Chapter Eleven
When Axel returned to the villa later, he was still refusing to believe what had happened. Hope. Standing in front of him with tears in her eyes telling him she loved him.
Him. Axel Drakos. Whose own parents hadn’t even loved him or his siblings. Whose own brother had looked at him accusingly because he’d failed him. Whose sisters had been shy around him because they’d never really had a chance to get to know him.
She didn’t love him. She couldn’t. Because she hadn’t seen the hollow void inside him. The void he’d filled up with her for these past few weeks. As if he were some kind of a vampire, gaining strength and validation from her goodness.
He was well aware that Baros and his wife had taken one look at Hope’s pure soul and by association it had raised him in Baros’s estimation. He hadn’t even had to do anything.
The cynicism that Axel used as a protective armour had brought her down. As it should bring down anyone with any kind of moral centre or smidgeon of integrity.
He should never have brought her here. He should never have plucked an ordinary girl out of the real world and expected that it would work.
But then he chastised himself because Hope was no ordinary girl.
She was extraordinary. He was the pedestrian one, moving around his palatial empty properties painted in muted colours.
Suddenly everything seemed utterly drab.
The villa was quiet. Lifeless. He went into the living area where the previous night there’d been signs of her presence. Shoes, a throw. The brochures from her sightseeing.
It was all gone. He went upstairs and the door to her room was ajar. He pushed it open and stepped inside, not even aware he was holding his breath. The bed was flat. Made up.
He turned on a light. Everything was cleared away. He went into the dressing room and saw the dress she’d been wearing hanging up. The jewellery was carefully laid out.
Axel didn’t have to check to already know that she’d taken not one item of clothing or jewellery with her. She’d have left with a minimal amount of clothing and her own personal effects. Because she was proud.
She’d basically done this for him, for free. He’d stopped paying her when she’d told him she couldn’t take payment if they were sleeping together.
A great pressure was building inside Axel—something he couldn’t begin to understand because he’d never felt it before. Chest tightening, skin prickling, hard to breathe. Sweating.
He undid his bow tie as if that might ease the constriction but it didn’t. It was her. He needed her. When he’d needed no one.
Slowly, his breathing became regular again and the pressure eased but not the sensation of a dull weight inside him.
It was good that she was gone. Because she’d got under his skin and he cared for her. And, as he well knew, he failed the people he cared for. He couldn’t protect them.
She would realise that it wasn’t love she felt.
It was the sex. Infatuation. She’d been dazzled for a bit, that was all.
She would see that and she would meet someone who she could love and who would love her.
And she would have children and they would be loved and happy and she would have all of that and Axel really wanted her to, because she deserved it.
And you don’t? Axel shook his head. Why was her voice in his head? He didn’t deserve it. And that was OK. He didn’t want it. He wasn’t capable of it.
* * *
A week later in his Athens office Axel was staring into space.
He couldn’t seem to get a handle on what was the next important thing to do.
He’d called off the meeting with Baros on his island, and the man had said, ‘If you change your mind, let me know. We’d like to meet Hope again and get to know her better. ’
Axel hadn’t had the heart or guts to tell the man that she was gone.
‘Axel?’
And now nothing seemed that important any more. Urgent.
‘Axel?’
Axel looked up and saw Michalis standing in front of him on the other side of the desk.
‘What is going on with you? You haven’t shaved in days.’ His nose wrinkled. ‘Have you even…washed?’
Had he? Axel wasn’t entirely sure. ‘What time is it?’
Michalis said, ‘It’s four p.m. Axel…you’re freaking me out. Do I need to get a doctor?’
Suddenly he did remember something urgent. ‘Did you do it? Put it in her name?’
‘Yes, we’ve started the process, but we will need her to sign a form. Also, there’s an email from the housekeeper, something about a delivery to the island villa for you?’
Axel frowned. ‘Delivery?’
Michalis’s mobile phone started ringing and he backed away from the desk. ‘Check your email.’
Axel opened his laptop and saw the new message. It was from Candice.
Dear Mr Drakos, I wanted to let you know we’ve taken delivery of a large package for you, it came with a note in an envelope, please let me know if you want me to open it.
Candice.
Suddenly more alert, Axel asked his secretary to place a call to Candice. Within a couple of minutes he was connected. He asked her to open the package.
