“I don’t know if we have tea,” he said. “But Carlotta is going to the mainland today. If you make a list, she’ll pick up anything you require.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Eleanor said stiffly. “I won’t be here much longer.”
She flicked the kettle on despite his proclamation, simply for something to do.
“A week or so should do it,” he said silkily, and Eleanor stiffened. She walked towards what she presumed was a pantry, pulling open the doors and staring at its contents without taking a single detail in.
“Surely not,” she clipped. “You’ve made your point. I’ll turn down the article on Ras el Kida.” A wave of panic spread through her at the very real implications of that – the money she’d lose if she didn’t write it. She’d been researching a charity in Ethiopia that had political aspirations. Perhaps she could focus on that article and see if anyone was interested in publishing it?
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” he murmured, and he was right behind her, so his words were so much closer than she’d expected. A fine veil of goosebumps ran over her flesh but she refused to react.
“I told you: I won’t. I meant it.”
“There’s no harm in keeping you here for extra insurance, is there?”
No harm? Being here with him was the definition of harmful: there was risk in every look, every thought.
“I have to get home,” she said, without answering him directly.
“Why?”
“Because it’s my home,” she spun around impatiently, and now he was right there, so that his naked torso was tantalizingly close to her own chest. She sucked in a breath, forcing herself to breathe normally, to stay calm, when a fever of desire was raging in her blood.
“You don’t ever go on vacation?” He asked, with his trademark insufferable, impeccable logic.
“This is hardly what I’d call a vacation.”
“No?” He gestured towards the windows, and the view beyond. The sun, traitorous wretch, was higher in the sky now, showcasing the spectacular location with a smugness Eleanor was just irrational enough to find irritating.
“It’s a nice island, I’ll give you that. But I’m here as your captive, remember? That kind of takes the fun out of it.”
His eyes narrowed and a brow lifted skeptically, and then, the mood shifted. Suddenly she was imagining ways in which they could make this a lot more fun. Ways that would involve him, her, and their bodies in unison.
She took a step back, colliding with the pantry door, so that he muttered something and laughed at the same time. “I don’t remember you being so clumsy.”
“I didn’t used to be in such a hurry to get away from you.”
It sobered him and she was instantly remorseful. He nodded slowly, exhaling, so that his breath whispered across her forehead.
“I need you to stay,” he said seriously, as he might address a colleague at work. “I appreciate it’s not ideal, but I can’t risk that you won’t keep your word.” There was pain in his expression. “I can’t go through it again, especially not with Chloe.”
She swept her eyes closed, understanding and hating it. “I promise you --,”
“Don’t.” He lifted a finger to her lips. “Don’t make a promise that you may not keep.”
The contact seared her. She opened her mouth against her will, a sharp little inhalation escaping at the intimacy of his gesture. Her knees felt weak and her stomach was in knots.
His eyes held hers and he dropped his finger, slowly, but stayed so close that their bodies were almost touching. His hand ran lower, dropping to their sides, but then, he curved his fingers around her wrist, lifting her hand higher, so he could look at it.
Eleanor watched him, her heart in her mouth, incapable of speech or movement.
“Is there someone who’ll be worried about you? Waiting for you?”
And the she realized: he was looking for a wedding ring. Her chest was sore with the speed of her heartbeat.
“No. Yes.” His head whipped around, his eyes interrogating her. He was jealous! She saw the emotion and recognized it instantly – and it brought her no pleasure.
“My sister,” she added quickly, and was rewarded with the relaxation of his features.
“Elizabeth?” He asked, and surprise was a fire in her veins.
The fact he remembered her twin’s name pleased Eleanor. “Yes.”
“No one else?”
He was asking her outright now, wanting to know if there was a man in her life. She could have lied to him; there would have been safety in that lie. A fib to protect them both from the cliff’s edge that they seemed to be racing towards.
“Eleanor?” It was a plea, and she understood his desperation. Her back was against the pantry, and he was so close that she was trapped, and yet a single word now could change everything. If she told him she was seeing someone, he’d stop. He’d walk away. Because Apollo Heranedes was as honourable as they came.
“There’s no one else,” she husked, her eyes glued to his as though held by the force of all the moons and magnets in the universe.
“Dóxa to Theó.” He stared at her for several more seconds and she held her breath, hoping, waiting, needing him to kiss her. Knowing they both wanted it, and wishing she were brave enough to lift up onto the tips of her toes and press her lips to his.
Three years ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice. She would have kissed him and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he would have lifted her to him, holding her tight.
But that might as well have been a lifetime ago.
“No boyfriend?”
She shook her head.
“I wondered about that,” he said softly. “I don’t imagine you were single for long, after I left.” A muscle jerked in his throat. “I hated you.” The words were like shards of glass in the warmth of that moment. “But I hated the thought of anyone else touching you. Making you laugh. Watching you wake up. Making you tea.”
Tears danced on Eleanor’s lashes but she didn’t bother to blink them away. She wanted to tell him that there’d been no one, but she already felt so vulnerable. So raw and exposed. “That’s mutual,” she said instead, but now, finally, she did drag her eyes away, staring at a point over his shoulder. “Unfortunately, your exploits were well-documented. I didn’t have to wonder, for long, if you’d forgotten all about me.”
