And he’d loved her – that was obvious in the way he was protecting what they’d been back then. As though he could keep it wrapped up in a box, separate from the wasteland they’d become.
“So you’re writing political pieces now?” He asked, the question somewhat safer than their previous conversation.
“Yes.” She frowned. “I’ve been freelancing for a few publications … the Ras el Kidan piece was the first I’d been commissioned to do for a national broadsheet.”
Something shifted in his face. “What was the angle to be?”
“The angle?”
“The scope of the article. What were you going to write about?”
She cleared her throat. “The royal lineage, mainly,” she said. And then, because there’d already been too many lies between them, she added, “The Sheikh’s first son.”
Something glinted in Apollo’s eye, a dark emotion she couldn’t comprehend. “You were going to write about Amit?”
“As part of the article, yes. His existence is the worst kept secret in Middle Eastern politics.”
“So this political piece was going to have a very human focus?”
She sighed. “Of course. Politics is made up of people, but the point isn’t who he is and why he’s unacknowledged, so much as what the ramifications are of his birth, whether he’ll take a role in government as he gets older.”
“I don’t believe this,” Apollo said with a shake of his head. “That’s a thirteen year old boy you’re talking about.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t think people have a right to wonder?”
“And what of his rights? His right to privacy, for example?”
“He’s the son of a King. I’m not the first journalist to write about a child of royalty.”
Apollo scraped his chair back, standing jerkily and taking a step away from the table. He turned his back on her, staring at the ocean, but she could see the agitation in his body as he brought his breathing under control.
“Is this why you studied journalism?” He asked, without turning back to face her.
Eleanor frowned. “What do you mean?”
He turned to face her slowly, and his expression was weary. “Did you go to university and study journalism purely to write articles about ‘subjects’ you don’t know? To feed people’s insatiable thirst for gossip and conjecture?”
She swallowed, his disdain hurting. She couldn’t answer his question – not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she did, and the answer was one she wasn’t brave enough to acknowledge.
“I didn’t go to university,” she said. “My first job was a cadetship, straight out of school.” That time when she’d been so desperate for money she’d have done anything. Elizabeth’s pregnancy had been complicated; she couldn’t work. Eleanor had worked enough for both of them. Her gift for writing had been easy enough to parlay into cadetship, and from there, a fully-paid junior reporters job.
He lifted his brows. “Fine,” he said. “Did you always think you’d write junk pieces about celebrities?”
“Don’t do that,” she said softly. “Don’t belittle my career just because I hurt you.” She stood up now too, walking to him, lifting a hand to his chest and almost recoiling at the awareness that slammed into her. “Don’t act as though I’m the only person who’s ever done this for a living.”
“You’re the only person who’s ever used me to write an article – an article so personal that…”
“I didn’t write that,” she said firmly, needing him to release her from that prison in his mind, needing him to accept that his rage was slightly misdirected. “I didn’t write the article and I never would have. I would never have put those thoughts into writing for another person’s consumption. I loved you, Apollo. I loved you and everything you told me I considered to be in confidence.”
He jerked his head away, but he stayed standing where he was.
“Have you even read anything I’ve written?”
He shook his head gruffly. “No.”
“Well, maybe you should. I think you’d be surprised.” And then she dropped her hand, stepping away from him and regarding the table with a sense of despondency. “I might go to bed,” she said with a tight smile.
He followed her gaze to the table. “You haven’t even eaten dinner.”
“I’m… not hungry.” She met his eyes, but her body sagged with the hopelessness of their situation. “Good night.”
*
He watched the sunset, his fingers curved around the stem of his champagne flute, his expression taut.
He’d hurt her and he hated that he cared. He’d upset her with his accusations; he’d been like a dog with a bone. He couldn’t accept her career – but why did that matter?
He didn’t need her to renounce her professional choices. What Eleanor did with her life was nothing to do with him, so why the hell was he interrogating her as though his happiness depended on her admitting her faults and renouncing her career? On her saying that she’d never write another damned article again?
Then what? Would it absolve her of guilt? Would he forgive her for her part in his father’s death? Would he …
Would he what?
Want to pick up where they’d left off?
Hell. He stood abruptly, pacing forward on the terrace, then stepping on the sand and grass that led up to it.
Was that even an option? His frown was a gash on his face. Hands on his hips, he stared up at the sky, helpless in the face of his desire and his needs.
He’d treated her like a damned princess when they’d dated. No, like an object d’art. He’d been so in love with her, he’d been terrified of breaking her.
He’d felt unworthy, too. She’d been right – he was a ‘manwhore’. He’d been with more women than he could count, more than he could remember. So he’d romanced her, wanting to prove to them both that he deserved the gift of her body before he took her to his bed.
And now?
He no longer saw her as a princess; she wasn’t on a pedestal. But he still wanted her.
So?
Comprehension dawned but it wasn’t a pleasant realization. Fear accompanied it.
There was nothing to stop him from acting on the physical lust that roared between them… maybe that would give him the closure he’d longed for.
