Her pulse was thick and fast in her veins. “Maybe I was different.”
“Yes.” He said with a touch of fury. “You’re by far the most manipulative, dishonest bitch of a woman I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
She stumbled backwards at the furious epithet, until her back connected with the cold stone wall. But he wasn’t done.
“You lied to me with every breath you took and then you used what I’d told you to destroy my father’s life and legacy. That article will forever be associated with him – never mind all the good he achieved in his lifetime. Your stupid, invasive article will be on every internet search for anyone who chooses to type his name. You wrote an article for the sake of amusement and titillation and you destroyed an old man in the process. You damned well nearly destroyed his business too. And now you think you can come here and what? Do exactly the same to my sister? Or to the Sheikh – who happens to be one of my best friends?”
Eleanor could barely catch her breath. “This piece will be restricted to political observations.”
His snort was scathing.
“I mean it! I’m reporting on the importance of the royal heir…”
“My nephew.”
She bit down on her lip, something about the phrase so utterly humanizing that she saw a glimpse of Apollo as he’d been before. As he’d been three years ago when they were falling in love and everything had seemed so much simpler.
“In an abstract sense, yes. But the article won’t hurt… I haven’t written anything like that piece since I left The Crier.”
Another snort, this time rich with disbelief.
“I mean it! You can have a look online and see – I give gossip and cheap speculation a wide berth these days, believe me.”
“Believe you? Not for a billion dollars.”
She tried not to show how much his words had hurt, but they clawed into her soul like rabid tigers.
“That’s your prerogative,” she said with her head held as high as she could muster. “But now, I really must be getting back to work.”
Apollo’s laugh was almost genuine. He dragged a hand over his jaw and shook his head, fixing her once more with his direct gaze. “You aren’t going anywhere near my sister, nor her husband. You aren’t staying in this country or this palace for another hour.”
Eleanor’s mouth gaped while she tried to collect her thoughts.
Taking advantage of her palpable surprise, Apollo curved a palm around her elbow and began to guide her down the stairs. But at the first landing, she whipped around, pulling out of his touch.
“Stop. You can’t be serious about this! I’m sorry for what I did three years ago, Apollo. If I could take it back, I would. But my feeling sorry doesn’t equate to you getting to frog-march me out of the palace. I’m here with a valid work license, and you have no authority here – not over me, or anyone.”
“True,” he said, so smoothly that for a second she was mollified. “But my brother-in-law’s authority is absolute and you had better believe he despises you as much as I do.”
Eleanor’s stomach squeezed tight. The Sheikh of Ras el Kida was young and vibrant, but there was an inherent power to him that made Apollo’s statement disconcerting.
“He adores my sister and would put you in prison before he let you cause her a moment’s harm or worry.”
Now Eleanor began to tremble properly. “Ras el Kida is a civilized country,” she said weakly. “I have rights…”
“Regardless of what you might think about this country’s ‘civilisation’, Raffa is not a man to let anyone harm his family – and you’ve already done plenty of that.”
“I told you, I’m not here to hurt your sister…”
“That’s not something I find easy to believe.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But if you’d prefer, I can take you to Raffa to plead your case.”
Eleanor’s body sagged. “You can’t be serious?”
“Why ever not? You’re only writing a harmless political piece, after all. He could give you an interview…”
“Stop it,” she said.
“Or,” Apollo continued with a thread of danger in his voice, “He might put you in prison and throw away the key.”
Eleanor swept her eyes shut and now, she recognized the futility of her predicament. She wouldn’t be able to stay in Ras el Kida any longer. She’d have to go. “Fine,” she muttered, her eyes unknowingly bleak when they met his. “I’ll leave.”
“You think I’d simply let you walk away from this?”
“What do you mean?”
“After everything you did, you think I’d trust you? You’ve been working on this piece for God knows how long – no way do you get to ride off into the sunset and churn out some harmful, vindictive rubbish about Chloe and Raf.”
She resisted the temptation to tell him she wasn’t writing anything harmful at all – he clearly wasn’t going to believe her. “Well, you’ve made it pretty darned obvious I can’t stay here, so where do you expect me to go.”
“You’re coming with me,” he growled. “And you’re staying with me until I can be sure you’ve given up any idea of ever writing another word about me, my family, or anyone remotely connected to us. Got it?”
Eleanor shook her head, so that her dark brown hair fell from behind the head scarf she wore. “No. Never.”
Apollo’s eyes met the challenge in hers. “That wasn’t an invitation.”
“And my answer wasn’t negotiable. I’ll leave the palace. I’ll go back to England. But I wouldn’t go anywhere with you – even if my life depended on it.”
“Perhaps I’m not making myself clear,” Apollo murmured with a dangerous edge to the words. “If you do not come with me, I’ll turn you and your recording device over to the next guard we see. Treason is a very serious offence here. I wasn’t kidding about Raffa locking you up and throwing away the key – and he’d do so with the full support of his government.”