His lips half-lifted in a smile. “Being photographed with another woman does not mean I forgot you.”
“Moved on from me, then.”
“Does it seem like I’ve moved on?”
Eleanor’s heart juddered. “We’re both trapped by this,” she said with a shake of her head. “And it seems like you resent that.”
“Of course I damn well resent it.” He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek then and she allowed her face to soften into his embrace, just for a short moment. She’d be strong again soon. “I wished I hadn’t met you. That I hadn’t loved you. I told myself you were an illusion; that the woman I’d fallen in love with was nothing more than a mirage on the horizon. So sweet and innocent, so lovely and funny.” He swore under his breath. “Yet here I am. I know what you are,” his brow furrowed. “I know what you’re capable of. And still I want you with the force of a thousand suns. What kind of fool does that make me?”
Now a small sob shifted from her lips, so his eyes dropped to her parted mouth, tracing the pale pink outline, and it was like a phantom kiss.
She needed to say something, to put a stop to this madness. But how could she, when this was everything she’d been craving since he’d walked out of her life?
“I tormented myself, imagining how you would have moved on. Telling myself it had all been an act for you – that our intimacy was just so you could flesh out secrets on my father. I told myself you would be onto another sucker, and that I was better off without you. And I was. I am. But God, Eleanor, you’re here with me and I can’t fight it. I can’t fight how much I want you.”
; A tear rolled down her cheek now, landing on her shoulder.
“It wasn’t an act,” she said urgently. “I fell in love with you – I promise you that.”
He nodded slowly. “Maybe you did.” He lifted his hand, tangling his fingers in her hair, holding her face so that she was tilted towards him. He looked at her slowly, studying her, reading her, and finally, he dropped his head lower, so that his lips brushed hers.
“If we do this, you need to understand that it’s not a relationship. I will never care for you again; I’ll never trust you. This is just physical.”
He dragged his lips lower, to the sensitive flesh at the base of her throat. He flicked his tongue over a pulse point there and her heart stammered, her body quivered. Pleasure spiraled through her, but it was chased by the unmistakable sensation of pain. Pain at his words, at the boundary he was placing on this. On the certainty that he spoke with absolute conviction.
She hesitated for a moment, doubts pulling her in either direction. She’d been a virgin when they’d met – and that had had nothing to do with Apollo, and everything to do with Elizabeth. Seeing her sister fall hard and fast at a young age, and having her heart broken. Seeing her pregnant to a man she was too scared of even to tell about the pregnancy? Eleanor had learned her lessons at Elizabeth’s side. But after Apollo, she’d stayed a virgin because she couldn’t bear the thought of another man so much as looking at her.
So here was her one chance to sleep with a man – and she couldn’t ignore it. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t want this, even when he was already withholding the only thing she wanted more: the possibility of a relationship.
Wasn’t a small crumb from Apollo better than nothing?
She groaned, and her head was nodding, her eyes meeting his with defiance and utter certainty.
She wanted this, and to hell with all the consequences she knew would be waiting.
*
Saved by the bell. Except he hadn’t been saved. The ringing of his cell phone was the bane of his life, in that moment, with Eleanor so close, so pliant, her huge eyes staring up at him, practically pleading with him to make love to her.
And he wanted to – he wanted to with every fibre of his being. He wanted to rip that ridiculous servants’ uniform from her body, to reveal her sweet flesh to his starved eyes, and he wanted to take it slowly, to make her his in every way, to make her moan and cry out for him, to hear his name spill from her lips again and again until she was incandescent with longing.
Oh, he wanted her, but perhaps a greater force had been at work, thrusting sanity and caution at him.
“Your phone,” she mumbled, and he knew she was being dragged back from the precipice as well, that the madness of the moment was dissipating, leaving the relics of their conversation and a clear decision to be made:
Did they move forward?
Or leave the past in the past, where it belonged?
Well, thanks to the timely interruption, he had a moment to try to fathom that out.
“Wait here.” And he heard the command of his tone and inwardly winced. But it was how he was. Being in control was his default mode. He stalked across the kitchen and lifted his phone off the table, swiping it to answer without checking who the caller was.
“Heranedes.”
“Apollo? God, where are you? Raf and I have been so worried.”
He clenched his jaw and stared out at the ocean, pristine and clear when in his gut it was a veritable tsunami. Every reason he had for keeping this woman at arms’ length was on the other end of the phone line, barreling towards him. How could he forget Eleanor’s role in his father’s death? How could he forget the very real threat she posed to his sister’s happiness?
So he wanted her. Since when was he so weak-minded as to let his libido control his actions? If the last three years had taught him anything, it was that he was in charge of his desires, one hundred percent.
“Something came up. Something important.”
“Something more important than Malik’s christening?” She asked, but there was a teasing tone in her voice now that she knew her brother was safe.
“I saw at least nine hours of the damned thing,” he grunted.
“But you were barely here a week. Raf said you planned to stay indefinitely.”
