CHAPTER FOUR
ARIADNEWOKEUP as the plane began its descent.
She was groggy, and fragile—in spite of what she’d said to Dionysus. Everything hurt. Her heart, and her body.
She was still in disbelief that she had asked Dionysus to father her baby. And in even greater disbelief that he had agreed. And that they were on their way back to this island where they had once been children. Where things had been simple. When they had not fought with each other, or played games.
Until they had.
She was still dressed in her clothes from yesterday, and she tried to smooth the creases out of them as she exited the bedroom, and went back into the sitting area. Dionysus was still seated in that chair. Or rather, he was back in it. There was something mysterious and powerful, she thought, in the way he maintained the exact same posture as he had when she had left.
It was by design, she was nearly certain. Because that was him.
It struck her then, the truth of that. He had curated an image. He might be angry at her for believing the press, but who had informed the press of who he was. He had. Dionysus was not a fool. Every asset he had to his name bore witness to that truth. He had built his company from the ground up. His father’s name was a blight, if anything. And yet, he had styled himself a billionaire, one of the richest men in the world. A member of the Diamond Club.
She was as well, but her entry was a collaborative effort. The same could not be said for Dionysus.
She knew exactly why Theseus had crafted an image and clung to it so dearly. She had her own opinions on whether the extent of it was necessary, but his own trauma was wrapped so tightly around his costume, the adhesive of bandages he wrapped around his wounds firmly affixing the mask to his face. She might have disagreed with that, but she did not know how to tell him it was wrong. Perhaps she should have. Yes, in hindsight, she questioned if the cost had not been worth the promised reward.
Of course there had been happiness. But it had been had in secret.
Both of them had been the staid, lovely power couple in public. Only in private did they laugh. Share secrets and stories.
Only in private could Theseus love and be loved.
She swallowed hard. “I slept well.”
She moved to the couch she had been seated on prior to taking her leave.
“Good,” he said, sounding supremely unconcerned either way.
“Somehow I don’t think you mean that.”
“I would rather have you well rested. Especially given the state of things.”
“My fragility?”
“You find that word so offensive. Why?”
He was looking at her, his eyes far too keen.
“You are one of the richest men in the world,” she said, doing her level best to continue to meet his challenging gaze. “But there is always something a person can’t afford. No matter how wealthy.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes. I cannot afford to be fragile. I have to keep moving. For some reason, Dionysus, I think that you believe you can’t afford to care.”
She was rewarded by a lift of his brow.
He really was astonishing to look at. She marveled at the ways in which he and Theseus were identical, and yet not. Not to her.
They never had been. Right at first, she had struggled to tell them apart. Though she had noticed quickly that Dionysus had a small scar at the bottom of his chin. The light in his eyes was different. The mischief.
Where Theseus always seemed burdened by an invisible weight, Dionysus seemed to always be fencing with an invisible enemy. And that, she realized in the moment was the difference between the two brothers’ burdens.
What Theseus had tried to carry, Dionysus chose to do battle with.
“You know me so well,” he said.
“I did once.”
“Yes. Once.” They were silent for the rest of the descent, and she looked out the window, at the familiar white sand they approached. At the crystal blue water.
Her heart began to race. She hadn’t been back here since she was a teenager.
Her father had sold his home shortly after she had married Theseus, and shortly before his sixth divorce. She wasn’t sure where all the homes he owned were now. He had come to Theseus’s funeral, a new wife on his arm, of course. But he had not... They had never checked in on her.
She didn’t need him. Even now, she didn’t need him.
The landing was smooth, and she could only attribute the dread in her stomach to the memories here.
The memories were good, in part. But they were twisted around the pain of her childhood. And now around the loss of the man who had been such an integral piece of these years.
But Dionysus remained.
So when he stood and reached out his hand, she took it.
They disembarked from the plane, and the hot wind coming in from the Groves touched her skin, reviving something in her after all the damp of London.
She hadn’t left England in the past year. All of her global meetings had been done via the computer. As she had tried to prepare for pregnancy, as she had worked at the company, as she had done her best to try and manage the life they had built, the fa?ade that was so important to them both, she had found herself increasingly isolated and stagnant. She hadn’t fully realized it until just now.
She closed her eyes, and let the familiar air kiss her face.
Theseus might be gone, but the island greeted her as an old friend. And she found it did not feel so empty or lost as she had expected it to.
A tear slid down her cheek.
“Are you well?”
