Chapter Nine #3
‘Are you okay? You look a little flushed.’ The concern in his voice made a lump swell in her throat. ‘I keep forgetting you’re not a local.’
It was just a throwaway remark, but it made her glow inside.
‘Let’s get out of this heat. Are you happy to go back to the townhouse?’
‘You think there’ll be less heat there?’ she teased.
His eyes were dark pulses in the sunlight.
‘No, but at least you won’t be wearing clothes.’
They walked slowly back through the old town, stopping when Willa got distracted by some trinket in one of the shops.
‘Most places stay open all day. We can come back later if you want—’
‘I want you.’ The words escaped from her mouth, and he stared down at her, silent, transfixed, and then he fitted his mouth to hers, moving into her and she felt how hard he was, and the hardness of him fed her hunger.
‘I want you now,’ he said, and his voice was a raw scrape of desire.
They ran up the stairs of the townhouse like teenagers. The sex was frantic, fully clothed and shockingly fast. The second time was naked and slower, the third slower still. Finally, they lay sated and sweaty, their heartbeats overlapping.
‘Where are you going?’ Willa frowned as Ares started untangling their limbs.
‘You need some water. And I do too.’ He yanked on his trousers and pulled a shirt over his head.
It was inside-out, and she was on the verge of telling him so, but it was sweet that he was so distracted.
‘Stay right where you are,’ he said, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead, and then the mouth, and then—
‘Ares, go,’ she ordered. He gave her one of those smiles that sent a current of electricity through her veins, and then he was gone.
She rolled over and pressed her face into his pillow, breathing in his scent. None of this felt real. But it was. He was here. He was hers. For now, anyway. And maybe they could make it work for longer than now.
For life?
His proposal was never far from her mind, but that had not been a proposal. It was a solution to a problem. But if he asked again, for real—
Her phone vibrated, and she reached over and picked it up and walked into the bathroom.
It was a message from Little Women, Cali Style, the group she and her sisters used to message each other. A video, to be precise, and as she waited for it to load, she brushed her teeth and splashed some cold water on her face.
‘Hey, Willa.’
She glanced at the screen and smiled as her sisters started to dance and sing.
‘Triple threat, listen up, it’s a beach day call,
Our fourteenth’s here, we’re gonna have a ball!
You know the date, the place, sand and sun’s the scene,
Just us four sisters, living the dream.
So, RSVP, yeah, you know what I mean!’
As they collapsed, laughing onto the sand, Kendall, the extrovert, grabbed the phone. ‘It doesn’t quite scan, but you can’t not come. Tell her, Dad.’
Her fingers tightened around the phone as the screen swung shakily to the left and Robert’s face appeared. He was smiling but there was a tension to his mouth. ‘Of course you must come, Willa.’ As the girls clambered onto his back, four pairs of blue eyes filled the screen.
Switching off the phone, she stared at her reflection, her heart beating jerkily.
She missed them so much it hurt. But how could she go?
That would hurt more. She didn’t want to lie to her sisters, but she couldn’t tell them the truth.
And Robert. Her throat tightened as she remembered his face, the tautness of his skin across his cheek bones.
As if he was wearing a mask. But she couldn’t keep forcing him to act a part.
‘I thought you might be hungry too.’ Ares was back, sliding a tray onto the top of an antique chest of drawers.
‘I brought some fruit and olives and some kritsinia. For energy.’ He hesitated. ‘My grandfather left a message. He’s invited us to lunch with him tomorrow at his club, and Ariana just called. She wants to take you shopping.’
Her head was pounding slow and hard. His shirt was still on inside-out and he looked sweetly dishevelled, and she wished that she could just pull him onto the bed and lose herself in the heat of his hunger all over again.
It wasn’t fair. For months now, she’d felt hollowed-out and inchoate.
Ares had changed that. She had told him the truth, and the world hadn’t ended.
He hadn’t looked away; instead, he had pulled her closer and filled her with his body and his certainty.
That unwavering Konstantinou immutability that was as constant and enduring as the Parthenon.
The worst part was her own stupidity. All day she had been blinkered, bolstered by his presence. She’d actually believed that she could be like other people. That talking about the past meant it was boxed up, safely stored out of harm’s way.
She had been incredibly naive. But who was she trying to kid? Her gaze moved to the city outside the window. The past wasn’t something you could file away. You could only live with it.
Except, she wasn’t. She couldn’t. She had taken something that didn’t belong to her, and she would never be free of that debt.