Or maybe it would just crack open a big fat can of worms he wasn’t sure he could handle.
*
She couldn’t sleep. The bed was sublimely comfortable, the room unbelievably luxurious, the view sensational. From the enormous windows on one side of the bedroom, she had an unimpeded outlook over the rolling waves of the ocean, the shimmering light cast by the full, shining moon, and a single tree growing just to the left of centre. An olive tree, she thought, though it was impossible to tell in the darkness of night. In the morning, she would explore.
She’d pack a lunch, and take herself away from the house – as far away as she thought it was safe to go – and she’d think.
She needed that – desperately.
Being here was madness, and yet it wasn’t. He’d kidnapped her, but she didn’t blame him. She couldn’t. Not when she could still remember every word of that awful article; not when she remembered her part in it.
Not when she remembered the way his face had looked as he spoke of saving her, as though he couldn’t stand her, and also couldn’t stand the idea of pain befalling her.
Eleanor lay back against the bed, her eyes closed, her mind active, and she tried to sleep. She tried her hardest. But at some point, when the first hint of mauve hit the sky, when the sun began to shimmy through the night and cast a hint of warmth on the ocean, Eleanor gave up on sleep altogether.
She stepped out of the bed, pulling on the outfit she’d worn the day before, sliding her feet into some shoes and then padding to the door of her room. She pressed her ear against it for a minute, waiting for the hammering of her heart to die down before gently opening it.
T
he house was silent and dark.
Perfect.
She tiptoed out of her room, remembering the way to the kitchen. She held her breath once she reached it, listening for a hint of anyone else being awake.
There was none.
She was desperate for a cup of tea, but the idea of boiling the kettle and waking Apollo did funny things to her heart. She wouldn’t risk it. And so, pushing thoughts of nice warm mugs from her mind, she stepped through the doors onto the terrace, her eyes drifting of their own accord to the table at which they’d shared dinner at the night before.
They’d dated for six weeks, and although their kisses had been enough to burn her alive, although she’d known how passionately he wanted her, they hadn’t slept together.
At the time, she’d wondered if he’d simply understood. If her inexperience with men was so obvious. Maybe she kissed like someone who’d never done much kissing before? Or maybe she did something that gave away the fact she’d never known a man’s hands on her body? She was grateful though that a man like Apollo Heranedes had been prepared to go at her speed.
She hadn’t doubted, for even a second, that they would sleep together. It had simply been a waiting game – waiting until she was ready.
If she’d known their relationship was going to combust – spectacularly – she would have gone back in time and seduced him any which way she could. She would have made sure he was her first lover.
Her first lover?
Her only lover.
It wasn’t as though she’d left him and fallen into a relationship with another man. There’d been no one for Eleanor since Apollo, and for one simple reason: There was no one who compared to him.
Perhaps if he’d been a lesser man, she might have been able to recover and reclaim her heart, to hold it once more in her own hands until another suitable recipient happened along.
But there was no walking away from Apollo and forgetting all about him. She thought she’d done it. She’d truly believed that she’d reached a stage where she could meet him once more and be safe from this desperate longing.
She’d been wrong.
She took a step across the terrace, but her shoes made a heavy noise as she went, so she stepped out of them, casting a single look over her shoulder and refocusing her attention on the view in front of her. The air was thick with salt and she inhaled it, wondering if it would have the same healing properties on her emotions as it was supposed to have on cuts and scrapes. Might it anaesthetize the wounds of her heart?
Despite the mild temperature, the grass beneath her feet was cold, and the sand colder still, when she reached the shore. She dug her toes into it, feeling the powdery ground stick to her feet. And despite her worries, a smile lifted her lips, and she walked forward, closer towards the water, her eyes trained on the last of the stars to shimmer in the sky.
The water was cool, she stepped into it, lifting the skirts of the servant’s uniform so that the foaming waves could break around her ankles. The salty fragrance was strong here. She breathed it in until it coated her tongue and then she turned, looking back at the house, her eyes roaming over its crisp white render, the vines that scrambled at every opportunity, the windows presenting views that were like artwork.
It was a stunning villa. A mansion, more like. She hadn’t explored it the day before, but even the walk from the living area to her bedroom had showed a library, an indoor swimming pool – as well as an outdoor pool the size of an Olympic pool but shaped like a naturally occurring lake – several living areas, a library. It was a stunning residence – everything a man like Apollo Heranedes would expect, and undoubtedly took for granted.
His London penthouse was equally grand, though far more old-fashioned. In a beautiful part of Knightsbridge, surrounded by embassies and similarly stunning residences, he’d boasted views of Hyde Park in one direction and Harrods in another, and Eleanor had loved to curl up in one of his Eames recliners and watch the night roll across the park.
Eleanor was stuck in the past, staring at his house in Greece and remembering evenings in London, so the noise – loud though it was – went unnoticed by her. It wasn’t until Apollo was almost upon her that she heard him, and turned towards the sound of feet hitting firm sand.
