Chapter Eight
CAPALDI ROSE WHEN they entered, clicking off the phone he had been scrolling through.
‘Nothing to report,’ he said.
‘Efkharisto,’ Nelios murmured.
The other man nodded and left after Vayle added her thanks. Nelios followed her to check in on their son. Content to see him resting peacefully, she returned to the living room, just as a knock came on the door. He answered and the same waiter who’d served them wheeled in their lunch.
By mutual agreement they ate in near silence. Then over coffee, he levelled a steady gaze at her. ‘I’m sensing this hotel isn’t the one?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She gave him her earlier assessment, then carried on with her thought. ‘Besides, I don’t intend to leave Angelos and go back to work for the better part of a year, so I have time.’
The gleam of approval shouldn’t have warmed her the way it did. She didn’t need it. And yet, when he lifted his cup to drain it, she followed the movement, then waited for him to speak.
‘Then should we reschedule the tour and go to Apeiron tomorrow?’
As far as she could decipher, there was something in his voice close to a…yearning that made her heart leap. That made her readily agree, because she sensed it would give her more insight into this enigmatic man. ‘Sure.’
With their meal finished, she rose, but when she walked past him he caught her wrist in a loose grip.
A little startled, both by the gesture and the way her blood rushed that little bit faster through her veins, she stumbled to a halt. ‘Is there something…?’
‘There was nothing wrong with you. He had a duty of care to you as his child and he failed. The flaws were all his. You know that, ne?’ he said, a kind of deep insistence in his voice, as if he needed her to believe that.
Or maybe it was in her imagination. Because why would Nelios care what scars she’d been left with? Unless he just…cared about her?
Lightly buoyed by that thought, she bit her inner lip and blurted, ‘If I do consider that, would you at least consider that your mother may have had her own flawed reasons, beyond what you believe, and hear her—?’
‘Vayle…’ His warning was taut. But he didn’t release her or freeze her out the way he’d done in the past.
‘Just keep an open mind, please?’
A lance of jagged emotion crossed his face, and something else that ludicrously resembled…jealousy? ‘Why is this so important to you? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know.’
‘Nelios, I…’ She paused, wanting to reassure him but not quite knowing how. Or why helping him lift the burden of his past mattered so much to her.
Don’t you know—really?
The tangle of shaking her head free of that thought and hoping he would release her culminated in a comical wobbling of her head.
Because her yearning for the opposite, for him to pull her closer—preferably into his lap, to touch her, kiss her or do more—was chomping like ravenous pack of wolves through her.
He accurately read her mind and used the connection to pull her closer until she could count the light flecks in his eyes, the fine hairs that would form his five o’clock shadow soon enough and breathe in his spicy scent.
Her breath stalled in her lungs as she took another step closer.
‘You done pushing?’ he rasped.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ she whispered.
She almost took it back when he released her. But when she didn’t step away, on account of her feet refusing to move, he held her gaze for a long stretch, adjusted his body then placed his hands on her hips to pull her between his spread legs.
Her hands landed on his shoulders to steady herself. ‘W-what are you doing?’
‘Preventing you from scurrying off to hide in the darkness.’
‘Why…do you care?’
‘The elusive harmony we all search for?’
The charged little laugh escaped before she could stop it. ‘I don’t feel exactly harmonious when you touch me.’ Vayle bit her lip as soon as the telling words escaped then, to counter it, rushed on with, ‘And isn’t sex forbidden in our agreement?’
‘I’m doing nothing besides touching my wife. Touching is not forbidden. But let’s revisit your other statement about how you feel when I touch you, yineka mou,’ he drawled with the intense tone that made parts of her body grow heavy with wanting.
‘You should forget that immediately,’ she tried, knowing she shouldn’t have made that unguarded admission.
The smile that curved his lips then—hot, genuine, devastating—made the heavy parts even heavier. ‘No chance,’ he replied.
She watched the brown of his eyes lighten, then heat up until they were a river of melted, dark caramel she wanted to dive headlong into. A rough sound rumbled from him and Vayle realised she was toying with the hair at his nape, and he…he was leaning into her touch.
That tiny evidence of her power was like a drug to her system. She stepped forward, her head falling forward and her breathing fractured to pieces as his grip tightened.
‘Do it,’ he invited. Dared.
And, with that expertly pushed button, Vayle kissed him while the sun dappled around them, the salt-and-flowers-laden air swirled sultrily, and an urgent whisper at the back of her mind demanded to know what the hell she was doing.
A voice she actively ignored. Because she remembered this magic, yearned for a repeat.
And, as she’d secretly longed for him to do, when he took control and swept his tongue forcefully between her lips, seeking entry, she gave in with a lustful sigh and let him stoke the fire sweeping between her legs.
At some point her fingers curled into his hair and gripped tightly, and she heard him grunt as she moaned her delight, dancing closer to the edge of that cliff spiked with dire warnings.
She was all for ignoring them when a sharp cry ripped them apart.
For a stupefying moment, Vayle wondered if it was a wounded animal or a unique bird’s cry.
Then, eyes widening, she fully registered the sound.
She started to step back. His fingers convulsed on her hips, staying her for another moment as he dragged his lips across hers one last time.
‘I feel entirely ordinary now, as I believe I’m not the first man to be cock-blocked by his child.’
The wry amusement glinting in his eyes arrested her for several more seconds until Angelos cried out again, his indignation growing.
‘I… We should…umm…’
‘Go,’ he said, adjusting himself with zero self-consciousness, while she writhed in a sea of volcanic need and surging alarm.
They’d been married for less than forty-eight hours of an agreed minimum of eighteen years. And here she was, fighting the strongest urge to have sex that she’d ever felt in her life. A little more than alarmed by her own surging emotions, she hurried away, gladly evolving into mummy mode.
She was just done feeding Angelos and about to change him when Nelios strolled into the nursery, crossing the room to her side.
‘I will do it,’ he said. He started to reach for the nappy. Then he paused, a twinge of embarrassment crossing his face. ‘Show me how.’
Three tiny words. But oh, how powerfully they ploughed through her defences.
So much so she could barely speak as she talked him through his first nappy change, with the standard warning about ensuring the correct positioning so he didn’t get accidentally doused.
And she spotted his supremely triumphant look from the corner of her eye when he deftly completed the task.
She remained a little shaken when she excused herself early evening, leaving Angelos with his father so she could video-call Agnes, relieved when the other woman smiled into the phone camera.
‘I thought I might come to Athens soon.’
Vayle’s heart leapt but, remembering Nelios’s intransigence as recently as lunchtime, she winced. ‘Can I suggest you speak to Nelios first before you come?’
‘Speak to me about what?’ came the query.
She spun round to see him entering the room, Angelos tucked snugly against his chest. The sight of father and son sent another pulse of yearning through her. Which was absurd, because this was exactly what she’d agreed to, so why the further yearning…
Her breath caught as realisation deepened. She wanted more.
‘Vayle?’
‘Agnes wants to come to Athens.’
She watched his gaze shift to the screen and saw myriad expressions flicker over his chiselled features before his eyes swung back to her and stayed for an eternity.
‘I would like to spend some time alone with my wife and son. When I’m ready to talk, I’ll send my plane for you. Is that agreeable?’ he said with very little give.
Agnes’s eyes widened before she nodded eagerly. ‘Y-yes. Efkharisto.’
His gaze was still locked on Vayle. ‘I was going to show Angelos the sunset. Join us when you’re done.’
She was sure he hadn’t meant it as an order, despite it sounding like that. Because they’d just enjoyed a pleasant, non-confrontational few hours, and an invitation to watch the sunset shouldn’t be an order. She and Agnes spoke for a few more minutes, then she hung up.
The sun was showing off when she stepped out to join them on the terrace. Deep orange flirted with slashes of yellow and red, but she stopped for a moment to take in the more striking sight of her baby cradled in Nelios’s arms.
‘Come here or you’ll miss it,’ he drawled without turning round.
Edging closer, she glanced at his face. Tension from minutes ago remained but, when he looked at her, there was no censure in it. It was almost as if he’d already relegated it to the back of his mind until he needed to deal with it.
‘Can I look forward to our time on Apeiron free from pressure about Agnes?’ he rasped, his eyes returning to the horizon.
Deciding to take a leaf out of his book, she stepped up to the railing and smiled down at Angelos, who had zero interest in the sunset and raptly stared up at his father instead.
‘Yes.’