by Abby Green
Physical desire was like a tight knot inside Apollo, winding tighter and tighter. But along with the physical desire was something else, something far more disturbing. A sense of yearning…a need to replace the hollow ache in his chest. An ache he’d ignored for a long time. An ache he couldn’t keep ignoring around her.
With her questions that struck at the heart of him: Why did you buy an island?
A sense of desperation gripped him now. This was just about sex. Nothing more. By the time Sophy had picked up her shoes and come off the dance floor Apollo was standing up to meet her.
He took her hand. ‘Ready to go?’
She must have seen something of the urgency he was feeling because her eyes darkened and she nodded wordlessly.
Apollo paid his respects to the bride and groom and drove them back to his villa. All was quiet and hushed on this side of the island, only the faintest sounds of the revelry carrying on the light breeze. Sophy’s feet were still bare.
They got out of the car and Apollo held out his hand for her. Sophy didn’t hesitate. She took Apollo’s hand and let him lead her into the villa, dropping her shoes on the way. The need to replace feelings he didn’t welcome with the physical reminder of what was between them was overwhelming.
Sophy let Apollo lead her to his room. It was illuminated by moonlight. Standing in front of him, the lingering tipsiness from the wine made her bold. She moved forward and pushed Apollo’s jacket off. It fell to the floor.
Then he undid his buttons and opened his shirt, pushing it off his broad shoulders. His chest was wide and powerful. She couldn’t resist touching him, running her hands over his skin. His muscles tensed under her fingers and she felt powerful.
He reached for her hair and undid her bun, letting her hair fall down around her bare shoulders. She shivered at the sensation.
He caught her face in his hands and tilted it up to him. His features were stark with need and her insides clenched in reaction. There was something else there, some indefinable emotion. Instinctively Sophy touched his jaw with her hand. ‘Apollo? Are you okay?’
Something expressive crossed his face for a second and then it was gone. Replaced by pure unadulterated need. ‘I’m fine. I just want you. Now.’
She hesitated for a moment, because she sensed that there was some sort of internal battle being fought, but the clamour of her own blood drowned out the need to know. She turned around and pulled her hair over one shoulder, offering him her back. His hands came to the zip at the top of the dress and pulled it down, knuckles grazing the bare skin of her back.
The dress loosened from around her breasts and then fell to her waist. She pushed it off over her hips and it fell at her feet. Now she wore only her underwear.
Apollo came close behind her and she sucked in a breath when she realised that he was totally naked. His arms came around her, hands finding and closing over her breasts. Massaging them, teasing her tight nipples.
Instinctively she moved against him, and she heard an almost feral-sounding growl. Apollo turned her to face him and the electricity crackled between them. Urgency spiked.
He led her over to the bed and she lay down. He reached for her underwear, pulling them down and off. He came over her, all rippling muscles and sleek olive-toned skin. She opened her legs to him, and he settled between them as if they’d done this dance down through lifetimes and not just in this one.
Sophy lifted her hips towards him, her small hand seeking to wrap around his rigid flesh, bringing his head close to where her body ached for him. For an infinitesimal moment he was poised there on the brink and then he took her hand away and joined their bodies with one powerful thrust.
She was so ready for him. She could feel her inner muscles clamping around him in a pre-orgasmic rush of sensation.
There was no time for slow lovemaking. It was fast and furious, both racing for the pinnacle and reaching it at the same incandescent moment, bodies entwined and locked together in an explosion of pleasure that went on and on. Sophy wasn’t even aware of Apollo extricating himself from her embrace or of the way he stood up from the bed and looked at her for a long moment.
A week later, Apollo looked at Sophy across the dinner table that had been set on the terrace of the villa. She was talking to Olympia and the older woman’s face was wreathed in smiles as she showed Sophy pictures on her phone of her newest grandchild.
Apollo marvelled at how he had been so blinkered by Sasha’s deviousness that he hadn’t noticed how different this woman was.
People responded to Sophy because she was open and kind. Polite. She was also sexy and utterly addictive. During the past week, Apollo had effectively shut out the world to gorge himself on this woman. But her appeal wasn’t waning at all, or burning out. It was burning hotter. Becoming stronger.
He’d been ignoring calls from his office in Athens, to the point where his executive assistant had turned up on Krisakis today to speak to him personally. A visit that had broken him out of the haze of desire, shattering the illusion that he didn’t have to engage with the outside world.
An image inserted itself into his mind—Sophy laughing and dancing with the other women at the wedding. The way seeing her like that had opened a great gaping chasm of yearning inside him. A yearning he’d had to eclipse by making love to her like a starving man. A yearning that lingered and caught at him under his skin. Chafing. Unwelcome.
A yearning that had made him careless. For a second time. Something he’d effectively blocked out all week. He was losing control, letting her in too deep.
Olympia was walking away with their plates now and Sophy looked at Apollo, her smile fading at the expression on his face. ‘What is it?’