He heard the sound of paper ripping on the other end and had to curb an urge to ask her to hurry, not even sure why he felt impatient. Then she said, ‘Oh, Lord, it’s that big canvas by Oliver Pierre, a local artist. It’s been in the window of the gallery for weeks.’
The painting that had caught Axel’s eye.
And he hadn’t wanted to think about why, because he knew.
Because those bright, vivid, abstract colours represented something deep inside him that he could never unleash because it terrified him.
And so he’d carefully curated a bland world around him, telling himself that it was more appropriate.
But now that canvas was in the villa and he thought of Hope saying she’d paint it all white and add splashes of colour.
A little hoarsely he asked, ‘Can you take a photo of the note and send it to my mobile?’
A couple of seconds later his phone pinged and Axel opened up the message. A photo appeared. Typed writing on a small card.
Dear Axel, I bought this for you because I saw you looking at it. I think it’s you, even though you don’t seem to like much colour around. Maybe you can add some more? Thank you for taking me on an adventure, I truly wish you well, Axel, love, Hope.
‘Axel?’
He looked up. Michalis, with a folder in his hand. He put the folder down and opened it. Axel looked at the photo of a woman. Brown hair. Classically beautiful.
Michalis was saying, ‘Demetria Carras, twenty-eight. She’s a barrister and comes from the Carras family—you’re actually distantly related. She’s single and has made it clear she’d be open to a meeting.’
Axel looked at his friend. ‘Find her for me, and let me know where she is.’
Michalis knew who he was referring to and it wasn’t the very suitable woman in the file.
‘Axel, are you sure? Is she really…?’
‘Do not finish that sentence, unless you want to lose your job. Find her. Now.’
* * *
‘You know, it’s always been a fantasy of mine to work the private jets and meet some rich guy, but you actually did it, and now you’re back here.’
Hope forced a tight smile and hoped her colleague would stop talking and crowing over Hope’s fall from grace. Of course, everyone had seen her pictures with Axel online and couldn’t get enough of it. She was the hot topic of gossip.
She’d got a text from George: Really, Hope? While I was having a migraine?!
They were buckled into their seats at the back of the budget plane, a full flight to Dublin from London. Mercifully short at least. The last flight of the day. The steward at the front announced, ‘Last passenger boarded, doors checked and closed, ready for take-off.’
Hope tuned out the catty comments and tried not to think about the big aching void inside her. Where she felt she’d never be warm again. She missed Axel so much. And she hated him so much. But she really loved him so much.
Soon they were cruising and the seat-belt signs went off. They busied themselves preparing the meals and snacks that passengers had ordered ahead of time, getting the trolley ready.
Hope was vaguely aware of some sounds and then her colleague’s voice saying, ‘Hope, I think someone is looking for you?’
She straightened up and looked around and promptly dropped the sandwich she’d been holding.
‘Axel…what are you doing here?’ He literally didn’t fit on the plane. Too tall and broad and…Axel.
He looked slightly deranged. He was wearing a suit but not a three-piece suit. No tie, button open. It was creased. He had a beard. Or what was becoming a beard, hugging his jaw. It only made him look more masculine. And his hair was unruly. Eyes wild.
He said, ‘It’s you, you’re really here.’
‘Yes.’
‘I missed you by fifteen minutes in Glasgow.’
The image of Axel Drakos on a packed budget flight was so incongruous that it wouldn’t compute.
The phone rang and Hope’s colleague answered and said, ‘Yes, eh, we’re coming, we just have a passenger here trying to talk to Hope.’
Hope snapped out of her trance. She was at work. She was in shock but welcomed it because she had no idea why Axel Drakos was here and was too afraid to ask why, just yet.
‘Axel, I’m working. I have to do trolley service.’
‘OK, I’ll wait.’
He didn’t move and Hope looked at him expressively. ‘You’ll have to get out of the way.’
He stepped into the small service area, having to duck his head. Hope’s colleague was staring at Axel as if she’d never seen a man before. Hope could empathise. She said, ‘Laura, come on.’
The whole way down the aisle Hope was facing back towards the service area, aware of Axel watching her like a hawk, as if she were going to do a flit out of one of the emergency exits.
The service didn’t take long and soon they were pushing the trolley back down. Laura, to give her her due, took the hint and made herself scarce up the other end of the plane. No doubt already spreading the word.
Now it was just Hope facing Axel in one of the most unlikely spaces. He pulled across the curtain.
Hope said, ‘Axel, why are you here?’