by Marian Tee
Andreus had simply shrugged, determined to withhold his judgment until he met the boy himself. Yuri, like the other two, had never had a taste of the rough life like he did, and although he had never had any problems with Helios or Kellion, the club’s president and vice-president respectively, Andreus wasn’t that big of an idiot to think the two men were the norm rather than the exception.
As someone whose cynicism came naturally, a part of Andreus had already prepared himself for the possibility that he and the younger man might not exactly get along. He had read up on Yuri prior to the boy’s arrival, and the latter had sounded too damn perfect to be real. A Greek billionaire’s son, Yuri was constantly lauded in society pages for his endless string of accomplishments. Academic honors, sports trophies, humanitarian awards – anything that could be accomplished, Yuri Athanas already had under his belt.
And when Andreus had found out the guy would be bringing his sister with him, his mood had only grown dourer. No doubt, Yuri’s little sister would be just as perfect, a spoiled little prima donna who would probably take one look at Andreus and think his poor-as-hell ass wasn’t even fit to be within a mile’s radius of her.
By the time Yuri and Hallie had stepped out of their plane – privately owned by their father, naturally – Andreus had a cold, inscrutable mask over his face. For Helios and Kellion’s sake, he was prepared to give the Athanas siblings a chance – and that was it. If these strangers thought he would immediately bend backwards to please them simply because he didn’t have an unblemished past like they did –
Both of them could go to hell.
But as things turned out, Andreus – between the three of them – had been the one who ended up in hell instead.
Yuri had been the first to offer his hand as he introduced himself, leaving Andreus no choice but to grudgingly return the gesture. The boy’s manners were simply too polished, and while this would usually put Andreus on guard, the calm, straightforward way in which Yuri met his gaze was not something to disregard.
In Andreus’ world, the ability to look into another person’s eye was a mark of strength, something that only people who had withstood an inordinate amount of pain could possess – and the boy, surprising as it was, had it.
Even now, Andreus couldn’t forget the way his heart had thundered against his chest at his first sight of her. Silky black hair held back by a pink band, brilliant blue eyes fringed with lashes, and then there was her dress – a delicate, dreamy concoction of silk, with gauzy sleeves, a tight bodice, and a wispy skirt that fell mid-calf – which only a princess could’ve worn to a ball.
But somehow, 16-year-old Hallie Athanas had made it damn work as a runway outfit.
“Hi.” Her voice had been soft but cheerful, like sunlight caressing his ear.
And when her blue eyes had lifted to his ---
Andreus realized he was done for.
“Andreus?” Shock had finally faded from her system, and adrenaline kicked in, spurring her into action. She approached the older boy with caution, but not because she was afraid of him – even though she knew she should be. Andreus, a few months shy of turning eighteen, might be barely older than her, but the kind of life he had led made it seem like they had centuries of difference between them.
When she had pleaded Yuri to tell her more about Andreus, her older brother had been surprisingly and frustratingly vague. Even so, what he had told her was enough – a childhood in which only the toughest survived, resulting into a mile-long record as a juvenile delinquent and his eventual descent to drug addiction.
All in all, someone who should frighten the wits out of her – but she just wasn’t.
If anything, it always seemed the other way around to her, and she had no idea why that was so.
Andreus found himself wondering if rapid blood loss was making him see things. Was Hallie actually walking towards him? Did she not see that he was dripping blood all over the hallway? Did she not realize what kind of man he was – what kind of man he had always been and always would be?
“What do you think you’re doing?” Andreus growled.
“We need to take you to the doctor---”
“No.”
The refusal threw her off, and Hallie mentally fumbled for another alternative. “Then…we’ll have a doctor come---”
“I can deal with this myself,” he cut her off brusquely.
“But---”
“If you want to do me a favor – just forget you’ve seen anything and go back to bed like a good little kid.” Andreus turned his back right after, jaw clenching at the way her eyes had darkened with hurt at his words. Possibly, he had been ruder than he should have been, ruder than she deserved, but it was better this way.
He turned towards the kitchen and almost cursed in shock when she suddenly appeared next to him. What the fuck?
Hallie lifted her chin in stubborn defiance. “If you don’t want to let a doctor help you, then let me patch you up.”
The steely softness of her voice was a surprise, and Andreus found himself following her lead out of sheer curiosity. Inside the kitchen, Hallie pointed to one of the chairs, saying rather imperiously, “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His tone was sarcastic, but the words only seemed to fly over her head. He watched her bend down to open one of the under cabinets, and his brows shot up when he saw her pull out a first-aid kit. “How did you know that was there?” Andreus demanded.
“I made it my business to,” was the nonchalant reply, which of course wasn’t any reply at all – and he had a feeling the damn girl knew it, too.
Hallie fought hard against reacting to Andreus’ intense scrutiny as she opened the box and started taking out the supplies she needed. It was almost as if he was just waiting for her – hoping even – to make a mistake.
Taking a seat across him, she gestured to his wound, saying almost apologetically, “This will likely hurt.”
