Chapter Six #2
But she knew how to bury her feelings, to stretch her face into a smile. That was her superpower, and like a lot of superpowers, it was one she’d acquired reluctantly, like Peter Parker.
Only it had never been this hard before.
It was late afternoon before she left the sanctuary of her bedroom. The house was cool and quiet, and she wondered if Antaeus was lying in wait for her. But as she walked into the huge living room, she saw that it was empty.
She had anticipated a restrained, masculine interior with polished concrete flooring and leather upholstery and that greige colour palette favoured by upmarket hotels.
Instead, there were wooden floors and rugs, linen-covered sofas, and a mix of Venetian plaster and exposed brickwork from the original house.
Surprisingly, there was no hidden tech. All the men she knew had a version of those invisible systems that managed everything from heating to lighting to sound.
Antaeus had table lamps and a wood burner and a record player.
And books.
Not on shelves but left on a table or on a sofa. Some had bookmarks peeking out. Another was abandoned face-down, spine arching up. So not a collector of books, but a reader. A reader who was not precious about his belongings.
A reader who felt safe here. Comfortable. Secure.
And yet all of these books were unfinished. The book on the sofa had its pages propped open with a pen. She picked it up, curious to see what he was reading. But it was literally all Greek to her.
Disappointed, she put it back down and glanced around the room. The doors to the terrace were open, and she caught the scent of mint and salt from the ocean just as if she was on holiday. She could almost imagine the splash of someone diving into the pool.
But this was no holiday.
That was true. But nor did it have to be the prison sentence Antaeus had unilaterally decided to impose upon her. She had wanted to return to Greece, and now she was here. So why not take advantage of that fact? The estate looked huge, and clearly, she was free to roam.
As she hesitated on the threshold of the terrace, her heart twitched. There was an infinity pool.
Cassie loved swimming. On dry land, her world was so constrained.
But beneath the water, it was a different story entirely.
Sadly, she had nothing to wear, and Antaeus’s pool was the last place on earth where she would go skinny-dipping.
There was a daybed to one side of the pool, positioned so that you could gaze down to the Aegean.
She glanced longingly at the fluttering muslin curtains, wishing she could curl up with a book and draw them around her—
‘I do try to accommodate my guests’ needs, but I’m afraid that the nearest hot Pilates class is probably in Athens.’
The deep, masculine voice made her breath catch and she turned, her hand lifting to her pounding heart. Not because she didn’t know who it was, but because she did.
Antaeus was lounging in the doorway to the sitting room. He had a way of arranging his body that seemed designed to draw attention to his contoured torso, and she fought against the impulse to just stare at him and keep staring.
He was good at staring, too, those ocean-deep eyes paralysing her ability to speak whilst acting as a silent but eloquent means of communication. Right now, they were saying, What the hell are you wearing?
His eyes travelled slowly over her cotton tank top and cropped yoga trousers with the fold-over waistband. It was what she always wore on long-haul flights.
It was also the only change of clothes she had other than an identical dress to the one she had worn on the flight over, but in navy. Hardly appropriate for her new identity as an inmate of Antaeus’s exclusive private prison.
‘I’m not a guest. I’m your prisoner. Did you forget? Or are you trying to assuage your conscience?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything that happened between us, and my conscience is clear. As for yours, I’m not sure you have one.’
As he started walking toward her, she felt as if she was already in the pool, breathing underwater. He had changed clothes as well. The suit and shirt had gone. Instead, he was wearing a T-shirt and loose linen trousers, and he must have showered, too, because his hair was still damp.
Her skin prickled. She had a strong urge to reach out and push it back from his forehead. Needing something more sensible to do with her hands, she took a step back and waggled her fingers. ‘Bye-bye.’
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ He stopped in front of her.
‘A walk.’
There was a moment of silence as his gaze drifted over her face, down to the pulse jerking in her throat.
‘I feel like a walk too.’
She swore silently. Without blinking, she said quickly, ‘I meant a swim.’ She stared up at him, biting down on the lie, hoping he didn’t take her up on it. ‘But you take as long as you like.’
‘I need to get out of the house, ergo you do too.’
Ignoring the way her body pulsed at the authority in his voice, she stared past his shoulder. ‘And if I don’t want to go?’