A stone weight made his chest feel tight. But he ignored it. ‘We need to talk.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOPHY FOLLOWED APOLLO into his study, her insides in a knot. He’d been distracted since his assistant had visited earlier. There was a spectacular view of the ocean and vast sky, which was currently a glorious pink and lavender colour. But that faded into insignificance behind the man dominating the space.
Apollo rested on the edge of his desk, hands by his hips. Hips that Sophy could remember holding only a few short hours before as he’d—
She blurted out a question to try and distract herself from memories of a week spent indulging in the pursuit of sensual oblivion. ‘What is it, Apollo?’
But she already knew. It skated across her skin like a cold breeze. In fact, she’d been aware of it all week, even if she hadn’t acknowledged it. The real world was waiting, just in the wings.
Even so, she wasn’t prepared when he said tightly, ‘When we made love…after the wedding, I didn’t use protection that night. I told you I wouldn’t be careless again but I was.’
Sophy’s insides went into freefall. She hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t even thought about it afterwards.
Faintly she said, ‘It wasn’t just your fault. I should have been careful too.’ It had been the last thing on her mind during that conflagration. Or during this week, when it had felt like their world had been reduced to this villa, this island. Apollo’s bed.
You didn’t want to think about anything that would burst the bubble.
No, she hadn’t. She’d deliberately shied away from thinking about anything that might break the idyll. She’d let the fantasy become her reality. And now she would pay.
She almost put a hand on her belly but closed it into a fist. She said, ‘It’s okay. I’m at a safe place in my cycle. I’m sure of it.’
Apollo seemed to absorb that, and then he said, ‘My assistant brought your personal things today, including your passport. And Sasha’s body is ready for repatriation. My office will arrange everything for her funeral if you just give them the necessary information of where you want her buried.’
The cold breeze turned to ice in Sophy
’s belly. ‘That won’t be necessary, I can do all that.’
‘I insist. She was my wife, after all. You won’t have to worry about costs.’
Sophy swallowed. ‘When do we leave?’
‘Leander, my assistant, is still on the island, staying in the town. He will come for you in the morning and you will travel back to Athens with him, and then on to London with your sister. You’ll be met by an assistant from my London office on the other side, they’ll help you make further arrangements.’
Sophy searched for a hint of anything on Apollo’s face or in his eyes, but he’d retreated somewhere she couldn’t reach. She’d noticed it when he’d arrived for dinner—when he’d avoided her eye. He’d been shut up in his office with his assistant for most of the afternoon.
‘You won’t be coming back to Athens?’
‘Not just yet. I have some meetings here on the island to do with the construction and I’ll travel back the following day.’
A sharp pain lanced her insides.
Her heart.
And also a sense of panic.
As if reading her every passing emotion, Apollo said, ‘My assistant in London will make sure you’re looked after, Sophy. You won’t be left alone.’
If there was one thing Sophy wouldn’t be able to bear, it was Apollo’s pity or that she was a responsibility to be dealt with. ‘That really won’t be necessary. I can go back to the flat I shared with Sasha. I’ll…be fine.’
Apollo stood up. ‘Leander will be here before ten a.m.’
Sophy looked at him, in shock at the speed and efficiency with which he was apparently willing to dispatch her.
‘So that’s it, then?’
His face tightened. ‘I think it’s for the best. There’s no point in prolonging something that we both know is at an end.’
Sophy felt emotion swelling inside her. If she’d known the last time she’d made love to Apollo was to be the last time, she would have imprinted every second onto her memory. ‘You mean, something that never should have started.’
‘Sophy…’ he said warningly.
But a volatile mix of hurt, anger and fear made her say, ‘The truth is that something happened between us that first night, we had a connection, and I think you used my virginity as an excuse to kick me out. To deny it.’
‘You were inexperienced. Naive. I wasn’t prepared to let you believe it would ever become something more than just sex.’
‘Well, I think it was about you just as much as it might have been about me.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I think you’re an emotional coward, Apollo. I understand why it’s hard for you to trust again. But I’ve lost my family too and I don’t want to shut my emotions up for ever.’
A muscle pulsed in Apollo’s jaw. ‘Which is why I said to you that you’ll go on to meet someone and have a family some day. You want more, Sophy. I don’t.’
Sophy felt something inside her crack and break. ‘I think you’re a liar, Apollo. I think you do want more, but you’re too scared to admit it.’
Or maybe he just doesn’t want more with you.
Her insides curdled at that thought. Maybe Apollo would trust his heart again some day. When he met someone he couldn’t walk away from, or shut out.
He opened his mouth but Sophy held up her hand, terrified to hear Apollo spell out that it just wasn’t her who could crack the ice around his heart.
Now who’s the coward? mocked a voice.
Sophy pushed it down.
‘It’s fine, Apollo.’ She lowered her hand. ‘It wasn’t as if you weren’t clear about what this was. I’ll be ready for Leander in the morning.’
Apollo watched Sophy turn to walk out of his study. At the last moment he blurted out her name. She turned around.
