CHAPTER TWELVE
“I KNOW IT wasn’t a major surgery, but you should still be resting today rather than exerting yourself,” Erianthe said, her arm around her mother’s waist on one side and Cailey on the other, helping Hera back into her chair.
Upon her mother’s insistence, and threats to go sailing on her own so soon after her procedure, Erianthe had been forced out onto the Aegean for an early dinner on the deck of her father’s yacht and was now taking care of a stubborn woman who’d stood up too fast and nearly fainted.
“I really don’t think that sitting on a boat, eating food with my daughter and my daughter-in-law counts as exerting myself.”
Hera sighed in such dramatic fashion that Erianthe almost smiled. Her mother had ways of getting what she wanted from Dimitri, and that sigh was one of them. It sounded so long-suffering.
Then she remembered why she’d been made to come out on the boat for dinner: to take her mind off Ares.
And just like that she fell back into the pit.
Edging onto her chair, Erianthe climbed back into the medical knowledge that would raise her far enough out of that pit to say something quasi-cogent.
“General anesthesia stays in the system a long time. And that’s one of the aftereffects.”
“Fainting?”
“Feeling faint when you stand up. Orthostatic hypotension.”
“Erianthe—” there was another long-suffering sigh “—I’m very proud that you know all these things, but none of that means anything to me.”
“When you stand up, your blood pressure requirements are different than when you’re sitting.” Cailey jumped in, saving her. “And it takes a few seconds longer to adjust the blood pressure controls right now. Might be better to sit forward in your chair for a minute before you stand up. Then stand for a few seconds before you walk, just in case you feel woozy.”
“Ah, yes, these are things I can do.” Hera sat forward in the chair, indicating her intention to rise again.
“Mother, give yourself a minute...”
“I’m doing as you both wish, but I have a job to do today, and sitting here won’t see it done.”
“You have a job?” Erianthe repeated, then looked to Cailey, who was suddenly looking everywhere but at her. “Something besides Keeping Erianthe From Moping Over Ares?”
The words flew out before she could think them through, and immediately she wished she could rewind the previous handful of seconds.
“My job today is to get you to the island,” Hera said, then clarified, “The Xenakis island.”
The sofrito she’d eaten curdled in her belly and Erianthe gave up all pretense of keeping up appearances. She slumped in her chair and rubbed her head, because that was sure to keep it from exploding.
“You need to work this out with Ares, sweet child. You don’t get a choice about who you love, and you love him. You have to try to work it out. Not go away again.”
The swiftness and heat in Erianthe’s furious stare made her mother backtrack.
“I know you didn’t want to go away last time. That was my... I didn’t mean that. But you did choose to stay away. I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you again. I want you to be happy.”
“I will be happy. It’s only been a few days. Surely you can’t expect me to be one hundred percent already?”
“Well, no. But you should try again,” her mother insisted, one firm nod backing her words.
“Just because you love someone it doesn’t mean you can live with them. Or that you can live with them without giving up big pieces of yourself.” That last bit might have been pointed at her mother, but it was something Erianthe had been repeating to herself for days as well.
“You had a fight,” her mother argued.
“He’s the one doing the leaving. I left the island just before his ferry got there.” Erianthe’s head started to pound. “He’s probably already on his way to Africa.”
“He’s not,” Cailey said, joining them at the table again.
Erianthe felt the meaning behind Cailey’s words but didn’t know what that meaning was, and she looked past her new sister-in-law instead, because looking into her earnest eyes was too hard.
Just past Cailey’s shoulder she saw it: the Xenakis island. They’d been anchored there eating for nearly an hour, and she’d somehow missed seeing an entire island.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, after both Cailey and Hera had agreed to leave her be about Ares for the rest of forever if she agreed to speak to him one more time, Erianthe found herself being marched around Ares’s villa toward the veranda.
At least they’d dragged her in the opposite direction from Shepherd’s Cottage, so she didn’t have to look at that going in this direction. Small blessing, but that would’ve been so much harder.
The idea of even looking at Ares made her dinner pitch and roll in her belly as if she was still on the freaking boat. Even the ground felt uneven—or her steps were out of sync with what she saw.
She couldn’t do this. How had she gotten roped into this nonsense? Even the idea was beyond ridiculous. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to say to him.
Hi, I’m here to make sure you still don’t want to be with me and still think that you always know best.
No. Just no.
He was the one who’d walked out. He’d walked first—she’d walked second. And he’d made his position clear. He was suffering through the burden of having to do the magnanimous thing that would offer her the least amount of heartache.
Absolute garbage.
Erianthe stopped and looked back at Cailey and her mother. “I changed my mind. Mother, you shouldn’t be walking around so much anyway. Let’s get you back to the boat.”
“There you are! We were afraid the sun would go down before you got here.”
Her father’s booming voice jerked her attention back around, and the idea got worse.