‘I thought you understood that what you wanted was irrelevant,’ he said softly.
Just don’t rise, she told herself. He had no real power over her unless she gave it to him. Which sounded great inside her head, but then Antaeus snapped his fingers. She felt her gaze swoop upwards to meet his just as if he had caught her on the end of a fishing line.
To the uneducated observer, the change would have been imperceptible.
But Antaeus had spent more time in her company than with any other woman, and he was learning Cassie Appleton.
He saw the infinitesimal stiffening of her spine, the flicker of frustration in her green irises as she walked beside him away from the terrace, apparently meekly accepting her fate.
He could have sent her to her room. But that would defeat the purpose of her being here.
Which was why he was forcing her to accompany him. Wasn’t it?
The answer to that question should have been a firm yes, yet he found himself hesitating. And wondering how to get Cassie to look at him with something other than the cool-eyed dislike and defiance of a prisoner of war.
It took them fifteen minutes to get out of sight of the house.
The slope was hard underfoot and slightly slippery, but Cassie was keeping up with him.
He had held out his hand a couple of times when she seemed to struggle with the incline, but she ignored it, walking past him with her nose up, eyes straight ahead and unwavering.
Suited him, because it meant he could watch the sway of her hips.
Maybe she sensed his gaze, because abruptly she stopped and bent down to fiddle with the lace of her trainer.
‘It’s not far now,’ he said, stopping beside her.
‘But be careful, because this bit can be tricky even in the right shoes. And wet,’ he added.
‘The snow starts to melt in the spring, but there’s still water up here right through the summer.
That’s why it’s so lush.’ He gestured towards where the trees were starting to edge closer to the path.
‘They say there are still centaurs living in these woods,’ he added softly. ‘Ancestors of Chiron.’
It was a baited hook, and he waited. Finally, he was rewarded as she turned toward him. ‘Was this where he lived?’
Antaeus nodded. ‘It’s where he taught Achilles how to fight before he went to Troy. He taught Jason too. Raised him as his child.’
‘And then he went to find the Golden Fleece with the Argonauts.’ Her face softened, and he knew that she was picturing the men with their shields and swords and their high spirits. He knew because he could see them too.
‘According to legend, they set sail from just down there. Can you see that cove?’ He pointed towards a C-shaped curve of sand, like a half-seen medallion jutting into the glassy blue Aegean.
‘To the left a little.’ He watched her gaze, his heart thudding in his chest as she followed the direction of his hand.
As she blinked into the sunlight, he took the opportunity to study her more closely.
Beneath the smooth skin, her bone structure was clearly visible.
You couldn’t buy those polished contours.
They weren’t something a plastic surgeon could easily recreate any more than bleach could truly replicate that light blond hair.
‘Is that why you wanted that vase?’ she said suddenly. ‘Because this is where Jason came from?’
He hesitated, knocked momentarily off balance by her question. Then he shrugged. ‘It’s a good story.’
It was part of the reason. Everyone who grew up in the shadow of Mount Pelion knew the myth of Jason.
But Jason’s life was so much more than a story to Antaeus.
Mythical elements aside, it felt personal.
Only instead of a wicked uncle Pelias locking up his half-brother Aeson, there was Henry doing a deal with the FBI and sending his father to prison.
And instead of the Golden Fleece, there was Cassie.
His eyes moved to where she was gazing up at a towering chestnut tree.
Her face was so familiar to him now. But even before they met, he’d thought he knew her.
All those photos of her smiling complacently, a shallow, self-indulgent, incurious, exquisite Upper East Side princess who seemed to have every detail of her life meticulously curated.
When they finally met in person, in her boardroom, it was a shock to realise that her charm wasn’t superficial. Nor was she self-serving.
And he’d hated that. Hated that Cassie was warmer and human and real, so he’d goaded her and cornered her to make her show her claws.
She had them. And she knew how to fight. But why had she needed to fight, and who had she been fighting? Why had she needed claws at all? And at what point would she stop guarding her every word?
He glanced up at the sky. ‘We should probably go back up to the house. We’re starting to lose the light.’
‘How did you find this place?’ It was another of those left field questions that made him feel both unanchored and yet seen.