Chapter Five #2
She’d sounded so indignant on his behalf…
it had roused something suspiciously expansive in his chest. For a moment he’d imagined what it might have been like to have someone in his corner as a child—helping him navigate a world where letters and numbers had danced in front of him and refused to make sense.
He had to acknowledge uncomfortably that she wasn’t at all what he might have expected. She was here, on her own, not just helming her own boat. No staff. No lackeys. Self-sufficient in a way that made him think she must have been on her own a lot as a child.
She was capable. And not looking to see who was looking at her.
Ares glanced around briefly, instinctively checking who might be watching them as much as to see if anyone had recognised her.
No. She did blend in with the crowd of golden-skinned tourists, watching a sunset.
Of course, if anyone chose to really look, they might recognise the pedigree that she carried with a self-assurance that came only with birth.
A high-born birth. But even now Ares could imagine her pointing out that she hadn’t asked to be born into a royal lineage.
And yet she seemed resigned to her fate. To carry on the line. To do her job.
After a few minutes Cassie turned to face him. She’d slid her sunglasses on her head and the brightness of those blue eyes cut right through him.
‘Ready to go?’
He just looked at her. She waved a hand in front of his face. ‘The sun has set.’
Ares tore his gaze away from her face and looked out over the sea to where the sun had indeed set below the horizon, leaving a lingering haze of orange and pink and yellow flooding the sky.
It must have been spectacular but he wouldn’t know because he’d been too busy looking at that sunset reflected on Cassie’s rapt face.
He was losing it. He stood up. ‘Let’s get back, then.’ He knew he sounded curt. Abrupt. But she rubbed him up the wrong way. She rubbed you up the right way last night. Ares gritted his jaw and let Cassie precede him out of the viewing point.
The lingering memory of that spectacular sunset was fast fading and being eclipsed by the way Ares’s hand felt on Cassie’s elbow and the jolts of electricity running through her every time their bodies collided as Ares herded her through the thronged main street of Oia.
Feeling a need to resist at all costs—this hijacking of her precious freedom, and this assault on her senses—Cassie stopped and dug her heels in. ‘I’m hungry. I’d like to eat before going back to the boat.’
Waves of displeasure emanated from Ares. It was almost worth it to rise him. It felt like a dream that they’d shared such an incendiary intimate moment only twenty-four hours ago.
But then he looked down at her as people flowed around them and it came hurtling back. The delicious heat of it. The heart-pounding excitement.
He said, ‘Fine, I could eat too. There’s a place near here.’ He started leading them again, veering off and down a little side street.
Cassie said, ‘I thought you hadn’t been here before.’
‘I never said I hadn’t been before, just that I think it’s become an over-hyped theme park.’
They were going down wide steps now and emerged into a restaurant that was cut into the side of the caldera, with amazing views out over the sea.
A waiter came and greeted Ares effusively, and brought them to a table, set apart from the others on a little point.
The best vantage point in the place. Ares pulled out the chair that faced the sea and Cassie found herself being touched by his consideration that she have the view before she realised that he was most likely doing this out of habit, so that there’d be less chance of anyone recognising her.
After all, he was hardly Mr Charm. And yet…there was something seriously compelling about him. Cassie hated herself for it but she wanted to see him unbend. Smile. Relax.
They sat down. The stunning view of the high walls of the caldera with the white-roofed houses and blue trim built along the sides like little toy buildings was exquisitely pretty. But Ares Drakos easily eclipsed even such an amazing view.
Cassie focused on the menu, choosing a salad and a fish main. Ares chose similar and a local wine and they handed the menus back. Cassie tried to take in the view but her gaze kept returning to Ares, who was regarding her steadily.
The setting sun made him seem even darker. More saturnine. It made Cassie itch to provoke. The waiter poured some white wine into their glasses and Cassie lifted her glass. She smiled sunnily. ‘To new friends.’
Ares didn’t lift his glass in cheers. He took a sip of the wine and said, ‘We’re not friends.’
A dart of hurt along with irritation at his dogged refusal to bend an inch made Cassie open her eyes wide. ‘As I mentioned this morning, I think we’ve already established we were quite friendly…’ she lifted her bare wrist and pretended to look at a watch ‘…right about this time yesterday evening.’
Ares looked at a point over her shoulder. ‘That was a mistake. My fault. You didn’t know who I was.’
