by Maisey Yates
He had never managed to hide it from his mother.
“I do not know how I can be with her.”
“We can only carry so much, Apollo. I have lived an imperfect life, and if I have learned anything it’s that, at some point, we must put some of our burdens down so we can pick up things we would more gladly carry. These are decisions we make. We cannot wait for the pain to go away. We cannot simply expect the anger to fade, or the grief to stop biting. We must make choices. They are the hardest choices to make. But if you want to move on, then you must begin on your own.”
“That simple?”
“No,” she said. “That difficult.”
“I know what I want,” he said. “I just don’t know if I can have it.”
“You’re angry at David, and that is understandable. You want revenge, and that I understand, as well. But I think you can see the way that revenge twists your own life. If you deny your love for Elle simply because you want to punish David St. James, then it isn’t truly him you’re hurting. Then the only person whose life you’ve destroyed is your own.”
“You stayed because you love him?”
“God help me, but I do,” she said. “Though I should not. Though he perhaps doesn’t deserve it. There are many days when I don’t deserve it, either. Though, in his way, I believe he loves me.”
He could not say he envied his mother her relationship, her marriage. And yet, he could see that they had love for each other, even if it wasn’t the sort he recognized. And what sort did he recognize? That, he supposed, was the question. Did he recognize it at all?
He had. With Elle, he had recognized it for the first time. And he had run, because it had been too much. Because, as his mother said, he was carrying too much anger to accept the love that she was asking for, that she was offering.
“I suppose I have a decision to make,” he said.
But it was already made. There was no question. He loved Elle. And that meant whatever the risk, whether he was able to trust himself or not, whether he truly believed he knew how to love and how to accept love, he wanted to give her what he could. What he had. He wanted to give her everything. “I will have to get her back,” he said finally.
“I hope that you do,” his mother said. “I hope it isn’t too late.”
He hung up the phone and turned back to the sprawling city before him. He would need to get the first plane out. Or perhaps he should call her. But he didn’t know if apologies such as this one should be done over the phone. He had hurt her, had said terrible things. Hurtful things. He did not deserve to ask forgiveness. But dammit, if David St. James could earn the love of the woman he wanted after all he had done, why couldn’t Apollo?
He turned back to the door of his office just as it opened. In strode Elle, looking red-faced, pursued by his assistant Alethea.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Savas,” Alethea said. “She insisted that she had to see you.”
“I do,” Elle said, looking stubborn. He adored that expression. That uncompromising, demanding expression. Elle was not an easy woman. She never would be. But he didn’t want easy. He wanted her. Always. Forever.
“It’s okay, Alethea. I would like to see her.”
Alethea shook her head. “Best you work out your problems, Mr. Savas. You have been mercurial of late, and I find it irritating,” she said, turning on her heel and storming out of his office.
“That is not the sort of assistant I expected you to have,” Elle said.
“Yes, well. At this point she knows where all the bodies are buried and I can’t get rid of her. Sadly, she knows that.”
“I had to see you,” she said.
“Why is that, agape?”
“Because I have something to tell you.”
Suddenly, his stomach plummeted. “It isn’t about the baby, is it?”
“The baby is fine,” she said.
“I’m relieved to hear it.”
“It isn’t about that. I mean, it is. But nothing is wrong.”
“Well, before you launch into your speech, I must tell you, I was on my way back to see you.”
“You were?”
“Yes,” he said, “I was. There is something I need to tell you to. I spoke to my mother this morning.”
“That’s funny. I spoke to my father about... Well, I guess it must be fifteen hours ago or so. Since I am here now.”
“I see. I needed to understand why she stayed with him. I needed to understand how she had managed to let go of everything that had gone on in the past. She helped clarify some things. For one, your father did not force her into a relationship. That is important for me to know. She admits they handled things poorly. But he did not force her.”
Elle looked visibly relieved by the revelation. “I’m glad to hear that. That isn’t something my father would willingly admit. He’s such a stubborn old man. I think talking about his feelings is the thing he dislikes most in the world. But he did admit to me... He does love your mother. For all of his sins, he does.”
“She loves him,” Apollo said. “Somehow, she was able to let go of everything that had happened all those years ago. Somehow she fell in love with him.”
“We don’t have half of that baggage standing between us, and here we are unable to sort out our differences.”
“There’s a simple enough reason for that,” he said. “I was a coward.”
“You’re not a coward, Apollo.”
“Yes, I am. I was unable to admit my feelings for you nine years ago, and I found myself unable to admit them last week. Even to myself. But I love you, Elle. I always have.”