She said nothing. Her face was expressionless. Perversely, Apollo wanted to provoke a reaction.
‘You’ll let me know if there are any consequences?’
Her face leached of colour. ‘You mean a baby?’
Now that he’d got the reaction he just felt hollow. He nodded.
Her mouth was tight. ‘I told you, there won’t be. I’m sure of it.’
She turned and this time left the room.
Apollo had nothing more to say.
To stop her from leaving.
He was so rigid with tension that he thought he might crack if he moved. Theos. Did he want there to be consequences? After everything that had happened?
Her words reverberated in his head, a mocking jeer.
‘I think you’re a liar, Apollo… I think you do want more…’
He turned around and stared blindly at the view. She was wrong. He didn’t want more. He had decided a long time ago what kind of life he wanted and he wasn’t about to let one woman change that.
One woman was no match for the demons that haunted him, reminding him of a loss and pain so great he thought he’d have preferred to die with them all.
All he felt for Sophy was physical lust. Nothing more. And that would fade. No matter how much it still burnt him up inside.
As Sophy’s flight from Athens descended through stormy summer skies into London, she took in the unseasonably grey clouds. They mirrored her mood. Volatile.
She was angry with herself for having fallen for Apollo. For having revealed herself so much during that last exchange in his study.
The anger was good—it was insulating her from the sheer terror of stepping back out into a fast-paced world after living in a cocoon for these past few weeks. She knew that not far under the anger her shell was very brittle and fragile.
She had a sister to grieve and a life to re-start. A job to find because, as expected, when she’d rung them from Athens the day before, she’d found out that her position had been filled once she’d disappeared. The fact that they’d been so wholly unconcerned about her disappearance only compounded her sense of isolation now. Sophy shook her head, trying to dislodge that sense of isolation.
She put a hand on her flat belly. She’d not even noticed that they hadn’t used protection that night a week ago. But Apollo had. She was sure there wouldn’t be a baby and she hated herself for the hollow ache that thought precipitated.
Did she really want history to repeat itself, except this time with a real baby?
The plane had touched down. She lifted her hand from her belly. It was time to mourn and bury her sister and try to get on with her life and forget she’d ever met Apollo Vasilis.
Two weeks later, just outside London
‘Let us go now in peace.’
Sophy stood by the grave for a moment. She was the only mourner at her sister’s funeral. She’d told a few of Sasha’s friends but they’d said they were too busy to come.
Sophy was sad, and a little angry—for her sister, in spite of her faults, had deserved better.
She had only barest sensation of prickling on the back of her neck before she heard the priest say, ‘Welcome, sir. We’ve just finished the prayers.’
Sophy looked up and at first she thought she was hallucinating. Apollo looked taller and darker than she’d ever seen him. In a dark grey suit, white shirt and steel-grey tie. Dark shades hid his eyes.
Faintly, she said, ‘Apollo…’
He dipped his head. ‘Sophy.’ He looked at the priest. ‘Father.’
The priest came and took Sophy’s arm. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry. If you ever need to talk, you know where I am.’
Sophy tried to control her suddenly thundering heart. ‘Thank you, Father.’
The priest walked away, leaving them alone by the grave. Sophy said, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
Apollo’s jaw tightened. ‘I had always intended coming but I got delayed. She was my wife…however that came about.’
Sophy clamped down o
n the dangerous spurt of gratitude and something far more dangerous.
Hope.
‘Thank you for your help in organising this.’
‘It was nothing. I’ll leave you for a moment.’
Apollo walked away and Sophy could see her own funeral limousine and then Apollo’s blacked-out SUV. The drivers were talking. Apollo was standing at a respectable distance to give her some time. A gesture that made her feel surprisingly emotional.
She turned her back on him and said a few silent words to Sasha. The last few weeks she’d had to think about a lot of things and her relationship with her sister had been one of them. There was a certain sense of liberation now, but as much as that made Sophy feel guilty, she was also sad that it had had to come at the cost of her sister’s life.
Her parents were buried in the same graveyard and Sophy walked the short distance to where they rested in their own plot, laying a flower on their grave.
Then she steeled herself to face Apollo. She turned around, aware of her sober black suit. It was actually the same skirt and shirt she’d been wearing the night she’d met him, and a black jacket. She’d put her hair up in a bun. She felt plain and unvarnished next to his effortless good looks when she walked towards him, where he stood under a tree.
She couldn’t see his eyes but she could feel them on her and her skin prickled. She stopped a couple of feet away. He straightened up from the tree.
‘Was the other grave your parents’?’
She nodded.
Then he said, ‘Can we go somewhere to talk?’
The thought of being alone with him when she felt so raw made her blurt out, ‘We can talk here.’
Apollo shuddered visibly. ‘If it’s okay with you, I’ve seen enough of graveyards to last me a lifetime.’
She felt a pang in her heart; so had she, come to think of it. She feigned nonchalance. ‘Fine…where were you thinking?’