Cassie said nothing for fear of revealing that even if she had known who he was she might still have climbed him like a tree.
‘Can we move on from that?’
He looked at her. ‘You brought it up again.’
Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, if I promise not to bring it up again can we move on? As it appears that we’re destined to spend the next week, at least, together.’
‘You sure you don’t want to go home sooner?’
Cassie smiled extra sweetly. ‘I’m sure. As I said, this is my only chance to enjoy some freedom while I can. Something you take for granted.’
‘Are any of us really free though?’
‘Spare me the philosophical debate, and yes, some are freer than others. My brother certainly enjoyed his freedom as crown prince, before he became king, after our father died.’
‘Or, in his case, not his father.’
Cassie’s smile slipped as she recalled that brutal bombshell.
They’d found out mere hours before it had made international headlines and Caius had had to leave Sadat Sur Mer to avoid the scrum of paparazzi who had descended on the island.
Not to mention the shock and ire of the people who had idolised him.
The starters were served, traditional Greek salad with a twist.
‘No,’ Cassie echoed, ‘not his father.’
‘What happened to you after your brother left Sadat to escape the press?’ Ares popped an olive into his mouth.
Cassie tried not to fixate on those sculpted lips.
She shrugged lightly, belying the fear she’d felt in those moments, all alone.
Abandoned by her brother. ‘I holed up in the palace and had to wait it out, as our advisors and press corps came up with a response, naming me as queen. There was no other alternative.’
She had to acknowledge, ‘Caius wanted to stay, to shield me as much as possible, but people were angry. They felt betrayed. He would have caused more headlines staying in Sadat.’
‘Overnight you became ruler.’
‘More or less…but not officially until the coronation.’
Ares waved a hand. ‘That’s just a ceremony and paperwork.’
Cassie let out a laugh. ‘I think Pierre, my chief advisor, who runs on anxiety and adrenalin, wouldn’t quite agree. You’re not a royalist?’
Ares took a healthy sip of wine. ‘Why would I be?’
‘Greece still has a royal family, even if it no longer has any power. You come from a dynasty that probably has traditions and bloodlines dating back as far as theirs does.’
Ares went still on the other side of the table. Cassie sensed it.
He said, ‘You’re not far wrong. Maybe that’s why I’m not a fan of entitled privilege.’
‘What happened to you?’
His eyes flashed dark golden for a moment. She was transgressing but she didn’t care. He’d hijacked her peace. But then he shrugged and said, ‘I didn’t care to inherit something I hadn’t worked for.’
Cassie was sure there was more to it than that but she just said a little mockingly, ‘My, my, you must be dizzy on such high moral ground. No wonder your opinion of me is so low. I don’t even have a business to inherit, just a rock of land and and an ancient title.’
He had the grace to look slightly shamed. He said, ‘It’s not quite the same, I grant you. My lack of love for royalty stems more from an unfortunate incident with a princess from another European royal family.’
Cassie’s eyes widened. The waiter put down their main courses. She hadn’t even noticed their starters being removed. She came forward and rested an elbow on the table, her chin on her hand. ‘Do tell.’
Ares couldn’t have looked less inclined to tell, but after spearing a morsel of food from his plate and wiping his mouth with a napkin he said, ‘Princess such and such… I was tasked with protecting her as she did one public event in Paris and then proceeded to shop and party like a one-woman hen party.’
‘So? That can’t have come as a massive surprise. After all, my brother did his best imitation of a one-man stag party. Sometimes with you in tow.’
Ares glared at her. ‘Not the same at all.’
Cassie swallowed a piece of delicious fish and smiled. ‘Double standards much?’
‘Your brother is not spoiled.’
Cassie looked at Ares. ‘No, he’s not.’ And neither was Ares, she was beginning to appreciate.
Ares continued, ‘I think we both know he puts up that playboy front as a smokescreen to prevent people getting too close.’
Cassie tried not to show her surprise at Ares’s understanding of her brother.
It unnerved her. If he saw her brother so clearly, would he see all the way into her where she felt as though no one had ever really seen her?
Where she’d had to smile bright enough just to be noticed?
To mitigate the tension and toxicity around her?
Her smile certainly didn’t work on him except to rile him and the way that left her feeling a little out of control and unsettled made her say, ‘Don’t change the subject. This princess…’