* * *
Elle could only stand there, shocked, staring into Apollo’s intense, dark gaze. He said that he loved her. He said that he always had, that he had simply been unable to admit it. That was not what she’d been expecting. She had flown to Athens, stormed into his office expecting a fight. Expecting to engage him in a knock-down, drag-out battle as she told him there would be no revenge. That they would be putting everything aside for love. Not theirs, but the love of their child. And yet, here he was...saying he loved her.
“I had a speech prepared,” she said, her voice sounding hollow.
“Did you?” he asked, his eyebrows arched.
“Yes,” she said. “I was... I was going to make sure you knew that our child was everything. That I would never use a child to get revenge on you, nor would I allow you to use our child to hurt me. And that under no circumstances would I allow our son or daughter to be caught in the crosshairs of your issues with my father.”
“There is no danger of that.”
“I... I see that. Because you... But I...” She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
“You do love me. I knew you did. I really did. But I didn’t trust it.”
“Why should you take less than you deserve, Elle? Why should you take less than you deserve simply waiting around for me?”
“Because love isn’t about what you deserve.”
“Thankfully for me,” he said.
“For all of us. We’re about to have a child, and we’re evidence of the fact that...parents make mistakes with their children. Even children they love.”
“That is true.”
“Love is...bigger than keeping score. It costs more than we could ever hope to earn. At least, it’s supposed to. I need you to know, here and now, that I love you without reservations. That I believe you do love me. I understand what you’ve been through. I understand that you were used badly.” She took a deep breath. “Your mother may have been able to easily forgive my father, or at least forgave him eventually, but she knew everything from the beginning. Your trust was betrayed in a way that hers wasn’t.”
Apollo shook his head. “The guilt tha
t I felt over considering David a father figure to me was what truly enraged me.”
“I recognized that. That what you felt was badly-used love. I did. Because I had experienced it with you. But even recognizing that, I was unbending.”
“I want you to be unbending, my sweet, beautiful Elle,” he said.
Her chest swelled, her heart feeling large and tender. “You do?”
“Yes. Because I want everything you are. Everything you will be. Because I want the woman you are, not simply the woman that makes my life easiest. I do not want you simply because you are the mother of my child. I do not want you because you are biddable, because you fit easily into the life I have created. I will rearrange it all for you,” he said. “Somehow, I think I knew I would have to do that. And it frightened me. Again, you must understand that I am a coward.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, the word coming out broken. “You are the bravest man I have ever known. Because you would open yourself up to love again even when your love had been so abused before.”
“I hardly deserve a medal for accepting a gift so beautiful as your love,” he said.
“Yours is beautiful too, you know.”
His chest pitched sharply, his dark eyes glittering. “I was so convinced my love killed things. That it was toxic. How could I trust something that always turned into something so painful? So I denied it. What I felt for you. It was always there. I wrapped it up in anger, I wrapped it up in hate, because I wasn’t ready to reach out and take it.”
“I did the same,” she said, her throat tight. “I told myself that I hated you, that I couldn’t stand the sight of you, because in truth you were the most glorious, wonderful sight I had ever beheld. And I called my feelings something else, anything else, rather than accepting the fact that I might never have you. I pretended I didn’t care rather than opening myself up and risking being humiliated. Rather than risking admitting what I might lose and how badly it might hurt. I hid my feelings, even from myself. See, I am more like my father than it seems on the surface.”
“But you’re here. You’re here telling me now.”
“If we can’t learn from the mistakes of the people who came before us, then I fail to see the point of any of it.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “You are very right about that. When I look at the mistakes my mother made, your father made, that my father made, in their pursuit of love, of money and success, I see nothing but a sad, tangled web. And in the end, I suppose what our parents have found is love, as best as they can have it.”
“Yes,” Elle said. “I think that’s true.”
“But I want more than that. I want deeper. None of the anger, none of the pride, none of those wasted years.”
Elle laughed softly. “I suppose we already have a few wasted years.”
“But no more. It is you for me, Elle. Only you. I want to make a life with you. With you and our child. I will get down on my knees and beg if I must, because my pride is nothing more than dirt if it keeps me from you.”
“As enjoyable as I might find that, I don’t need you to beg. I love you already. I don’t need you to do anything to gain that acceptance.”
He crossed the space between them and her heart lurched, a thrill racing through her as he took her into his arms. This would never fade. It would never get old. Things had never been hotter, more intense between them because of the anger. The anger had simply covered the true intensity. It was only bigger now. Brighter, deeper. Now that she knew the racing of her heart, the intense surge of adrenaline that raced through her every time she saw him was not hate, but love after all.
