“Do you mean that?”
Hope, for the first time all morning, soared inside of him. He stared into her eyes, needing her to see the truth of what he was saying. “I love you with all that I am.”
She nodded, her acceptance something that meant the world to him.
“And you want me to be happy?”
He nodded. “I want us to be happy.”
She was crying softly but there was a strength to her that had always been there. A strength that he admired and adored.
“If you really love me, and really care about my happiness, then you’ll let me go now.”
He stared at her, the words the opposite to what he’d expected.
“If you really care about me, if you care about me even at all, you’ll get off this lift and let me leave. You’ll leave me the hell alone.”
“You really want that?” He asked, after a tortured beat had passed.
She bit down on her lip and her expression was a mask of anguish but then she nodded. “Yes.”
He groaned. “You’re hurting…”
“Please,” she took a step sideways, to the elevator panel. “Just let me go.”
Let me go.
She was asking to be free, just as she had on the island. She had loved him and he’d trapped her with that – in every way.
He took a step back, nodding, and he opened his mouth to say something. Something that would work magic, that would fix this. But his mind drew a blank and seconds later, the elevator doors swished closed.
And then, the only words he could think of were curse words, and he said them all.
*
“Is everything okay?” Raffa’s voice was tinged with worry and Apollo grimaced as he did the math and realized it was midnight in Ras el Kida.
“No,” he said honestly. “I need to talk to you.”
Look at what I did to my hair because I was driven half-crazy by grief and hurt and hate and love. He saw Eleanor as she’d been that morning, and his gut rolled. He’d spent the day analyzing their situation, recounting every word, every look, every gesture, and then, he’d strategized.
Eleanor was right.
If he loved her, he would let her go. But first, he had to give her a reason to stay – and then he’d let her choose. He had to show her how much he’d changed; how much he understood her pain. How sorry he was.
And if she still wanted to walk away from him, then he deserved that.
“What is it?” He heard the rustle of sheets and then a soft voice and he winced.
“I’m sorry to have woken you,” he heard himself offer. “And Chloe.”
“What is it?” Raffa asked once more, and then there was the clicking of the door as Raffa presumably moved into a private room.
“I’ve stuffed something up. Something important.”
Raffa was silent for a moment, and then, “Yes?”
“Eleanor Jones – the journalist. I was wrong about her.”
Raffa swore and Apollo knew he had to speak first. To forestall whatever his best friend and brother-in-law was about to say.
“She wasn’t to blame for the article, and despite that, she’s been tearing herself to shreds for over three years. She has put herself through hell, feeling bad about that story, when I know she could have done nothing to prevent it.”
Apollo’s silence spoke volumes.
“I know this without even a fiber of doubt because I know her. Raf, she’s the best person I’ve ever known. And if there’s any chance she’ll ever forgive me for being such a monumental bastard, I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”
Raffa made a growling noise and then a harsh sigh. “Your father died the day after the article came out.”
Apollo straightened. “He drank himself to an early grave, and we both know it. If you had met Eleanor, you would see she couldn’t ever hurt a fly. Truly, Raffa, she is the kindest, most thoughtful, gentle, beautiful woman on earth.”
“I’m afraid your sister has already taken that award.”
Apollo didn’t smile. “I am going to do everything I can to win her back, and if I do, I’d like to think you and Chloe will accept her. No, I’d like to think you’ll love her.”
“Apollo,” Raffa sighed heavily. “You are the reason I think so little of her. She betrayed you. She broke your heart. She destroyed you.”
And now I’ve destroyed her, Apollo thought, so furious with himself he almost swore. “She was not to blame.” And saying it aloud, and to his brother in law, did something strange. It was as though a huge weight was being lifted from his chest. “And for the part she played – an innocent part – I have accepted she made a mistake, like you or I or anyone could make.”
“So you are in love with her,” Raffa asked after a moment.
“I have always loved her,” Apollo agreed. “Why else would it have hurt so much?”
“Then do not worry what I think, or what Chloe thinks…”
“No,” Apollo shook his head. “I need you to understand this. I want Eleanor to be my wife. I want her to be with me for the rest of my life, and I will do whatever I can to protect her from any more pain and hurt. God knows there’s been enough of that. If you cannot accept her, and welcome her, and cherish her like family, then I need to know. Because I won’t expose her to any more pain.”
“Relax, my friend,” Raffa grunted. “You do not need to threaten me. I can hear how serious you are in your voice. If you love her then we will accept that. And of course you will bring her to Ras el Kida so Chloe may meet her new sister.”
Another weight lifted, but it wasn’t enough.
Knowing his family wouldn’t hold the article against Eleanor was important, but nothing mattered unless he could show her how truly sorry he was. He had to win her back.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SHE HADN’T REALLY THOUGHT it would be the end. She’d begged him to leave her alone, but as the lift had dragged her down to earth, she’d wanted to press the ‘up’ button. To go straight back to him and tell him that she took it back. That she didn’t want to leave. That she still loved him.
