Chapter Nine #2
‘No. I send a text every week, but I don’t—I can’t talk to him. I know he’ll tell me that he wants me to come back, because he’s a good man. But he doesn’t owe me anything. I’m not related to him. I’m not related to anyone. I have no one.’
She was crying now, and he held her against him, stroking her hair with bone-deep relief and a love that felt like the most natural thing in the world.
For him.
But Willa was not ready. And he could wait. He’d waited his whole life to feel this love. This love that captivated and consumed.
‘You are related to someone.’ He pressed his hand gently against her stomach. ‘You’re having a baby, Willa.’
‘It’s your baby too,’ she said then, and now her tears were softer, her voice was too.
‘And you’re not alone.’ His heart was beating too fast, and he willed himself to be calm. ‘You have me. I’m not going anywhere.’
She pressed her hand against her mouth, and she was nodding, clutching at his shoulder with the other hand.
He pulled her with him onto the sofa and onto his lap, and she curled her arms around him, and he stroked her hair until her heart was beating calmly again.
‘I’m sorry for being such a cow earlier.’
‘I like cows. They’re very underrated. People think they’re dopey, but they’re very smart and kind. And they’re good listeners, apparently.’
She laughed then, and a beat later he did too. It was that or tell her he loved her. And it was still so new to him, this feeling of closeness and wanting to become one.
From somewhere outside the window, the city’s churches rang out the hour, their chimes overlapping, and he remembered hearing the sound of Big Ben from the roof of the Clarendon.
‘Is that midnight?’ Willa seemed stunned.
‘You can’t go to the airport now. Stay the night. I can take you in the morning.’
She nodded, and he waited for her to refuse his offer or insist on leaving now, but she didn’t move. Instead, she kept staring at him, her irises bright against the pink rims of her eyes, the lashes clotted with drying tears.
‘Will you come upstairs with me?’
His mind blanked. He was unthinking. A Vantablack void of desire. Yes, he thought, I will go anywhere you ask.
They undressed, and as they slid into bed, she reached for him, and they made love slowly, hungrily, teasing out their desires, building a world all of their own. Afterwards she lay in his arms, stroking his skin.
‘You’re making it very hard for me to let you go—’ Ares said softly.
Her eyelashes fluttered open. ‘I was going to talk to you about that. I thought I might stay a little longer. But only if Larry agrees, and I don’t want you asking him. I’ll do it. I’ll call him first thing.’
‘And what’s going to be your reason for staying, Ms Hamilton?’
She bit into her lip as his hands closed around her waist. ‘The truth, of course. That Mr Konstantinou is very demanding and is still not completely satisfied.’
‘In that case,’ he pulled her closer, his cock twitching, ‘for the sake of authenticity, let me show you exactly how demanding I can be.’
* * *
Willa woke in a room she didn’t recognise with a man she would never forget. And she didn’t have to, for at least another day. Or two.
Changing her mind had been not just easy but freeing, as if a burden had lifted. Because she couldn’t bear to part from him just yet. Because for the first time in her life she wanted to pretend. To hope?
Larry had been entirely supportive of her staying, and despite teasing Ares about what she would say, she had ended up telling the truth.
That Ariana had flown in from Mexico unexpectedly and that she was still amending the prenup.
And Larry himself had suggested she take some time to look around Athens.
What she hadn’t told her boss was that she was sleeping with one of his oldest friends and an important client of the firm.
Ares frowned in his sleep. A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead, and holding her breath, she brushed it away.
They had made love on and off most of the night. Their need for one another had started high but escalated exponentially every time they touched, igniting and soothing in turn until they finally fell asleep just before dawn.
A part of her wished Ares would stay asleep so that this day would never start, because then this would never have to end. Whatever this was.
Three weeks ago, when it had all started, it was sex. Lust. Desire.
For her, at least, it was a chance to take back some part of what had gotten lost in that hospital room in California.
Because so much had been lost that day. A father.
Three half-sisters. A family. She had felt adrift.
And then she had walked out in front of Ares Konstantinou’s car—she could admit that now, to herself anyway—and for the first time in months everything she had lost was forgotten.
Nothing mattered except the beautiful man with storm-coloured eyes, and in the space of one day their paths had collided three times. Seriously, what were the chances of that?
