I know that you intended for us—what we were—to be a physical affair that ended when I left.’

  His eyes seemed to be tied to hers by some unseen force. He stared at her and she felt as though he were touching her. Butterflies shifted through her belly. Finally, he moved his head, just a tiny mark of agreement. ‘We both agreed to that.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘But it turns out you were right. It’s hard to separate emotions from sex. I thought I could do it but, God, Santos...’ She shook her head, a dreaded film of tears filling her eyes so she closed them for a second, blinking furiously.

  He was tense. She could feel it emanating off him in waves, slamming into her. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She shook her head and a hysterical laugh bubbled out of her. ‘I fell in love with you, just like you said I would.’

  His face paled, his jaw tightened. ‘Amelia.’ He shook his head and then reached for her, putting a hand around her arm. ‘No. You can’t have.’

  Another laugh, completely humourless. ‘Well, I did.’ She drew in another breath, waiting for it to fill her with some kind of courage. ‘And I don’t think I’m the only one.’

  If it was possible, his face paled even more. ‘I was so honest about this.’ He groaned, reaching down and squeezing her hand. He took a step out onto the landing, his body closer to hers, as though he wanted to touch her but also knew it would be too complicated. ‘This is the last thing I wanted.’

  Her throat felt as though it were lined with blades. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  He ground his teeth. ‘Absolutely.’ His eyes shuttered closed for a minute. ‘I don’t love you, Amelia. I’m sorry if I did anything to confuse you, anything to lead you on. I wanted what we shared but I always knew and accepted that it would end.’ The words slashed her insides, tearing her to ribbons.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ She held his gaze even when her courage was faltering. ‘Tell me you haven’t thought about me.’

  He hesitated for a moment.

 
‘Tell me you haven’t missed me.’

  He was completely silent.

  ‘Tell me you don’t love me.’ Her voice cracked but it was so important to hear him say those words.

  ‘If I say those things, it will hurt you, and that is the last thing I want to do. Let me say this instead: I want now what I wanted then. Our relationship ran its course.’

  It was, somehow, worse than if he’d just agreed with her. It was an admission that nothing about what they’d shared had affected or changed him at all. Where her heart had been blown wide open, making her not only open to the possibility of love but accepting of its inevitability, he was the same man he’d been before.

  She’d come here because she’d thought it was important for him to know how she felt, but now the futility of what she’d set out to do weighed her down more than anything else.

  At least before she’d had hope, and she’d had the happiness of her memories—a happiness that might have returned in time.

  Now, there was nothing. How could she look back at any of the times they’d been together and not see that what had been an incredibly special moment for her had meant literally nothing to him?

  The sound of a taxi door closing had her turning on autopilot and she used the shift as an opportunity to wipe an errant tear from her cheek.

  ‘Santos, darling, I’m so sorry I’m late.’ A woman—not Maria but cast from the exact same mould, all leggy, slim, tanned with long blonde hair—stepped from the car and sashayed towards his home on sky-high heels. Her dress was like a second skin, moss-green with a deep V at the front and a slit to mid-thigh.

  Amelia spun round to face him, the situation only just making itself obvious to her. What a fool! Here she was pouring her heart out to him and he was waiting on his date! His lover?

  She was going to be sick. Oh, God.

  She wanted to say something pithy. Something that would make light of this whole affair. She wanted the ground to swallow her whole. But her heart was breaking and she couldn’t hide that from him.