Her breathing was uneven and she reached for the railing to steady herself. “You don’t mean any of this. You’re angry about the article, and I understand that. I really do. But threatening me now is beneath you, Apollo. You’re bluffing.”
“You’re welcome to test that theory.”
She couldn’t see clearly – she had no idea what to say or do. Though Ras el Kida was progressive, their royalty was an institution that the people guarded with their lives, and Eleanor didn’t really doubt that her presence would be punishable under some law or another – despite how innocent her intentions were. But would Apollo really dob her in?
“I don’t believe you,” she said weakly, after several tense moments.
“Then walk away and see how far you get.”
She closed her eyes, her body aching, her mind numb. Silence stretched between them, but it was heavy with acceptance. Because she couldn’t call his bluff – she didn’t dare.
“Where would you send me?”
His look was one of triumph; it flared in his eyes and made her ache to say something, anything, to pull the plug on his gloating look of success.
“You don’t need to know where. Just be grateful I’m getting you out of this country before anyone discovers who you really are.”
CHAPTER TWO
“KEEP YOUR HEADSCARF ON,” Apollo muttered, a hand in the small of her back, guiding her across the palace courtyard, towards a fleet of expensive vehicles. As they neared a guard, Eleanor’s pulse ratcheted up at least a dozen gears, so that she was a throbbing mess of pounding blood.
She did as he said, arranging the scarf around her hair and cheeks, keeping her head dipped forward as an added precaution. It wasn’t as though the sight of her should alert anyone as to her true reason for coming to the kingdom, but Eleanor wasn’t a fool. Apollo had put the fear of God into her heart with his threat and suddenly she was desperate to be away from this palace and this Kingdom, before anyone discovered her ruse.
“What were you thinking?” Apollo asked wit
h a shake of his head as they came closer to some guards. “You must have known the risks involved here…”
Eleanor hadn’t thought about anything other than Apollo – she hadn’t thought about the fact that the Sheikh and his wife knew who Eleanor was – and had every reason to think as ill of her as Apollo did. She thought only of Apollo, and of her desire to prove to herself that she was over him completely – and over her shame at what she’d done.
“I was only supposed to be here two days. I didn’t think …”
“That’s damned obvious,” he interrupted, sending her a scathing look. “Now, be quiet.”
They drew up beside the guards and if they were at all surprised to see their Sheikha’s brother escorting a servant from the palace, they knew better than to voice that to Apollo.
He spoke in effortless Ras el Kidan, and Eleanor had only a passing grasp on the language – tourist phrases, at best, so she had no choice but to stand mutely beside him, hoping that he wasn’t, in fact, doing as he’d threatened and dobbing her in.
Her heart was in her throat, fear spreading through her veins, but it wasn’t really fear of what Apollo might say or do.
She had loved him and she had trusted him and nothing had changed for Eleanor with the passage of time. She couldn’t simply cease to trust him now, just because he obviously despised her.
“This way.” He guided her to a car at the top of the line. The guard pulled the door open and Eleanor held her breath, anxiety taking over her central nervous system.
“In,” Apollo commanded, and she wondered then how she’d never seen this autocratic side of him before.
Their relationship hadn’t been like that – it hadn’t been defined by his dominance or her subservience. They’d simply fit together – as equals.
She suppressed a moan of despair as she did as he’d said, sliding into the back of the beautiful limousine.
There was no opportunity to catch her breath. Apollo was right behind her, his broad frame making the spacious interior seem crowded and confined.
Any comment Eleanor might have made was swallowed by the ferocious look on his face.
He was furious – furious with her, full of hatred and rage. And the worst part was, she couldn’t blame him.
She snapped her seatbelt into place and stared out of the window with a sinking heart. The article hadn’t been written by her, in the end, but Eleanor could still recite it word for word. She’d read it with a mixture of outrage and despair.
The details of Stavros Heranedes’s many marriages, many affairs; his predilection for women who were barely over eighteen, his habit of recording his sexual encounters without his partners’ permission. These were all details that, while salacious, Eleanor had never had any intention of using. So why the hell had she made the notes? Why hadn’t she let Apollo unburden himself and be done with it?
He’d been speaking to her as a man to a woman, as a man who wanted to – no, needed to – unload, and damn it, she should have left it at that.
But her training was ingrained. She recorded everything, even when she’d had no intention of using it. What an idiotic decision!
“I was very sorry to hear about Stavros,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes, so not seeing the intensity of his stare, the way his gaze roamed her face as though he might find answers there to questions he didn’t know how to pose.
“I told you, I don’t want to hear your apologies. I don’t want to talk about my father with you.”
Silence resumed, save for the low, enigmatic purr of the car’s engine. She watched the view through the window change as the car slid away from the palace, towards the city, and at the last moment, detouring towards the airport.
He was doing what he’d promised – taking her away. Getting her out of this country before anyone could learn who she was.
It was a kindness, she supposed, and more than she had any right to expect from him.
“Where are we going to?” She risked a look at him now and caught his face in a brooding scowl.
He didn’t speak, so she wondered if he’d even heard her.
