Chapter Twelve
AN HOUR HAD passed since their encounter on the terrace.
Night had fully fallen, the inky sky beyond the French doors thick with stars and the occasional glimmer of passing lights from a fishing boat far below.
The breeze coming in through the half-open window was salted and cool, ruffling the edges of the curtain and brushing over his damp skin like a whispered warning.
Constantine stood shirtless, one hand braced on the doorframe, low-hanging charcoal sweatpants clinging to his hips, the drawstring loose. His hair was still wet from the shower, dark strands dripping slowly onto his shoulders and spine.
The wound at his side tugged with a dull throb each time he shifted, the damp towel he’d pressed against it doing little to ease the sting. It hurt like hell.
But even that paled next to the sharp disquiet still churning in his gut. He’d barely had time to process the warmth of her welcome—had even wondered if her recent illness had made her more sentimental—before she’d seen the wound and everything shifted.
He hadn’t gone after her. Not because he hadn’t wanted to—he had—but because the shock in her eyes at the sight of the blood had undone him more than the knife itself.
And he’d known if he followed her down in that moment, with blood still wet on his skin and panic clouding her eyes, it would only make things worse.
Better to clean up first—he’d seen the cold shadow of fear in her gaze, the same fear that had gripped him when the knife had sunk in.
Not for himself. For her. This woman he didn’t understand, but was fascinated with, more each day.
So he’d given her space.
Now, standing in the doorway of their bedroom, he stared out over the dark Aegean and let the quiet settle around him. The only sounds were the low hum of cicadas in the olive trees below and the occasional creak of the new house stretching its bones for the night.
Behind him, the bedroom glowed low and warm—lamplight casting soft gold across the pale linen sheets, the open wardrobe door revealing a handful of her clothes nestled beside his.
He caught a faint whiff of jasmine and vanilla, the scent she left behind that he searched for now, like an addict. And he noticed things around the house—things he hadn’t seen before.
A new colorful throw on the reading chair. Framed photos from the wedding—of them on their wedding day—on the dresser. His favorite books stacked with hers on the bedside table, spines gently worn from use.
She had been nesting. Turning the expansive, empty villa into a home.
Into their home.
It looked exactly like the one he’d yearned for all his life. And he wondered for the hundredth time since he had married her, how this peace and quiet and easy joy she gave him wasn’t at all the life he had foreseen for them.
The door creaked softly behind him.
He turned as Aliyah stepped inside, clutching a first aid kit in both hands like a shield she required to approach him.
She’d changed. Gone was the breezy, rust-colored dress that made her look like a beautiful autumn afternoon. In its place were ragged cotton shorts and one of his old T-shirts—threadbare, washed to a soft gray, the hem hitting the tops of her thighs. His breath caught.
She looked like she belonged in his clothes, in his house, in his life.
Hair twisted into a messy bun, her face was bare of any makeup. Without her customary polish and the composure, she reminded him of the heartbreakingly lovely girl he had adored once.
Her eyes were red and splotchy though, like she’d scrubbed them raw. Her face was pale beneath the glow of lamplight, and thinner too. Had she really lost weight in the week that he’d been gone? Because she’d been sick?
He hated how his chest tightened at the idea of her being alone and sick here.
But even beyond the gauntness, there was a tension in her frame, like she was holding back a tide. He had sensed it when she had hugged him too.
Then there was her over-the-top reaction to the fact that he’d been hurt. But that concern had to be because he was responsible for getting her Rose’s custody. Not for him, actually. How could it be when he had trapped her into this marriage?
How could he imagine, even for a moment, that this idyllic life they were building together was anything but an arrangement that they had both agreed on?
At the end of the day, it was all fake.
He chanted it like a mantra—a protection against his own delusion—as she closed the door behind her. Her scent hit him first—vanilla and jasmine coiling and corralling his desire like a leash. All the more potent for the week’s distance between them.
Her eyes dropped to the red-stained napkin still pressed against his side.
“Jesus, