34. Lourdes
Lourdes
“Marry you?” I gape at him.
A glowing dawn bleeds into the darkness. The storm has moved offshore, and everything grows quiet. Ares’s weight is still pinning me to the mattress, his gray eyes searching mine.
“I didn’t just come back here to be with you.” He kisses me on the forehead. “I came back to get you. I’m needed in New York. I want to be wheels-up at noon. Please pack.”
He lifts off the bed, and after putting his pants back on, he leaves the room.
Shocked and stunned, I just sit there. Naked. Still sore from how he took me. Claimed me. Not just because I’m no longer married. More like a rival adversary of his wants me. Does that make me some kind of prize to stroke his ego?
Angry, I stand up to get dressed and go find him.
With the house so quiet, I hear him in the study. He’s at his desk signing papers. Contracts and orders that I assume have to do with the damaged shelf.
Fingers knotting together in front of me, I say, “Can we talk?”
He straightens at the sound of my voice. “We can talk on the plane.”
“Ares, there are things I need to say.”
“You can always tell me what you want. What you need. I would rather have that than silence.” The intensity in his gaze steals the next breath from my lungs.
“I want to give you everything,” he continues, lowering his voice.
“But you must accept that there are rules about security. You didn’t grow up in this world, Lourdes. You don’t see what I see.”
No, I didn’t grow up like this. But his comment strikes me as a sharp rebuke. Harsh and insulting.
He just put me on a lower level than him. I feel a small wounded pinch stir beneath my ribs. Before he can see how his words shatter me, I turn away and go back upstairs to the bedroom.
I’m folding my old clothes when Elani appears in the doorway, her presence a surprise since it’s early.
He must have called her.
“May I help you pack?” she asks gently.
“No,” I reply automatically, my pride flaring hot.
She smiles faintly. “Let me rephrase that. I was told to help you pack.”
I glance up, and right there, an understanding of how this world works washes over me.
“Okay.” I step back, relinquishing claim to my baggage.
“This is all part of the life,” she says, reaching for my sad suitcase. “When he moves, everyone moves. No one is more unrelenting than Ares. Not even Alexander when he was alive.”
There’s no resentment in her voice, only acceptance.
“When Alexander died, Ares came here the next day,” she continues softly, folding my clothes with careful hands. “He thought the sea would steady him. It didn’t. I had never seen him so quiet. Not angry. Not shouting. Just…aware.”
“Of what?” I ask, sitting on the chaise.
“That everything had changed.” She smooths more clothes before placing them into the suitcase. “Ava was hidden somewhere. His older brother was gone. And suddenly he was no longer a second son. He was the head of this family. A responsibility he didn’t ask for.”
She steps closer and brushes a strand of hair from my face. The maternal gesture catches me off guard.
“He didn’t plan to lead the family,” she says. “But when it was placed in his hands, he stepped up and took responsibility.”
Before I can untangle that thought, Ares appears in the doorway.
“Are you ready?” he asks, his tone one of brisk business.
I nod, and when he steps forward to lift my suitcase from the bed, I don’t object. I let him carry it, watching the ease with which he shoulders the new weight of it.
I follow him downstairs, the house already humming its goodbye. A black SUV waits out front of the villa, engine running. No open Land Cruiser. God, he thinks we’re not safe even here. That’s why he’s moving me.
I face Elani, and before I can stop myself, I wrap my arms around her.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my throat unexpectedly tight.
“You will be back,” she says with certainty. “With him. I’m sure of it.”
When I pull away, Ares is watching us, an unreadable tension flickering in his expression. He steps closer and takes my hand. It’s not possessive, not forceful, just firm. The contact sends a quiet current through me, but it steadies me at the same time.
Ten minutes later, we board the jet, and the cabin is cool. Ares guides me toward one of the captain’s chairs in the row before taking the one next to me.
The engines begin their low, powerful hum. The cabin lights pop on, instructing me to strap myself in. The jet moves down the runway, and seconds later, we’re in the air.
His phone rings before we have even reached cruising altitude.
“Atlas,” he answers.
I watch his face as he listens, the calmness of Santorini draining away with each passing second.
“Yes, let’s confiscate that shipment,” he says evenly. “Use Quinlan. He already has the mark.”
I stare at him, but his words have no meaning to me.
I reach for my phone instead of asking questions I already know Ares won’t answer. After pairing it with my earbuds, I select an audiobook and allow another voice to fill the silence, while the jet slices through the sky.
It’s carrying us back toward a city where he’s a king, and I’m his prisoner.