“Not indefinitely,” Apollo said with a short laugh. “But for a few months at least.” He’d lost too much time with his sister – at first, for her own sake, to keep her distant from their father’s habits. But then, it had been by choice and owing to guilt. How could he look his sister in the eye, knowing that his own choices had killed Stavros? He knew how much Chloe loved their father, idolized him even – further proof that she barely knew anything about the man, for there was very little worth idolizing.
But Apollo had been given a second chance: Raffa had brokered it, and Apollo had been glad.
Eleanor had come between that. Eleanor with her recording device and covert article. Eleanor with her brown eyes and enigmatic smile, her ravishing hair and sexier-than-sin figure.
He turned, distracted, his eyes seeking the Siren, and not being at all surprised to see that she’d fled. Disappointment flared inside of him, alongside resignation.
There was no fighting what was going to happen: they both knew that. It was only a matter of time now, and acceptance. And making sure he held onto his head this time around.
“You know, I could just command you to come back,” Chloe said, the happiness of her life permeating the tone of her voice.
“I’m sure your husband would tell you I don’t respond to commands.” Apollo reached for a wedge of apple and strode towards the terrace, his eyes landing on the exact spot on the beach where he’d very nearly run into Eleanor that morning.
“Even royal commands?”
“Even those.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “But I will come back soon, Chloe.”
“Do you promise?” And for a moment, the happiness was overtaken by something else: fear.
She didn’t trust this new closeness would persist, and it meant more to her than she was willing to lose.
“I promise. I want to see my nephew grow up, you know.”
“And so you shall.”
Apollo rung off shortly after, and propped his elbows on the railing, staring out at the ocean contemplatively. He wasn’t silent nor alone for long. His phone buzzed once more – the chief financial officer of Heranedes Enterprises calling to discuss some figures, and then his assistant wanting to confirm his upcoming schedule.
It was lunch before Apollo was done with urgent matters. He hadn’t had a chance to shower after his run that morning, so instead, in the heat of the midday sun, he made his way to the pool, diving in and crossing it in several long strokes.
His body seemed to be thrumming, vibrating with an intensity he’d forgotten. It had been three long years since he’d felt this… alive. The word came to him and he grimaced under water. It was exactly what he felt though – so alive he could burst from his skin, or fly to the moon and back. He was buzzing.
He paused at the edge of the pool, turning to look at the house reflexively. He didn’t consciously look for her, but his eyes seemed to home in on the window of the bedroom he’d assigned her to.
And she was there, standing at the window, her face pale, her eyes glued to him like she couldn’t look away, in the same way he couldn’t.
And even at this distance, with her in the house and him in the pool, he felt that strong thud of awareness and knew they would answer it.
“Join me,” he murmured, lifting his hand to beckon to her. He pulled his fingertips towards himself slowly, his eyes holding hers, the challenge unmistakable.
She shook her head from one side to the other, and then spun away, disappearing into her room.
Coward, he thought, but he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.
CHAPTER SIX
“EXCUSE ME, MISS?”
Eleanor looked up at the intrusion, her b
reath rushed before her mind could realise that it wasn’t Apollo who’d come knocking on the door.
Instead, there was a woman with shining blonde hair, dark brown eyes and a swarthy tan. She was tall and slim, and elegant, even in the simple black dress she wore. H.E was emblazoned on the collar.
“Hello?” Eleanor pressed a finger into the book she’d found and was reading.
“Carlotta,” the older woman supplied. “Mr Heranedes asked me to bring you this.”
Eleanor’s heart stammered in her chest as she saw, for the first time, that the woman was holding several shopping bags.
“What are they?” She murmured, standing now, and wiping her hands down the front of her own servants’ uniform.
“For you.” Carlotta handed them over and then retreated towards the door. She paused though, just on the other side. “Mr Heranedes also asked me to let you know that there is tea in the kitchen.”
Eleanor nodded her acknowledgement, finding speech somewhat beyond her as she regarded the black bags that Carlotta had placed on the floor. When she was alone, she risked a look inside, peeling back some of the tissue paper.
Clothes?
She investigated each bag, lifting the items out and placing them on the edge of the bed. Apollo had bought so much! Not Apollo – a servant of his, presumably. Perhaps even Carlotta. Dress after dress, all of them with a designer label – and no doubt designer price tag – and in shades of white, pale yellow, turquoise. Beautiful summery colours and floaty fabrics. Bikinis as well and, when she reached the final bag – lingerie.
Her cheeks flamed as she lifted out stunning silk negligés, thongs and bras, all matching lace and satin, all exquisite.
Only the certainty that someone else had clinically selected items based on what might fit Apollo’s reluctant houseguest saved her from dissolving into a warm puddle right then and there. The very idea of Apollo hand-selecting her lingerie turned every single bone in her body to mush.
What a relief it was to remove the garb of a Ras el Kidan servant. She slipped the dress from her body quickly, draping it over the back of a chair. Her underwear followed, and then, she changed into one of the elegant sets Carlotta had brought. A black lace thong with pale gold embellishments, and a soft bra with tiny straps. It was a perfect fit. She caught her reflection in the mirror and something like anticipation rolled through her gut.
The Greek's Virgin Captive: She was wrong for him in every way but one... (Evermore Book 2) Page 6