She turned and looked at Dionysus, and she was thrown backward. Into a memory. Or maybe not even a specific memory. But the feeling of a moment. Of running with him along the banks of their favorite swimming hole. Him grabbing her hand and pulling her in with him.
She could remember well the frame of his wiry, strong body.
Her throat ached.
She could remember his smile.
Sneaking strawberry cake and champagne.
And the moment he’d found her on a darkened balcony and taken her into his arms.
It might not be a singular moment. But a hundred pieced together.
And it was no less powerful for that. Perhaps, it was even more.
“I didn’t expect to be... So happy to be back.”
Another tear slid down her cheek. He reached out, and brushed his thumb over her cheekbone, capturing one of her tears. His hand was rough.
She wondered why. All she could do was stare at him, look into those dark eyes. Not familiar because they were the same shape and color as her late husband’s. Because he was Dionysus. And he had once been as familiar to her as breathing. As the air here. As the feeling of the sun on her skin.
She swallowed hard, and moved away from him, breaking the contact of his touch.
“Where’s the new house?”
“I will drive us there. I have a car just here.”
He gestured to the garage that was nearly hidden by the side of a rock. The door slid open as they approached, and inside was a bright red sports car that was as unsubtle as its owner. And she would love to be scathing about that. She would love, absolutely, to tie that to the new, hedonistic version of Dionysus who had changed so much since their childhood. But this... This was him. In fact...
“This looks very like the car that you had when you were seventeen. I remember you sending me a photo of it.”
“It is in fact the car that I had when I was seventeen,” he said, grinning. “I could think of no better vehicle to serve me on the island.”
It was such a strange, nostalgic sort of thing. But then, the entire purchase of the island was such a nostalgic thing for a man who seemed to fashion his life around the entire concept that he cared for nothing and no one.
It disrupted her thoughts on him. She wasn’t in the mood to be disrupted. Not right now.
So she got into the car without thinking too deeply about any of it, and let him drive them both up a new road that had been cut into the island. His new house must not be on the beach.
She couldn’t see where it was. The road was winding, and the grounds were no longer manicured in any fashion. It was like the island had taken control back.
And then, she could see windows, glinting through the trees. A house made of dark natural stone cut into hard angles seemingly set into the rock. It was entirely different to the ostentatious and palatial dwellings their families had had on the island.
This seemed designed to complement the surrounding environment, rather than take it over.
There was a staircase that led up to the front door, because the house was indeed seemingly melted to the side of the mountain.
“Part of the house extends back into the rock,” he said. “It’s very effective for cooling. And helps reduce some of the carbon footprint.”
“Oh,” she said.
It was a very stupid thing to say. It wasn’t crisp or charged. It wasn’t pithy or clever.
But she found she couldn’t make fun of him for caring about something. Whether that was the environment or anything.
In some ways, she supposed he was demonstrating care in a fashion by bringing her here.
Even though she had been annoyed with him for taking her out of her life.
The trouble was, she wasn’t sure what her life was at the moment.
As she and Dionysus got out of the car, she looked at him. And realized that for the foreseeable future, he was her life.
He was going to be the father of her baby.
She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her in one great gust.
Dionysus was going to be the father of her baby. And it was easy enough for her to lean on the fact that genetically, the child would be indistinguishable from a baby that she and Theseus had made.
But it was different. It was simply different.
Theseus was her friend. The idea of having his baby, a baby that was part of both of them, had felt like the ultimate expression of their friendship. The way they’d melded their lives together. It hadn’t been a conventional partnership, but it had been real. The thought of carrying his baby had not been... Intimate.
What a strange word. As she stood there staring at Dionysus’s proud profile, the idea of his child growing in her womb felt...
It made goose bumps raise on her arms.
And she had another memory. Of when they had been young. Still teenagers. Treading water in the middle of that swimming hole. And his eyes had gone dark when he had looked at her, and when his gaze had flickered down to her mouth, she had panicked.
Because she had made a promise.
She had made a promise to Theseus, and she couldn’t betray that promise.
Because she had known in that moment that if she drew closer to Dionysus, everything would be ruined.
She didn’t want passion. She wanted to be cared for while caring for someone else. She wanted companionship.
She wanted stability.
She had watched her father discard women, one after the other all through her life. When they got too mouthy, too bored, too old. Passion was fleeting and selfish. She did not want to live a life governed by passion.
She had decided instead on a life without it entirely.
She loved Theseus. With her entire soul.
But Dionysus had begun calling to that wild thing within her she tried so hard to keep hidden, and when he’d kissed her on the balcony...