She hadn’t, though.
The pain of their past was too big a hurdle to jump over.
She hadn’t thought it would be the end, but she didn’t realise how much she needed it to not be until two days after she’d left his apartment, he arrived at her flat.
His knock on the door was firm, and she knew, even before she opened it, who it would be.
Ellie had taken Joshua to nursery school and Eleanor was just making a tea, ready to begin working.
And his knock caused her stomach to lurch and her cheeks to flush and her pulse to race.
It might not be him, she told herself, as she crossed the apartment, pulling her shirt over the waistband of her jeans. She peeked through the security glass and everything went into overdrive.
It was Apollo Heranedes the First. Immaculate suit, clean-shaven, hair neat, skin glowing.
He looked… good enough to eat.
Her heart squeezed.
“I just need two minutes,” he said, as his eyes lifted to the glass.
She sucked in a gasp of surprise but didn’t move to open the door.
“Please.”
With a sinking heart and a sense of fate, she pulled the door inwards, her face carefully arranged into a mask of nonchalance.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she pointed out, even when she was so glad, on a cellular level, that he hadn’t listened.
“I know.” He swallowed visibly. “And I will, I promise.”
Her chest thumped.
“I realized you were right, agape. If I love you – and I do, so much – then I have to do whatever you need to make you happy. If that’s walking out of your life and letting you forget about me, then so be it.”
His eyes roamed her face and she wished his words hadn’t affected her so much. She wished she could look cool and unaffected when his words were running over her body like warm butte
r.
“But what if I can make you happy in another way?”
It was Eleanor’s turn to swallow. Her throat was parched and words almost impossible to find.
“What do you mean?” She asked finally.
“May I?” He gestured towards her apartment, but she shook her head.
She wasn’t ready to let him in, and he accepted that. But he did look over his shoulder at the several other doors nearby.
“When we were dating, before, do you know why I didn’t sleep with you?”
Eleanor shook her head. “I always presumed I didn’t live up to your usual conquests.”
“You were so much better. You were everything. I’d been with so many women and I wanted you to know how different you were. How special. I needed to win your heart first.”
“You did,” she said caustically.
“But I still didn’t deserve it. I failed you in every way, Eleanor. You wanted to explain the article to me and I didn’t let you. You’ve tried again and again to tell me what happened and I have been such an idiot. I am standing here today telling you that I am completely at fault for all of this.” His eyes bore into hers.
“I am promising you the world and begging you for forgiveness.”
“I…” She shook her head, her mind swirling with doubts and hopes and her future so confusing that she could only make a strangled sound of disorientation.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me straight away,” he promised. “I understand it will take time. I have to earn your trust and your love and all of you back. But I want to, Eleanor. I’m asking if you’ll just let me try, please, to show you what you mean to me.”
She shook her head, his words so impossibly perfect and so hard to make sense of.
“I will leave, if you want me to. God knows I will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“And what will make you happy?” She asked, finally locating her mind and her vocal chords.
He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. “My happiness is immaterial right now.”
“Not to me, it isn’t.”
His eyes flared wide.
“I’m just asking a question,” she rushed to add, not wanting him to think she was making any kind of promise or guarantee.
“I want to marry you,” he said. “I want to marry you as soon as possible, and I want to spend every day of my life loving you. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms and wake to find you smiling beside me. I want to adore you and cherish you and protect you. I want to be a man who is worthy of you, and I want to be the man that makes you happy. You are my other half, Eleanor Jones, and I believe I am yours.”
And now, he did step closer, reaching for her hand and lifting it to his lips.
“But I know it will take time for you to trust me. And I have all the time in the world for you. So tell me if you want me to go, now, and I will go for good, my darling, beautiful Eleanor. Or let me stay and fight for you, for the privilege of being the man you love.”
She stared at him and everything they’d been to each other shifted inside of her and she saw only Apollo Heranedes as he was in that moment. A man who loved her and was offering her the world – and begging to be put out of his misery. As she was her own!
“So you want to marry me?” She repeated, a small frown on her lips.
“Not immediately. I mean, yes, immediately, but I’m not stupid enough to think I have any chance of winning you over so easily. I’m only asking for a chance, Eleanor.”
“A chance,” she repeated, looking around her lounge room, and then turning back to him.
“A chance.” His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “Just let me be a part of your life. A small part – any part. Please.”
Eleanor would have married him in a heartbeat, but she knew they both needed time. Time to overwrite what they’d done to each other, time to let pleasure overtake pain. Time to overwrite bad memories with good.
A chance to start afresh.
“A chance,” he said again, as though he was terrified she was going to say no.