And each time they met, her heartbeat grew ever rougher and more impassioned.
No wonder they had ended up in bed.
But now it was so much more than sex. She was pregnant with his baby.
And that judgy, impatient man, whose will was like a many-headed hydra, had shown himself to be not the runaway groom demonised in the tabloid press but a kind, fiercely protective brother and grandson who had shouldered the blame for his fiancée’s infidelity.
And paid the price.
She remembered his gaze as she tried to hold it all together downstairs. Everything had been snarled inside her chest, and her panic was choking her, suffocating her slowly.
But Ares had slowed things down, and suddenly she could breathe. And talk. For the first time in months, years really, she had talked openly, revealed her fears and her secrets. Her whole body felt lighter.
Even though it was not just her body now. Her fingers caressed the curve of her belly. Ares was right: she was related to somebody. She was a mother now, and—
You have me. I’m not going anywhere.
His words tasted sweet on her tongue. He meant them, she was sure. He would do the right thing. Even if Ariana hadn’t told her so, she knew that now. She’d seen it, lived it. It was why he’d proposed, even though he was still in love with Zoe.
But could that change? It was stupid to hope. She had no claim on his heart.
Just his body.
Her breath caught as his eyelashes fluttered and his grey eyes rested drowsily on her face, and she thought he would fall back to sleep.
But then his pupils flared into stars, exploding with a hunger and a need that was unmistakable because he was feeling it too, and she felt her blood thicken as he pulled her against him, his mouth seeking hers.
They finally made it out of bed and downstairs just before lunch. Ares was wearing dark glasses to block out the glare of the Athenian sun, but it seemed unlikely that he would be able to pass unnoticed in the street.
Her suspicions were confirmed as three women in succession glanced at him with open admiration. Not that he noticed. He seemed only to have eyes for her, and she felt suddenly happy that she had stayed on.
‘What do you want to do first?’ he asked. ‘We can grab lunch. Or we can do some touristy stuff? Or are you itching to hit the shops? It’s your day. Your choice.’
‘Let’s do the Parthenon, and then I will buy you lunch, and then we can play it by ear.’
‘I love your ears,’ he whispered, leaning in to nibble on the lobe under the pretext of guiding her through a chattering group of teenagers.
Later, as she gazed up at the halva-coloured columns of the Parthenon, Willa got goose bumps. There were plenty of world-famous sites that didn’t live up to the hype, but the sheer majesty of the monument and its palpable sense of history didn’t disappoint.
‘How old is it, again?’ she asked, ducking into the shadows to watch a cluster of tiny birds dart in and of the columns just as if they were playing tag.
‘Over two thousand four hundred years.’
‘It just feels insane to think that there were people like us walking here so long ago. It’s really humbling, but I find it reassuring. Their life would have been so much more challenging on a daily basis, and yet they built this.’
He nodded. ‘It’s why I love Athens. Kallos is a retreat, but here you have to embrace what life throws at you.
Like you do.’ Pulling her into the shadows of a column, he kissed her softly, and she felt her heart flip over.
He liked her, and that was a starting point.
Something to build on. Maybe together over time, if she stayed longer, they could build their own Parthenon.
She took some photos and sent them to the private group she and her sisters used, and then it was time to leave.
Back in the city, they grabbed some takeaway souvlaki from one of Ares’s favourite places to eat, which turned out to be not a three-star Michelin restaurant but a tiny café on one of the side streets in Monastiraki, where the owner welcomed him like a long-lost son.
‘How do you even know about this place?’
‘I live here.’ He sounded amused.
‘Yeah, but you are you. I mean you’re a Konstantinou. People like you don’t eat street food.’
‘My dad used to bring me here for lunch, and then we’d go and sit and talk. He wasn’t a big talker, my dad. Especially in crowds he was quite shy, but he learned to manage it—’
‘Because he was a Konstantinou?’
Ares nodded. ‘It’s a job in itself. You go to a lot of events. You’re the patron for a lot of charities and on the board of countless institutions. I’m not complaining. I live a privileged life. But it’s not all parties on private yachts. At least, not since I was your age.’
She felt her cheeks burn, remembering how she had scrolled over those photos of him in swim shorts. She had focused on his nakedness, but he was clearly younger in those pictures.