Of course she’d told Theseus she had thought it was him.
She wasn’t sure either of them believed her.
But she’d done her best to forget it all. To put it behind her. Still...
He was Dionysus.
The only reason she hadn’t felt his impact like a wrecking ball when she had seen him in the Diamond Club was that she had been in a state of shock for the past two weeks. And then she had miscarried.
Her body was wrapped in discomfort and sadness.
But right now, she didn’t feel as if she had the protection of those horrible feelings. Right now, she was left with the impact of him. And memories. And honesty.
About the real reason she didn’t like seeing him as much as she once had. About the real reasons the headlines about his exploits bothered her.
Yes. Right then, she was confronted with honesty, and she hated that most of all.
When he turned to face her, it was like seeing him for the first time. The sun hit the side of his face, casting a harsh light on his strong features. That proud nose, his sensual lips. His square jaw. The slight dip in his chin, a scar, not a feature. Because it was the one physical feature on his face that differed from Theseus.
And yet it was an entirely different face. The sight of it did entirely different things to her body.
Where Theseus was home and comfort, love, if faded from a red rose to a yellow one as the years had passed, Dionysus was a straight shot of whiskey.
And there was nothing comfortable about him.
There never had been.
She didn’t like these feelings, because they reminded her of being seventeen. And torn violently between two truths. One being that she loved Theseus as much as she could have ever loved anyone.
And the other, she had been increasingly confronted by the pull she felt to Dionysus that was nothing like the affectionate feelings she had for his brother.
But she had made a vow when she was fifteen. To keep Theseus’s secret. To marry him.
She could remember that so clearly. They had been out on the beach too late, and he had sat so close to her on the sand. And part of her had wondered if he would finally tell her that he had feelings for her like she did for him. What had come was a sobbing confession she hadn’t expected. She had ended up holding him in her arms while he told her that he had tried to ignore his feelings all of his life, but recently had had a romance with the son of one of the visitors to the island, and he couldn’t deny it any longer.
He was gay and he was never going to be what their father wanted him to be.
I fear he might actually kill me.
He won’t. I’ll protect you.
Will you? You are my dearest friend in the world. And I love you. If you marry me... If we can have children, then I can be what my father needs me to be. And he never has to know. No one ever has to know.
She had agreed. Because she had been young, and she had loved him.
And it had been a sharp, uncomfortable thing.
By the time she married him, she had known it was never going to be romantic. Those were a foolish teenage girl’s hopes and dreams. But she had accepted that in the way Theseus had given up on the idea of truly having love and passion in his life, trading it for friendship, companionship and for walking the path that he was expected to, she was also making that trade.
She did it with her eyes open. Because she had committed so hard to that life, to supporting him. Protecting him. Building a family with him.
She felt honor bound to continue doing it now.
But right now, she couldn’t deny the ways that her feelings about Dionysus were different.
Utterly different.
It called to things inside of her that she had intentionally cut off. That she had intentionally decided to let go fallow.
Nuns married the church.
And she had married Theseus.
Both were an exercise in chastity and devotion.
Of course, Dionysus couldn’t know that. Not now.
It would mean that she had failed at her mission. It was as simple as that.
Theseus’s legacy was entirely in her hands now, and she would not falter. Otherwise what was the point of any of it? Of all these years.
He was gone, she didn’t even have a child. If she lost control of the company...
Everything she had done... Starting with the moment that she had swerved away from Dionysus in the swimming hole, all of it, it would be nothing.
This was the last stretch. They’d been so close.
It wouldn’t all fall because of her.
She could not face that. She could not turn around, look behind her and see nothing but ash. She was grieving. Grieving the loss of Theseus. Grieving the loss of her pregnancy. The loss of all that had come before, the work that she had put in, the sacrifices she had made would be too great to bear.
She simply could not.
“Come inside,” he said, gesturing up the stairs.
She was grateful for the reprieve. Grateful for the break in the intensity of her thoughts. It was all too much. She could scarcely breathe past it.
So she focused on the tranquility and beauty of their surroundings. On the way the water dripped from the rocks, natural springs continuing their flow even around the house. Moss grew on the eaves. She saw the tree frog nestled in one of the deep-set windows.
“This is beautiful,” she said.
“It reminded me very much of our swimming hole,” he said.
It had been their swimming hole. Theseus hadn’t particularly liked it. She and Dionysus had been the adventurous ones. The ones who were more independent.