Andreus would’ve rolled his eyes if he hadn’t been in so much pain. “It’s already hurting like hell,” he gritted out. “A little more pain won’t make any difference at this point.”
He expected her to answer back with some kind of sassy retort, but she didn’t, and this surprised him. In the weeks she had been staying at the club, one thing he noticed was how deceptive her feminine appearance was. He had seen the way she matched wits with her brother and the other officers of Afxisi, the way she had not let the other bikers intimidate her simply because they were bigger and badder.
So what made him different, Andreus wondered grimly. Why wasn’t she talking back? Was it because he was injured – or was it because she pitied him for the most obvious reasons?
The last thought made his fists clench, and he had to physically struggle against the urge to shove her away as she started to bend close. Silky locks fell forward, and when she had to repeatedly push them away, he said gruffly, “Let me.”
Andreus’ fingers brushed against her sensitive nape as he reached to hold her hair back, and it was all Hallie could do not to shiver and gasp. She had led a very sheltered life, partly by choice and partly because Greek society was well aware of how overprotective Yuri was towards her. As a result, her experience with men was vastly limited. She had never held hands with a boy before, and no boy had certainly ever managed to get close enough to touch her neck.
Only Andreus had…and somehow, for whatever reason, she was glad it was so.
A humorless smile carved into his lips when he saw her cheeks turn rosy at the mere graze of his fingers. Innocent, he thought. Too damn innocent for someone like him, but somehow…he just couldn’t make himself stay away.
Hallie couldn’t keep her fingers from trembling as she slowly lifted his shirt up. Part of it was because she didn’t want to accidentally cause him more pain. The other reason, however, was much simpler. Sillier, too, and one that had her stupid heart racing insanely fast as inch by inch Andreus’ washboard abs came into view.
I’m so sorry, God.
Obsessing over how sexy Andreus Economou was while he was bleeding had to be a sin, and her guilt just kept growing and growing even as she tried to be as efficient as she could in cleaning and bandaging his wound.
“You really are okay with this, aren’t you?”
The gruffness of his voice wasn’t enough to hide his bemusement, and hearing it helped Hallie regain a bit of control over her shamefully-raging hormones.
“Yes–” She glanced up briefly to smile at him. “I really am okay with this.”
“Why?”
She thought of speaking the truth – which was how she had started getting the strangest, most frightening looks from someone she had trusted and loved all her life. But if she said that, it would just make things more real – and she didn’t want that.
Not just yet, Hallie thought. Even if it was stupid and she was only delaying the inevitable, she just wanted…to pretend a little longer.
And so instead of answering Andreus, she simply changed the subject, asking, “How did you get stabbed?”
“Five against one.”
It was a vastly arrogant thing to say, but she knew it was true – just as she knew that he had only said it to scare her off. Without looking up, she murmured, “It’s not going to work.”
Andreus frowned down at her bent head. “What won’t?”
“What you’re trying to do,” Hallie answered as she worked on wrapping the last inch of bandage around his waist.
Andreus was starting to feel irritated. “Which is?”
“Acting like the big bad wolf so I’d run away before you eat me alive.”
Ah.
When Hallie pulled away to look at her handiwork, her gaze inadvertently clashed with his, and she suddenly found herself the subject of his lazy appraisal.
Oh no.
Her heart had gone into overdrive again. Maybe it was only her inexperience talking, but there was just something about the way Andreus looked at a girl that made her so deliciously…possessed. The heat in his eyes was primitive, bold and nearly feral in the way it claimed every trembling, innocent inch of her.
Andreus’ fists clenched and unclenched at the way her big, blue eyes returned his gaze without hesitation.
Too young, he tried to tell himself. She was too young for him. Too innocent. Too good.
Hell, he himself was too young for this. While Afxisi was fast building its name in underground racing, it would be a while before things started doing well and he’d have money of his own. Until then – he was nothing. He had nothing. So how the fucking hell could a man with nothing be with a girl who had everything?
Right now, there was only one honorable way out of this, and that was to make her hate him. He would have to act like an asshole even though just one look from her made him want to do better. Be better. One look, and she had him dreaming like an idiot, for things that could never be.
Knowing he was about to hurt her made it an effort to meet her gaze, but he forced himself to do so anyway. It was for her sake anyway, and while Andreus hadn’t known it then, those words would eventually become something he’d live by for the rest of his life.
Anything that was for her sake…he would do.
“Hallie---”
Her eyes went wide again. “That’s the first time you called me by my name,” she whispered.
Was it? Andreus didn’t really know, and even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. Not after what he had to say next. But just as he started to speak again, he saw the way a sweet, shy smile slowly blossomed on her lips just as she said softly, “I like it.”
FUCK.
“Can you say it again?”
FUCK.
“Please?”
FUCK.
He was so goddamn fucked, Andreus thought even as he heard himself say, “Hallie.”
Eight Years Ago
Present
Thirty minutes later, and Hallie had locked herself in the ladies’ room, torn between drowning in embarrassment and jumping out of a fifty-story window to finally put an end to her misery. Make hens meet? Did you really, truly, honestly make such a joke, Hallie Athanas?