“Apollo?”
He dragged his flinty stare to her eyes. “Somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”
A frisson of warning ran down her spine. “You don’t need to… “
“I need to make sure you don’t write another word about my family.”
“I told you, it’s not about your family. It’s a political piece, about the state of Ras el Kida, the changes that a new heir will bring…”
“I don’t believe you,” he said with a shake of his head.
Sadness punctured Eleanor’s heart. His cynicism was only natural. “So what do you intend to do? Kidnap me?”
His brows shot up and then he smiled, but it was a smile devoid of any humour or pleasure. “Until I think of another solution.”
The car drew to a halt and a quick look out the window revealed they were on a tarmac, a sleek jet in front of them bearing the insignia of H.E – Heranedes Enterprises.
“Apollo.” The word was a strained husk. “Just send me home…”
A muscle throbbed in the base of his jaw and then one of the passenger doors was pulled open. “I wish I could, believe me.”
He stepped out of the car, so Eleanor was alone, and she sat there, breathing in, trying to find a sense of calm when her insides were swimming with doubts and confusions. Fear, as well, because she was leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
But what choice did she have?
Apollo held all the trump cards and he was using them with ruthless efficiency. If she refused to go with him, there was a guard behind the wheel of the car. She was still in Ras el Kida, with her assignment notes on the digital recorder in her pocket. The risks were as real here as they had been at the palace.
She had to leave the country – no matter where she ended up. It wasn’t like Eleanor hadn’t had to dig herself out of messes before – she’d manage to do so again.
Steeling her nerves, she slid from the car, refusing to show an ounce of the emotional trepidation that had settled in her gut.
Apollo was angry with her, but she knew the truth at the centre of his being: he was a good man, and he would make good decisions. He couldn’t help but do so – it was who he was.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her, his eyes pinning her as though she were an errant, runaway puppy and he the master. Impatient, scolding, bored.
He didn’t speak as she passed him, but he didn’t need to. His disapproval hit her like a wave.
She held the railing for support as she moved into the plane, her stomach flopping the whole way. Inside was everything she could have imagined. She’d seen inside his lifestyle, she’d had a taste of the glamor and luxury that enveloped him at every turn – from the two-story penthouse in Knightsbridge to the chauffeured Range Rover that took him all over London, to the impossibly fine silk sheets and the gourmet meals his personal chef prepared: Apollo Heranedes was nothing if not used to the very finest things in life, and this jet was further confirmation of that. It was the shape of a normal, commercial airline, but where rows and rows of seats would usually be, there were comfortable white leather armchairs. The carpet was cream, giving the plane the sense of a very pleasant living room.
“This way,” he murmured, stalking through the body of the plane and wrenching open a door that led to yet another corridor. Several rooms came off it on either side and, her investigative curiosity leaped to the fore, so that she couldn’t help looking in each room they passed.
The first two were both offices – with large timber desks, comfortable chairs and shelves. There was a cinema room next, and a bathroom behind it, and then two bedrooms, each equipped with what looked to be a king-size bed and armchair.
“You may use this room while on board,” he said, without meeting her eyes. That same muscle jerked in his jaw and she ached to push up on to the tips of her toes and kiss it, to kiss him, to ta
ste him.
The temptation caught her by surprise and she tamped down it instantly. Foolish, futile longing – if only she’d been strong enough to ignore it in the first place!
“Apollo,” she said quietly.
He still didn’t drop his gaze.
“Why won’t you look at me?” She asked. “Can’t you bare the sight of me?”
Slowly, he did as she’d asked, lowering his expressive green eyes to her face, and running them across her features as though he’d been dying to do so for years.
“No.” It was a plea – a husky admonition. “I never wanted to see you again.”
Eleanor understood that, but suddenly she found it unbearable to know that he thought so ill of her.
“My editor wrote that piece,” she said urgently. “I quit and he took my research, used it to patch together what he could.”
It felt so good to unburden herself of that – to confess what she’d wanted to tell him for years. To say what she’d tried to tell him when it had all happened, and he’d refused to speak to her.
“I know.” The words were dragged from deep in his soul but they shook her to the core.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think I didn’t try to sue the paper? To sue everyone?” His expression was grim. “My lawyers subpoenaed your paper, the article. I knew you’d quit.”
“When?” She asked breathily, desperate now to understand.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a gruff shake of his head.
“How can you say that? You know I quit, that I realized I couldn’t publish the article. You know I never meant to hurt you…”
“For God’s sake,” he said loudly, and then swept his eyes shut, while bringing his temper under control. “We subpoenaed everything, Eleanor. Everything. I saw your notes, all those meticulous recordings of conversations I believed to be utterly private.” He took a step away from her, out into the corridor of the plane, his hands on his hips, his head dipped forward in a strangely defeated gesture for a man such as Apollo Heranedes. “I bared my soul to you, and you were just using me.”
The Greek's Virgin Captive: She was wrong for him in every way but one... (Evermore Book 2) Page 2