Though Dionysus was far too independent. And she had taken her strength and used it to protect his brother.
She tried to let that make her angry. Except she couldn’t, with any credibility allow that to infuriate her. Not when she knew that Theseus simply hadn’t confided in Dionysus.
She could think of a thousand reasons why. The largest being that if Dionysus knew something like that, and their father decided to physically hurt him, then it would be a danger to Theseus, and Dionysus.
She knew that. So there was no point letting herself rewrite things and make it seem as if Dionysus couldn’t be trusted. He had simply always and ever been another victim of their father.
Dionysus entered the code, which unlocked the door. The inside was much the same as the outside, in many ways. There were plants and stones, and a small river ran through the entry with a raised wooden platform going over the water.
“Why did you do this?”
“It was like that,” he said. “I didn’t want to disrupt the flow of the water.”
This was his sanctuary. It suddenly made sense why he didn’t invite people here. Why he didn’t have parties here.
His life outside this place was loud. This was his touchstone with another time.
A time they had shared.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.
“All of the medical records from the spa facility have been sent to your doctor. She’s on her way.”
“Oh,” she said. “Good. Great.”
“If you don’t feel ready yet...”
“I don’t. But there are reasons...reasons we have to move quickly.”
“Of course.”
Still, she was stuck on the fact that somehow being pregnant with Dionysus’s baby was different.
And with that came the discomforting thought that she might not be comfortable passing his baby off as Theseus’s. Because he was right, what would she tell the child?
She pushed that to the side.
She walked into the beautiful dining area, where there was a long, natural wood table with raw edges beneath an entirely glass ceiling, windows allowing small shafts of light in, mostly shaded by the foliage all around.
There was a large platter of fruit sitting out waiting.
“Sit here,” he said. “Have something to eat. When your doctor arrives, I’ll let you know.”
“Can I have some coffee?”
She hadn’t been having caffeine, and now... She might as well.
“Of course,” he said.
He disappeared, and she was left feeling... A strange sort of ache in her chest. When he returned a moment later with a mug of strong espresso, she looked up at him, their eyes clashing. She was very careful not to touch his fingers as she took the mug from his hand.
“Are you in the habit of making coffee for the women that stay with you?”
“No. Because women don’t stay with me. If you’re going to try to make this feel less heavy by diminishing me, you might as well stop. I can’t remember the last time I made a cup of coffee for another person. I normally don’t even make it for myself. Of course I know how. I’m not useless.”
She stared at the coffee. At the small act of kindness. Yes, she was used to having drinks made for her. She and Theseus were incredibly wealthy, and she had been raised wealthy before that. But as a child whose parents had ignored her professionally she was keenly aware of the difference between someone being paid to complete a task that served you, and somebody in your life deciding to do something for you.
They were entirely different things.
And she was almost entirely unfamiliar with one of them.
When she took a sip of the coffee, she felt a strange emotion rising in her chest.
Before she could say another word to Dionysus, he was gone.
She sat there in the silence for a long moment, eating tropical fruit and drinking coffee. Her mind completely blank, because there were no words for what she had experienced in the past three weeks. None whatsoever.
It was all just tragedy.
It was all just... Crushing. But she was not crushed. She was still here.
Back on the island, and with Dionysus, which felt entirely symbolic of something she couldn’t quite grasp hold of.
She sat like that until her doctor arrived an hour later, and Dionysus directed her and her physician to a bedroom upstairs.
It was plush and comfortable, though no amount of luxurious surroundings could make the examination, or the topic any easier.
“There’s nothing physically wrong with you,” she said. “Though, I would want to take precautions during labor and delivery, as I suspect you’re prone to hemorrhage. But, likely there was simply something wrong with the development of the baby. These things do happen. The process of creating a human is quite complicated.”
Ariadne nodded. “I know.” She did. But it still felt something more than common when it was her. It still felt something more than the precariousness of life.
It felt personal. Like a dagger straight to her soul. But she imagined every woman in this position felt that way.
She wasn’t a doctor. She was a woman who had lost the promise of a future that she had wanted desperately.
She could try again. She would try again. But it didn’t take the sting away from this moment. From this loss. The possibility of this child was gone forever, and she felt wounded by that.
“I would like you to wait at least one cycle. And then I come back for the insemination. He explained your situation to me.”
She blinked. “He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that this baby... The previous pregnancy, was conceived through insemination.”
Her doctor looked at her, her gaze level. “And it isn’t anyone’s business but yours. You know that I am committed to keeping your confidence.”