And his fear of losing her – and willingness to do so if it was what she wanted – helped her make a decision, at last.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” She asked after several seconds.
And he expelled a soft sigh as relief began to move through him.
“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
“A date?” She asked softly, running her eyes over his face.
“Yes.”
Eleanor bit down on her lip and then found herself nodding.
His gladness was palpable. He moved back to the door. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”
And so, they dated. The first night, he took her to a restaurant in Mayfair, which he’d booked out, so they were able to enjoy their meal in complete privacy.
The following evening, they went to a member’s club and out dancing afterwards.
The next evening was the opera, and on the weekend, he took her to the country for lunch at a pub and a walk along the river.
They had dinner every night the following week, at different restaurants, but with the same sense of love and forgiveness swirling around them.
The following weekend, Elizabeth and Joshua came to Apollo’s for lunch. And though Elizabeth was hesitant to think anything good about the man who’d hurt her sister, by the end of the day, even she had been won over.
For one month, they dated, and though he kissed her each evening, and held her hand, not once did he invite her back to his place. Not once did they spend the night.
“I won’t let sex cloud your judgement,” he said, when she’d suggested she join him at his place. “We know that works between us. I want you to see that everything else does too.”
Five weeks after reappearing in her life, he asked her to come to Prasino Nisi with him, and she’d agreed reluctantly. How could she not feel nervous to be returning to the island that had held such joy and pain for them?
But she’d gone with him – a sign that she trusted him with all of her heart. And as the sun dipped over the ocean, he dropped to one knee, and presented her with a small velvet box.
“I am more in love with you than ever before. Every moment we are together fills me with utter certainty in the rightness of this. I had planned to wait at least six months before doing this, but agape, I want our lives to start now. I want you to be my wife – and I want to be your husband. To love you and adore you for all time. Will you marry me?”
She made a laughing noise and nodded, but he was serious.
“I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy. I want to give you the entire world, Eleanor.”
She fell to her knees, the sand cool beneath her. The past seemed so far away. She saw only the good now, only the pleasure and bliss. Only the truth of what they were: soulmates. “You already have.”
“No, agape mou, this has just been the beginning.” And he kissed her, slowly, hungrily, tasting her anew, his fingers seeking hers so that he could slide the ring in place.
Realising she hadn’t even looked at it, she spared it a fleeting glance. It was perfect, of course – a beautiful black diamond surrounded by white diamonds.
“The night sky,” he explained, kissing her again, pulling her to the sand with him.
“The future,” she murmured, and he agreed.
It was a future they’d tried to ignore and resist – but fate couldn’t be escaped. And he would thank the heavens for that every day for the rest of his life.
She was his and he was hers, and thus they would be, evermore.
THE END
I hope you loved Apollo and Eleanor’s story! Following is an excerpt from CLAIMING HIS SECRET BABY, book three in The Evermore Series.
CLAIMING HIS SECRET BABY
“I think you have no right to stand there in judgement of me. I think he’s my son and I’ve been doing the damned best I can. And now I think you should leave, and come back when you’re less e
motional.”
“Less emotional?” He repeated, and his face was a mask of complete calm. It terrified her, more than shouting, more than anything.
“I am not emotional,” he responded. “I am thinking clearer than I have in years.”
“Then think clearly somewhere else,” she muttered.
“Oh, no. If you think I’m going anywhere, then you are crazy, Elizabeth Jones.”
She blinked, a frown curving her lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He spoke with cold determination. “I have a son – and I am going to raise him.”
Ellie blinked, her enormous caramel eyes showing all her emotions, all her worries. But Xavier pushed on regardless. “I’m based in Madrid, but I can move here for the interim. I have a place in Kensington.” He looked around her townhouse. “You can rent this place out.”
“Hold up a second.” She lifted the palm of her hand, needing to physically reinforce what she was saying. “What are you talking about?”
“It will take thirty days to acquire the necessary wedding approvals,” he pulled a pod from a canister and inserted it into her coffee machine. As though he’d done so a thousand times. As though he belonged in her home.
“Wedding?” She blinked, finally catching up with what he’d said.
“Wedding.” He pulled a mug from the bench and placed it in the machine, pressing the button. Dark liquid began to fill the cup. “Is my name on the birth certificate?”
Her mouth was dry. She hadn’t expected this juggernaut of thoughts and ideas. “You’re going too fast,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Well try to keep up.” The words were clipped. “Is my name on the birth certificate?”
“No.” She said it without apology, but the look he sent her drove barbs of ice through her heart. “I didn’t want anything to link us to you.”
He swore, harsh and guttural, then lifted the coffee cup to his lips. “You didn’t think my son should know who his father is?”
The Greek's Virgin Captive: She was wrong for him in every way but one... (Evermore Book 2) Page 18