He was, perhaps, ten metres from her, his head bent, his earphones in, so that had she not sidestepped quickly, his massive frame would have crushed into hers, without so much as a word of warning or a moment’s notice. As it was, she barely managed to step out of his path, and he obviously felt her proximity because he startled, lifting his head, his eyes pinning her to the spot, before he stopped running and stared. Like she was a dream – a siren risen from the ocean, conjured by his own memories. Was he remembering her?
Had he too been thinking about their time in London? Those blissful, perfect six weeks?
“It’s not even six o’clock,” he muttered, frowning, as if he still didn’t believe she was standing there.
“Do you think you have the monopoly on early mornings?” She volleyed back with an air of impatience.
“You were never a morning person before,” he said, and the reminder of that – the proof that he remembered as many insignificant details as she did, made her stomach flop. He’d never called her before nine o’clock, knowing that she liked to read until the early hours and sleep later in the mornings.
“Well, things change,” she said crisply, thinking of the way Elizabeth’s son Joshua liked to begin his day somewhere around five. Like clockwork, he woke, as bonny as anything, but as wide awake as could be, so that either Elizabeth or Eleanor had to take him into the living room and begin setting up breakfast for him, helping him play with blocks.
Fortunately, he had a divine temperament, so though he was exhausting and seemed to live on hardly any sleep, it was no hardship to spend time with him.
“So now you rise with the sun?” He queried, cynical disbelief obvious.
“Most mornings, yes.”
He shrugged, as though it didn’t matter to him one way or another, and that irritated her more than she could say.
“You’ve been running?” She queried, though it was an unnecessary question: the answer was obvious. He was wearing a pair of black shorts that only covered his legs to mid-thigh, so if she dared to drop her gaze lower she’d be confronted with his powerful trunks of legs, muscular and strong. His shirt was a simple grey in colour and it fitted him firmly enough to show the ridges of his abdomen, a chest she knew to be as beautifully muscled now as it had been three years earlier.
“I run every morning.” He pulled his earphones out without taking his eyes off her.
“I remember,” she said quietly, tearing her gaze away to stare out at the ocean. In the few minutes since leaving his house, the sun had claimed so much more of the sky, kissing pink ribbons into the purple.
“It’s about the only time of day I get to myself,” he said, surprising her by coming to stand at her side, his eyes following the trajectory of hers.
“I remember that too.” She swallowed, hard, as all the memories of all they’d been swarmed around them.
His exhalation of breath was too hard and fast to be a sigh but it had her turning her head towards his, at the same moment he looked at her. Their eyes locked and the magic of the morning seemed to wrap around them.
They didn’t speak, but the air was full of noise – of regrets and thoughts and memories, and it was almost as though they were Apollo and Eleanor as they’d been then. If she smiled, would he smile back?
“Well,” he said gruffly, shifting the mood subtly. “I’m going to go grab a coffee.” He spun on his heel and walked away, his head dipped forward once more. He’d turned his back on her, literally and metaphorically, and she hated it.
Suddenly, she hated the fact that he could do that. She wanted to chase after him and push him to the ground: to make him acknowledge that she was here, with him, and that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so easy for him to get rid of her this time.
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But there was danger in that thought, and danger in those wants, and so she stayed exactly where she was. Watching him disappear, wishing he’d stay, knowing there was no future for them – and accepting that she’d never stop loving him.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE WAITED FOR THE sun to rise fully before risking a return to the house. It wasn’t that she was afraid of seeing him again, just that she wasn’t sure she could manage it before she had a cup of tea under her belt. Or three.
But when she slipped into the enormous gourmet kitchen thirty minutes later, Apollo was settled at the table, his shirt removed, so he wore a simple pair of black shorts. He sat comfortably, as though he had not a care in the world, newspapers spread before him, coffee to one side and an apple the other.
Her gut throbbed with another instant memory – he had an apple and black coffee every morning. The apple he would slice with a bread and butter knife, taking off thin wedges and eating them, without lifting his eyes from the paper.
It was all too familiar. She turned away from him, jabbing her hip on the edge of the kitchen bench in her haste to put some distance between them. She exclaimed softly under her breath but kept moving.
“Are you okay?” He asked, and when she tossed a hasty look over her shoulder, she saw his beautiful moss-green eyes were watching her. Her pulse throbbed.
“Fine. I … mis-stepped.”
His lips twisted and then he returned his attention to the paper.
“I’m just going to make a tea and then I’ll be out of your hair,” she said, the words soft. She hated that she sounded nervous, but with day’s break came a whole new raft of realisations. She saw how impossible this predicament was, how difficult it would be to maintain any kind of equilibrium with a man who continued to occupy such a huge part of her heart space.
She had to get off the island – for her sanity – even when the very idea made her throat thick with something suspiciously like a forewarning of tears.
The Greek's Virgin Captive: She was wrong for him in every way but one... (Evermore Book 2) Page 5