Chapter Ten
‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, can’t keep away? I haven’t seen you in days, darling,’ her mother protested.
‘Mom. What are you doing here?’ Cassie leaned in to kiss her mother on the cheeks and then hugged her tightly.
‘I got your text saying you were back, and I knew you wouldn’t have anything in, so I picked up a few things at William Poll.
I can’t stay long. I’m getting my nails done but never mind about me.
When did you get home? You do look well.
’ Her mom’s green eyes softened. ‘Greece suits you. Now tell me about your lovely digital detox.’
‘I was just making coffee. Do you want one?’ Cassie said, avoiding the question.
Her mother followed her into the kitchen.
‘Not for me, darling. So, how was it? When Daniel rang and told me what you were doing, I had to look it up. But I thought you were staying longer.’ Her beautiful face stilled.
‘Why did you come back? It’s nothing to do with work, is it?
Julia said she’d heard something about you selling the business, but I told her that couldn’t be right.
You would never go on holiday if that was happening. ’
‘You know what these things are like, Mom. People make offers and then withdraw them.’
‘Did you want to sell?’ Her mother frowned. ‘I thought you loved what you do.’
‘I do. And I’m good at it, which is why someone wanted to buy me out,’ she lied.
‘But you said no.’
‘Yes.’ It was a little more complicated than that, but it was in the past. The present was far simpler. She loved Antaeus and he loved her.
A tiny ripple of unease skimmed across her skin.
He hadn’t said those words out loud. But then she remembered how he had looked at her as if her declaration of love was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. His hands, too, had been tight around hers as if he felt unbalanced and needed to steady himself.
She felt her shoulder blades unhook. It was better that he hadn’t made any hasty proclamations.
Words were sometimes an empty promise. Antaeus’s eyes and hands had told the truth.
They spoke of a love that was too big, too overwhelming for him to contain in a simple three-word phrase.
He hadn’t said it because he couldn’t, not because he didn’t feel it.
‘I came back early because something came up. You might have read about it. It’s been in the news. A crypto-gaming app has been selling user data.’
Her mom nodded. ‘Oh, yes, someone was talking about that on the radio in the taxi.’
‘I don’t know if you heard, but the app is part owned by Antaeus Tsiartas.’
‘Antaeus Tsiartas.’ Her mother’s eyes were round with surprise and confusion. ‘You mean Andreas’s boy.’
‘He’s not a boy, Mom. He’s a man. A good man.’
Her mother sat down, patting the chair beside her. ‘What has any of that got to do with you?’
‘I’ve been helping him. Working on a damage limitation strategy.’
‘I don’t understand… You’re helping him. But your father. He—’ She hesitated. ‘I know you must have heard things about what happened, but we’ve never really talked about it. I didn’t want you to—’
‘I know what Daddy did,’ Cassie said gently.
‘And Antaeus is okay with that? With everything Henry did?’
‘He wasn’t. He was hurt and confused. His grandfather was very bitter about what happened, and he filled his head with anger and resentment. But then we talked in Greece, and I told him about how it was for me, for us. And he feels differently now.’
‘You were in Greece with him?’ Her mom’s face was pale. She seemed stunned. ‘I didn’t even know you knew him.’ Reaching out, she took Cassie’s hand. ‘When did you meet?’
‘A few weeks ago,’ Cassie admitted, and she felt a tiny twist of uncertainty spiral up inside her.
Put like that, it sounded crazy even to her to be talking about love.
But love made you do crazy things. Everyone knew that.
‘I know what you’re thinking. But he’s not like his father. ’ Or mine, she almost added.
‘But what about the problem with the crypto app? I thought they said there was going to be an investigation. Is he in trouble?’
‘That had nothing to do with Antaeus.’
‘Did he tell you that?’ There was a slight tremble in her mother’s voice, and Cassie squeezed Cecilia’s hand.
‘Yes. And I believe him.’
‘But how can you be so sure? You hardly know him, darling.’
‘But I do. I think I know more about Antaeus than any other person on earth, and he knows me. I understand that most couples take a lifetime to do that.’