“Thank you. I will need you to keep confidence with this even more so.”
“I understand. He did explain the situation.”
“It is very important,” said Ariadne, feeling like her doctor was judging her. Even though the other woman looked entirely nonjudgmental. But maybe Ariadne judged herself.
Maybe that was the problem.
She was the one who was worried that this decision was mercenary. She was the one that was worried it was heartless.
It was just she had to protect... Everyone. She just had to protect everyone.
The workers at the company, the memory of Theseus. Everyone.
“Four weeks... You’re sure?”
“I would not feel comfortable performing the procedure prior to that. It’s a little bit sooner than I would like. My preference would be to give you some normal cycles, but I understand that there is urgency here.”
Of course, Ariadne knew that people got pregnant sooner than advised all the time. But she also understood that didn’t involve doctors going against their medical inclinations.
That would require making a baby without medical intervention.
For a moment, the thought immobilized her. She was looking into Dionysus’s eyes again in her memory.
No. She had to stop.
There would be no quicker way for Dionysus to find out the truth than for him to discover that his sister-in-law was still a virgin after spending eight years being married to his brother.
Even after being pregnant. Granted, she was reasonably certain the physical evidence of her virginity was long gone. But still, it would be obvious. She had no practical knowledge of how to touch a man.
Except for the once, she had only ever kissed a man as a performance. She and Theseus had kissed often. Their only truly passionate looking kiss being the one on their wedding day.
And after that, casual kisses to make them look like an affectionate couple. It had always made her feel warm. Happy in some ways. Connected. It didn’t light her on fire.
It didn’t feel like drinking a shot of whiskey.
She thought of Dionysus’s eyes again.
And she pushed all of it to the side.
“I understand. I do. I want everything to be as safe as possible. I don’t ever... I never want to go through something like that again.”
“I know it’s a lot,” her doctor said. “I’m very sorry for everything you’ve been through.” She put her hand on Ariadne’s. And her first instinct was to pull away. Because this care, the softness, felt dangerous. It felt like an invitation to weakness, and Ariadne did not have the luxury of weakness.
After that, her doctor left and Ariadne opened up the closet, surprised to discover an entire wardrobe hanging there. Light-colored, floating linen things, that all looked incredibly friendly to spending time on an island.
She wasn’t going to be able to try to conceive again for four weeks. There was really no point in her being here.
She had her computer, though, and she had conducted all of her meetings of late virtually. Why couldn’t she do it here?
She could admit to herself, in this moment alone, that she might need to take this time to herself. That she might need to take this time to sit in some of these feelings. In grief.
She couldn’t have her body being under undue stress when she was trying to prepare to conceive another baby.
Of course, there was no reason for Dionysus to stay, and as she put on a navy-blue linen jumpsuit with wide legs that were both loose and flattering, she rehearsed what she was going to tell him in her mind.
She walked downstairs, expecting to find him sitting in the dining room, but he wasn’t there.
She walked back into the far reaches of the house, and there was a low doorway that seemed to go into darkness.
Her breath left her body as she made her way through the craggy corridor, realizing that it was a cave. And then she saw light.
She walked into a massive chamber, well lit. The walls were limestone, almost white. And all around were beds of pink salt, and large glowing lamps made of the same material. The light it cast into the room was warm and rosy. But the biggest shock of all, was seeing Dionysus, sitting there in the middle of it all wearing nothing but a pair of white linen pants, his chest bare.
“What is this?”
“It’s a cabin that I found here when I was a boy. I always wanted to build a house centered around a natural cave. I always felt as if there was a strong energy here. Or at least, it suited me to believe it. I used to come to this cave when I needed to heal from my father’s latest beatings. Whether verbal or physical.”
“Oh,” she said.
She wasn’t sure what to make of this. This insight into his mind. Into the fact that he believed in something... Almost metaphysical, even if he left space for the idea that it might be in his head. He had filled the place with pink sea salt, which she was sure she had read somewhere had some spiritual quality to it.
“I like it,” he said. “Whether or not I believe it actually does me any good. It is a cathedral of sorts.”
It was funny, how it reminded her of a large, stone cathedral in some ways.
“I can see that.”
“And how was your appointment?”
“She wants me to wait until I have another period. I wanted to tell you, there is no reason for you to stay this whole time.”
And then his eyes met hers, the light there immobilizing her. “I’m sorry, Ariadne. I’m afraid that you’re stuck with me for the duration.”