Ares was free. He didn’t need to take her burden and make it his. But he would. She knew that he would bear any burden. But she didn’t want to be that. Be a burden to him. She didn’t want to be his responsibility.
‘She doesn’t have to do that.’
‘She wants to. She really likes you. They both do.’ He hesitated, and she felt a thump in her stomach as his eyes met hers. ‘I do too, Willa. I care about you. A lot.’
It hurt, and she tried pushing it away, tried not to see it. But it turned out that the truth was harder to hide than a lie. And the truth was that Ares was kind and strong and loyal, and he did the right thing. Which was why she loved him.
But all those reasons for loving him were also the reasons she couldn’t stay.
No matter what he said or did, she had to stop this fantasy now.
As a child she’d had no say in Robert’s sacrifice, but she was not a child anymore.
And she didn’t want Ares to save her. She didn’t want him to be with her out of duty. She wanted his love.
She shrugged. ‘And I really like you. I love your body and how you touch me. And we have fun. But I think I need to get back to London. Today.’
His expression didn’t change, but she felt the impact of her words ripple across the room.
‘We can do that. Or I could talk to my grandfather and Ari. Get them to back off a little. I know they can be a lot.’
‘They’re not a lot. This is. We are.’
Now his face altered, and she wanted to break the laws of science and rewind time so that she could stop the confusion in his eyes.
‘We’re just having fun, Willa.’
‘Are we? Or is this some big seduction? You know, showing me around your city. Getting your family to cosy up to me.’ She was being unfair, but she had to stop this now. She wouldn’t be to him what her mother had been to Robert. A burden to be borne.
‘That’s not what happened.’
‘Isn’t it?’ She breathed out shakily. ‘I’m pregnant with your baby, and I know you, Ares. You like to get your way. And this is just another form of pushing, and you’re going to keep pushing until I agree to marry you.’
‘You already turned me down.’
‘And that’s it, is it? You’re never going to ask again…’
He stared at her in silence. ‘Would it be so bad if I did?’
‘I’m not one of your charities. I don’t need rescuing.’ She was pulling on clothes now.
‘Maybe I did feel like that before. Not so much like you need rescuing, but I felt responsible. But that’s not why I’d ask you to marry me now.’
‘And why would you ask me now?’
The air stilled. His face, his beautiful face was taut. ‘Because I love you.’
‘No, you don’t, Ares. You still love Zoe. That’s why you didn’t tell everyone why you left her at the altar.’
‘I care about her, yes. Like I care about Thea. She was part of my life. But look around you, Willa. There’s evidence of the past everywhere, and yet life moves on. You have to accept it. Just like you have to accept that I love you.’
It took a second. She had to force herself to breathe, to swallow, to stop from breaking down or, worse, reaching for his proudly masculine body.
Ares was saying he loved her. It was what she wanted to hear, and she wanted to believe him.
But maybe he needed her to believe it so that she would agree to marry him.
Because he wanted to take care of her and the baby.
He was that kind of man. The one who did the right thing. Like Robert.
But accepting his love would mean being his responsibility. And it would mean more lies. Ares would have to live a lie. Lie to their child as she had been lied to.
The thought turned her stomach and hardened her resolve.
‘But I don’t love you. And I’m not my mother. I’m not going to marry a man I don’t love.’
‘I don’t believe you. I think you love me with every atom of your being, but you’re scared of the past, of making it your present.’ He took a step forward. ‘But we’re not your parents.’
‘We’re not yours either,’ she said flatly.
‘But I am the baby’s father.’ There was no softness to his voice, no trace of a curve to that beautiful mouth. Just a dark, flickering light in his grey eyes that made her heart flip.
Thankfully, she was dressed now, and that focused her thoughts and smothered those unsustainable fantasies that she and Ares could create their truth, build their world.
She’d forgotten who she was. Her limits. The limits that were unswervable.
But now she’d remembered.
‘And I will make sure you’re a part of the baby’s life. But I don’t want you to be a part of mine.’ She glanced at the bed with its tangle of sheets. ‘This was just sex. That’s all it was. And it’s great sex, but it’s not love.’
‘Say it to my face. Tell me you don’t love me.’ His voice was scratchy. ‘Say it.’
‘I don’t love you. I could never love you.’
For a few seconds, neither of them moved in the shattering silence that swallowed up her lie, and then he turned and walked out of the bedroom.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and the unmistakable sound of the heavy outside door shutting, and then slowly, moving like an automaton, she started to pack.