Her mother’s eyes were very green and level with hers. It was like looking at her reflection in a mirror. ‘You’re a couple?’ There was no anger or accusation in her voice—only a deep maternal concern.
‘Yes, we are. I love him and he loves me.’
‘I see.’ Her mom looked dazed. She smiled weakly. ‘That’s wonderful, darling.’
Except it didn’t sound as if Cecilia thought it was wonderful. Trying to fill her voice with the confidence she felt, Cassie said, ‘He loves me, and he needs me. He’s trying to clean up this mess, and he needs someone he can trust.’
Her mother smiled now, a real smile, a smile of such pride and devotion that Cassie felt close to tears.
‘Then he’s a very lucky man to have you by his side.
I really am pleased for you, darling. I just worry, you know.
Your father…with him…everyone served a purpose.
’ Her voice sounded strained. ‘I’m sorry.
I don’t mean to be so negative. I just don’t want you—for that to happen to you again. Not after Henry and Gray.’
‘It won’t. Antaeus isn’t that kind of man,’ she said stiffly, wanting more than anything for her mother to know him better.
‘Of course not,’ her mom said quickly. And suddenly she was her mom again. Sweet, loving, supportive. ‘I’m so pleased that what happened between your fathers hasn’t affected how you feel for one another.’
After her mother left, Cassie sat in the silent kitchen, watching the sun’s reflection on the city skyline. Obviously her mom was shocked and confused. And worried, understandably. But when she and Antaeus met, Cecilia would feel differently. There was no reason to panic.
Nothing had changed.
Her phone pinged, and she glanced distractedly at the screen. Then the room seemed to fold in on itself.
The headline wavered in front of her eyes. From Feud to Forgiveness: Appleton Heiress and Jailbird Rival Tsiartas’s Son in Love Tryst.
The photos accompanying the headline must have been taken at the airport. They were holding hands. Cassie was looking up at Antaeus, her face bright with love. He looked handsome and purposeful.
The word echoed inside her head as she stared down at the photos, her breath taut in her throat. Her back stiffened as she heard the door to the apartment open, then shut.
‘Cassie, are you okay?’ Antaeus dumped a deli bag on the counter. ‘Did you realise your door was open? I thought I shut it, but—’ His eyes stilled on her face. ‘What is it?’
She touched the screen of the tablet and pushed it across the table.
It was like watching the bomb’s-eye view footage of a drone attack. She saw exactly when the images made contact with his gaze.
Lip curling in disbelief, he picked up the tablet, his eyes scanning the story.
‘I take it this isn’t part of your strategy?’ he said after a moment.
She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t understand. The story didn’t break until after we got to the apartment. Why would they even want a photo of us? And how did they know we’d be arriving then?’
‘You can track planes easily enough. There are flight tracker websites.’ He put down the tablet. ‘As for why they wanted a photo, I imagine the story got leaked to various news outlets either shortly after or at the same time I found out.’
His voice was flat, unemotional, with none of the warmth that had been there earlier.
She felt that same flicker of uncertainty as before when her mom was talking about Henry and Gray.
But like she’d told Cecilia, Antaeus was not like them.
He was in shock. He needed reassurance. And to address this new development.
‘It’ll be okay,’ she said quickly. She got to her feet, walked around the table to where he was standing and wrapped her arms around his body.
She could feel the tension in his muscles, but after a moment, he relaxed and pulled her closer. ‘I know.’
‘In fact, I think we can use this.’
‘Use it how?’ She heard the frown in his voice. Looking up, she saw that his face was blank, wary. Not the man who had unravelled her in bed in the room next door. Almost a stranger.
‘They’ve already given us the story. Feud to forgiveness. We can do a press conference. I can support you publicly. I want to do that. We don’t even need a new strategy. It would be the same. Proactive and transparent. But about us.’
‘Us?’
Something was happening. She could feel the air changing, tightening. And then carefully but firmly, he reached behind his back, took her hands and loosened them from his body.
‘Yes, us,’ she said slowly.
Staring up into his face, she felt her stomach clench.
Antaeus was changing, too, even as she was looking at him.