There hadn’t been any extra boats at the docks. If she’d seen her father’s speedboat...
“She’s changed her mind, Dimitri,” Hera said, holding a hand out to her husband.
Which was when Erianthe noticed that her father was dirty and sweaty, and so was the T-shirt he wore—probably the most expensive T-shirt on the planet.
Erianthe could tell by the way they all looked at her how she must look. Some levels of horrified confusion defied concealment or questioning. She wasn’t even going to ask why he was hanging out in filthy clothes.
“Down the hill, koritsi mou. Next terrace.”
Her father’s voice was far gentler than she could ever remember hearing it, and that was what pulled her gaze back to his. That look in his eyes... On anyone else she’d call it regret. Mourning. But on Dimitri Nikolaides she couldn’t trust it.
“What’s on the next terrace?”
“He’s waiting for you.”
Ares was waiting for her?
Wasn’t there somewhere else she needed to be before the sun went down?
She looked toward the sky, finally noticing how late it had gotten—pinks and purples streaked in the direction she traveled.
Whatever was going on in her chest might kill her. Her heart lurched and began to bang around like a wild songbird trying to burst out of its cage.
What did this mean? He’d brought her father here to make up with her? Had they fought? Was that why Dimitri looked like that?
And her mother and Cailey were with her, so was Theo here with Ares?
The lifting feeling in her chest set her feet moving even as her vision filled with water and her lungs burned.
Just off the veranda, Theo rounded the pool. Also filthy. And sweaty. And smiling.
“Finally! He’s sweating.”
All the questions bouncing around at the back of her mind refused to come out, and al
l she managed to say to her big brother was “So are you.”
Score one for the dumbest comeback of all time.
He didn’t tease, for once, just chuckled and stepped out of the way. But she wasn’t ready.
“Why are you both so filthy? Did you murder Ares and bury him under the terrace?”
Theo laughed. “We’ve been—”
“Is that an option?” Dimitri interrupted, far too eagerly.
“Of course it’s not. Be good,” Hera scolded, in that sweet way of hers that rarely evoked obedience in anyone, but for some reason occasionally inspired her father to comply.
“It’s okay,” Cailey said, hugging Erianthe so suddenly her eyes began to sting and fill. “He asked us to convince you to come. Not force you. You don’t have to go down there. But I think you’ll want to.”
That was the right approach. A sense of calm floated down over her and Erianthe nodded, squeezing Cailey tight for a moment before she stepped back.
Releasing Cailey, she rounded the pool and headed toward the terrace below.
A wall of trees planted at the bottom of the stairs served as a windbreak but also broke the view from where she stood.
At the bottom of the stairs she met Deakin and Chris, coming through the opening in the trees and looking exactly like Theo: filthy and smiling.
She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came.
None of them looked angry. No bruises. No cuts. And then Lea came up, looking just like the rest of them—as if she’d been rolling around in the dirt.
For all that Erianthe’s heart was pounding, she still didn’t feel as if she had the oxygen required to walk and talk at the same time. No questions were being allowed by the fear-tinged excitement pulsing through her veins.
And still she stopped and waited.
Deakin, who’d already ambled past her once, came up behind her and stood silently, waiting too.
The look she gave him must have said What are you doing? Because Deakin answered.
“Just making sure you know you don’t have to go anywhere alone if you don’t want to.”
Her chest squeezed and she had to clear her throat, but when her voice came, it was stronger than she’d thought it would be. “Now you’re just trying to make me cry.”
“No. You did it once. And Ares was about to do it again. It needs to be said. To both of you.” Deakin ran his hand over the back of her head, then guided her to lean toward him and kissed her temple. “We’ll be right up there if you need anything.”
He didn’t actually walk away—just waited for her to start and motion to him to stay behind.
It was only a few steps to the opening in the trees, and from there her view of the field opened up.
Lavender shrubs. Set in curving rows. Far larger, and drastically more complicated than those they’d planted on the hill outside the cottage. A new labyrinth. And in the center stood Ares.
Unlike the others, Ares was clean and polished. His hair, still long, was perfectly tied back. And he wore something she’d not seen on him since they were kids: a suit. Lightweight, cream in color, it made his golden tan look even richer. His black eye—still desperately black and purple—stood out sharper because of it.
Not that he seemed to notice. He met her gaze across the field and held it. Maybe half a football field away, he could have called to her if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t. He just looked at her, standing tall. Waiting. Then slowly he looked away from her and to his side, down to the ground where something glowed.
Lights? Fire?
When she met his gaze again, he was holding out one hand to her.
“Go on,” Theo said from close behind her, and then he added, “Or I can walk with you if you’re afraid you might get lost in all those twisting, unnavigable, hair-raising corridors.”
Theo knew how to take a tense, intimidating situation and relieve the pressure. God, it was good to have him back in her life full-time.