And the unequivocal answer to that was –
Yes, she had, and it was all Siri’s fault!
Hallie glared down at the iPhone she held in her hands. “I hate you, Siri.”
“I’m doing my best,” Little Miss Cheeky answered promptly, and Hallie had to resist the urge against throwing her iPhone into the trash. Fail me one last time, she thought darkly, and it will be ‘bye-bye, Siri, hello, Alexa!’
“Hallie? Are you alright?”
Andreus’ voice from the other side of the door almost made Hallie jump, and after clearing her throat, she said, “I’ll be out in a bit.”
She started pacing restlessly as she tried to get her brain cells to start working and her hormones to stop functioning. The thirty minutes she had spent in forced close quarters with Andreus had been quite the eye-opener, and not in a good way.
Those two painfully long, unbearably hard years that she had forced herself to stay away in hopes of getting over Andreus?
It hadn’t done her a bit of good.
She still found Andreus the Sexiest Man Alive, and if she didn’t do something about it soon, it would just be the past –
“Hallie?”
“Coming!” She gave Siri one last evil look before dropping her phone back into her purse and stepping out of the ladies’ room.
Andreus’ gaze immediately narrowed at Hallie’s face, and the first thing he noted was the feverish color of her cheeks. Guilt, he thought right away, and he knew her far too well to be wrong about it. Hallie felt guilty about something – but over what?
“Sorry about that. I just had to speak with Si---r.” Hallie managed to catch herself in time. No way was she going to let Andreus know he had her so rattled she had been reduced into turning Siri into an on-call therapist.
Andreus raised a questioning brow. “Sir?” He expected her to say it was a teacher or some other superior of hers at school or work, but instead it turned out to be neither.
“It’s, umm, a nickname for a friend?”
Andreus’ mood immediately turned black. “You call your friend ‘sir’?” What the fuck was that about?
“It’s just a private joke,” Hallie mumbled. Oh God, she was such a lousy liar.
She was looking guiltier by the minute, Andreus observed broodingly, and right now he had a good idea why. It probably had something to do with that asshole she called ‘sir’. He had noticed the way she had kept fiddling with her phone. Maybe she had told the asshole about Andreus picking her up at the airport instead of Yuri, and the asshole had given her a hard time about it.
“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” he pressed aggressively.
Hallie could feel her face turning redder. “I’m okay, honest.”
“But that’s the thing,” Andreus countered silkily. “You’re not being honest, so why don’t we cut to the chase and you tell me what’s wrong?”
Chikushou! Hallie knew she had to tell Andreus something – anything, really, as long as it wasn’t the truth. Sitting so close to him inside his truck had been torture, and when he had just become too hot it had become too much, she had turned on him like a rabid zombie and practically screamed for him to take her to the nearest ladies’ room.
Pronto, she even recalled herself demanding shrilly, and the memory made her wince.
As such, could she really blame Andreus for doubting her now?
The way she had made a mad dash out of his truck as soon as he had parked, Andreus could only think one of two things: either she was suffering from diarrhea – or dementia.
And of course, the choice would have to be…
“You’re right, I’m lying.”
Andreus knew he should be pleased with the admission, but he wasn’t. “What is it then?” he asked coldly.
“I ate something spoiled during my flight,” Hallie mumbled. “So it had me…you know.”<
br />
Andreus nearly gaped. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?
“It was very spoiled,” she said weakly, “and I didn’t want to, umm, ruin your car.”
Since he couldn’t imagine sweet innocent Hallie lying about such a thing, he could only surmise it was true, and Andreus mentally cursed himself for having forced her to admit such a thing. “I’m sorry, baby doll.”
Hallie didn’t know what to say. On one hand, it was absolute bliss to hear him call her that again, but on the other hand – it was also equally obvious he believed her, and he felt sorry for her because of her lie.
Was that…a good thing?
That he thought she had almost lost control of her bowels in his truck?
When he saw Hallie looking like she was about to cry, Andreus mistook this for embarrassment, and wanting to distract her from her condition, he asked abruptly, “Have you noticed where we are by any chance?” Ignoring the way she gloomily shook her head, Andreus said, “You’re in for quite a surprise then.”
And she was.
The answer came to Hallie as soon as they emerged out of the hallway, and she found herself in a spacious room, made larger by its ceiling-to-floor windows, filled with whitewashed open shelves.
Oh my God!
She turned to him then, blinking back tears. “This is really it, isn’t it?” she whispered. “Ephemera?”
“It is.”
Andreus watched Hallie flit about her soon-to-be-opened shop like a bird just recently freed from its cage, and frustration seared his chest like a viciously raw wound. She had changed, he thought grimly, and in so many damn ways that for once in his life he found himself unsure of her.
Gone were the lace and the frills, all the feminine little touches that had endlessly fascinated him. It was either silk bands or ribbons with her, cute dresses or skirts, kitten heels or ballet flats. But now, the Hallie who stood with her back to him was almost androgynous, with her loose, sleeveless jumpsuit and basic white sneakers.