And she had been wrong, she thought with a lurch of panic.
He wasn’t becoming a stranger at all. She had met this version of him before when he followed her into her office and told her that he was going to destroy her.
Now his blue eyes fixed on her face, and she could see the anger, the frustration. ‘Things were just starting to calm down. But this—’ His beautiful mouth twisted. ‘The media is a beast, and you know the kind of narrative they feed off.’
‘We can use it,’ she said again.
Antaeus let go of Cassie’s hands. His heart was pounding.
Arriving in New York, gazing down at the city he loved, sitting next to the woman he loved, he had felt grateful and relieved and touched with elation.
He had never imagined a world where love could be a thing of beauty and hope, but her hand in his hand had opened a window on the view of a landscape that was so beautiful and expansive, it made him feel breathless.
Now all he could see were the perilously steep cliffs, the sinkholes and swamps and the treacherous swirling ocean currents.
Because love was not a safe haven. It was a catastrophic force. It was the most reckless gamble of all: Only the house always won. And he always lost. His father. His mother. His home. His homeland. And now he was going to lose Cassie.
She would step up in front of the cameras and declare her love, and the gods would look up from their ambrosia and nectar and see an opportunity, new toys to play with, until they broke them.
The idea of Cassie being dragged into the mess of his life, of her broken and weeping or worse, made him feel physically sick. He had to act. And it had to be quick. Decisive. Brutal. Because he couldn’t protect her.
Don’t look into her eyes, he told himself.
‘I don’t want to use it. Do you really think I want my name in a headline like that?’ He gestured towards the tablet. ‘I’m trying to distance myself from the past, not embrace it.’
‘But it’s too late. My being on your plane changes the story.’
‘You being in my life changes the story.’
Now he looked at her. She didn’t hear it at first, but then he saw her face still. ‘I don’t… What are you saying?’
‘What we have. What we had, it’s become a complication.’ As her chin jerked up, he felt a wave of pure self-loathing rise up. It took every ounce of willpower to keep talking, to not backtrack.
‘In Pelion, it worked. I won’t deny that. And it was…enjoyable.’
He pushed the memory of those frantic, freeing moments far away. ‘But it’s attracting the wrong kind of attention right now. It’s bad for my image, and frankly, I can’t afford any more complications.’
He needed to solidify the lie, make it undeniable. ‘I’m in damage control mode, and to be blunt, I need you to disappear from my life so I can fix this.’
‘I thought we were fixing it.’
‘There is no we. There never was.’
‘But you said… In the car, you said that—’
‘Because you were looking at me, and you wanted it so badly.’ He finished the sentence.
Watching her face close over was a different kind of exile to the one that happened when he was twelve.
He had done the shattering himself. And it didn’t feel any better, but it was done, and Cassie could get on with her life without him.
The thought ripped across his stomach like a ceremonial sword. He had never felt pain like it. But then he saw that the light in her eyes—the warm, trusting light he had basked in—hadn’t just dimmed. Now there was the blankness of someone who knew, yet again, that she had been used and discarded.
‘My mom was right about you. You are like Henry.’
‘Well, she should know.’
Cassie pressed her hand against her chest like someone trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound. And it hurt to see her pain. But it was better she felt that pain now rather than something worse later. Because there was always something worse. Prison. Exile. Death.
‘God, you must have laughed when I told you I loved you. Was that the icing on the cake?’ She shook her head. ‘And I invited you into my home. You know what? You can have it.’
‘Have what?’
Snatching up her purse, she fumbled with the zip and reached inside. ‘Here.’ She hurled something at him.
He caught it. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Giving you the keys to my apartment. You’ve taken everything else. Why should this—’ she gestured towards the walls of the kitchen ‘—be the exception?’
‘I don’t want your apartment.’
‘And I don’t want you. In my bed. In my head. In my life.’
He watched her turn and spin away unsteadily, willing her to leave, willing her to stay. Wanting to stop her. Needing her to go.
And then she was gone, and he was standing in her empty apartment, his heart splintering, a torrent of futile four-letter words streaming through his head.