“I love you,” he said. “And I will lay down all of my anger, my need for revenge, my distrust and anything else that might hinder my ability to give you all that you deserve. Because if I am to be full, then I would have myself be full of nothing but my love for you.”
“I was so hurt, Apollo, because I was afraid that you wanted me only for revenge. To hurt other people. And I never felt like my father loved me for me. I never felt like anyone in my life loved me simply because of who I am. But here you are, asking me to be difficult, asking me to be stubborn, asking for me to be myself. And I... I can hardly believe it.”
“Then I will spend my every day, from this moment until the end, showing you just how much I love you, for all of the good, all of the bad and everything in between. I will do my very best to ensure that you never doubt that you are the one I love. You are the one I want. Whether you’re a CEO, a lawyer, a cupcake maker, a police officer.”
“I have never given any indication that I want to be a baker or a police officer.”
“But you could be. You could be anything you wanted to be, and you would still be Elle. And I would still love you.”
“There is a remarkable amount of freedom in that,” she said, her chest swelling with emotion. “I don’t think you can possibly know what that means to me.”
He pulled her closer, kissing her lips. “Then show me, Elle. Show me.”
EPILOGUE
SHE DID. AND she spent every day after that showing him, demonstrating her love for him. And he did the same for her.
It was one of Apollo’s proudest moments when Elle graduated at the top of her law class. One of his happiest moments, sitting there, cheering her on as she walked onstage while he held their daughter in his lap, with their new baby in the crook of his other arm. He was so proud of what she had achieved, of what she had decided to go after. Of how she had decided to use her uncompromising nature and sharp tongue.
She was, in his opinion, the best lawyer in New York City, eternally advocating for women in difficult circumstances, and for children who had had injustice done against them.
If someone would have told him when he had first married Elle that he would only grow to love her more over the next decade, he would have told them they were insane. After all, how could anyone love more than he had on the day of his wedding? But he discovered just how deep, just how wide, love could grow. Each year, each child, each achievement and each failure added a texture and a richness to what he felt for her that stretched far beyond what he could have ever imagined.
On the night of their tenth anniversary, Elle came home from work, exhausted, frowning, possibly because the case she was working on was so intense.
He took her into his arms, not saying a word. And she wrapped her arms around him, leaning on his strength.
“I’m glad you made it,” he said.
“Of course. This is the only place I want to be tonight.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Are the kids taken care of?”
“I believe Alethea is reading them a bedtime story. But she is not a nanny, Elle. She made sure to tell me that as she went to perform the task. This was after hovering around them at dinner trying to get them to eat their vegetables.”
Elle laughed. “Of course.”
“And tomorrow David and my mother will be by to take the children for the weekend. They wish to contribute to our alone time.”
“Very nice of them.”
“Indeed.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Are you ready to go out tonight?” He examined the faint shadows under her eyes. “Or would you rather stay in?”
“I would love to go out. Because I want to go show off my wonderful husband.”
“You cannot possibly wish to do that more than I want to show off my wonderful wife.”
“We’ll have to argue about it later.” She let out a sigh, a long, contented sound. “We’ve been together for more than ten years. It’s amazing how different this last decade has been from the one before it.”
“The one where we both wanted each other, but wouldn’t allow ourselves to have each other?”
“Yes. I have no clue what we were so afraid of. What we were waiting for.”
> “The more I think about it, the more I believe we were waiting for the right time. Where we could be brave enough, give enough, love each other in the right way. Had I kissed you for the first time when I was twenty years old, I would have only messed it up later. I would not have been a man who could have given you the support you needed through all of this.”
She nodded slowly. “I don’t think I would have been a woman who could have gone for her dreams.”
“Do you want to know a secret, Elle?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“I like everything that we have. I treasure it. I enjoy my job. I am proud of yours. But you’re my dream.”
Elle smiled, all of her exhaustion fading, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, Apollo. You’re my dream, too.”
She drew up on her toes and kissed him, and it was like the first time. Every time with her was like the first time.
“Perhaps we won’t make it out after all,” he said.
She smiled, her expression a little bit wicked. “Yes, perhaps it would be best if we stayed in.”
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Maisey Yates
THE QUEEN’S NEW YEAR SECRET
A CHRISTMAS VOW OF SEDUCTION
BOUND TO THE WARRIOR KING
MARRIED FOR AMARI’S HEIR
Available now!
Don’t miss Lynne Graham’s 100th book!
BOUGHT FOR THE GREEK’S REVENGE
Also available this month
Keep reading for an excerpt from RETURN OF THE UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE by Carol Marinelli.
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