“The flowers are about a foot tall.” She played along with his endearing silly ways, his playing the fool to help her—to give her an out if she needed it. To give her courage or just make sure she understood that things had been worked out between the two of them.
There was no way she wasn’t stepping into that labyrinth.
A few quick steps carried her to the entrance, and she turned left for all of about three steps before her patience evaporated. She looked down, considered the flowers, then stepped over the closest row of flowers, and the next.
In less than half a minute she stood at the place where the heart of the labyrinth started, but she went no farther, just sought his gaze.
“That was three days of work by five grown men and Lea—who worked rings around all of us—and you just skipped over it.”
He smiled as he said it, shaking his head, but the warmth she’d missed in his eyes the last time she’d seen him sparkled there, amid the greening bruise fading around his eye.
“Did you really think I’d be able to walk back and forth while I was trying to figure out what was happening in the heart of the labyrinth?”
She didn’t know for sure what was going on in his heart, or with the little candles arranged on the ground behind him, but her own heart was beating hard and fast enough to leave her light-headed, and so full of hope it was all she could do to remain standing.
“No. You’re too...” His gaze tracked slightly to the side as he searched for words.
“Impatient?” she filled in, too energized and focused to wait for him to be eloquent.
“Inquisitive,” he corrected gently, wistfully. “And you’ve been waiting a long time.”
A few steps separated them and he crossed half of them, catching her hand midflutter, drawing attention to the fact that she was fidgeting and gesturing...flapping her hands around.
He brought it to his lips, where he held it for far longer than anything that could be called a kiss. He breathed in and out, slowly, deeply, and his shoulders actually relaxed.
“Wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I got shanghaied by the dread pirates Hera and Cailey.” Warmth spread up her arm and she took a tentative step closer. “They all helped you do this?”
He lowered her hand but didn’t let go. His steady touch and the way he gazed into her eyes made it hard to hold on to the last shreds of her reason.
He spoke. “It was like you said.”
Yes, talk more. Focus on talking.
Simply throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissing him until the relief she’d been craving finally came would be premature. He’d taken action—quite a lot of it, by the look of things—but she needed to hear it to know.
“Theo came back to you?”
“No, but he came when I asked.”
He gave her hand a little tug, so she took the remaining step and came to rest closer than her willpower could stand. His unbuttoned jacket brushed her chest, and she had to crank her head back to look up at him.
“Do you know the urges I’m fighting right now?” he asked huskily.
She made a sound of agreement, her gaze falling to his mouth.
“But I need to say a few dozen things first.”
“I need to hear at least a few dozen things first,” she echoed, then made herself look him in the eye again. “And I might not want to kiss you after you’re finished.”
There was a frown in his eyes, but he agreed. “You might not.”
She knew her words were empty. She couldn’t even picture a day when she wouldn’t want to kiss him. She could picture a few really good reasons why she would resist that desire, but if she was going to resist, she had to do something else. His hand in hers was invigorating, but she needed more contact.
Lifting his hand, she ducked and twirled under it so she could press her back against him and wrap that capt
ured arm around her waist. Removing the temptation that facing him brought—or at least diminishing it.
Ares didn’t argue, didn’t need an explanation of her impromptu dance move, just followed and wrapped his other arm around her too, pulling her close until the solid heat of him seeped into her back.
“This doesn’t mean we’re sorted out.” Erianthe found the strength, and some small reserve of fear, to allow her at least that much clarity.
“I know,” he answered, his voice at her ear holding a hint of humor that recalled the last time he’d said those words to her and she’d called him on it. Then he added, “I owe you words.”
His lips pressed to the top of her shoulder, to the scrap of flesh bared by the scooped neck of her coral blouse. Tingles ran from his lips up over her neck, down over her chest, energizing her enough to tease. “Pay up.”
“We met at Deakin’s...” he began, his warm breath fanning her neck. “I didn’t think it would work out, but I needed to try. If for no other reason than so I could tell myself that I’d done everything I could this time.”
“How did that go?”
She’d keep asking questions because it would help ensure her focus was fixed on what he said, letting her stay in the moment without listening to her body or her heart, which wanted to hurtle much farther ahead. Her head understood that although these were good words he was saying, he had said good words before—and then later screwed them up so hard they might as well have never been said.
“It was a pretty intense conversation—which only really got going after Lea, the insightful one, got us past the stage where we were just grumbling back and forth.”
The way they stood kept the candles out of her sight but let her watch the last shreds of sunlight over the rings and rows of fragrant flowers, and somehow it imparted a serenity she couldn’t remember feeling—something peaceful and soothing and whole.
“I won’t ask if you came to any conclusions because...” She nodded to the flowers. “But could you talk about this?”
The growing dark made the candles a little harder to ignore, but that was for another round of questions. She loved the labyrinth, but she loved the man more.
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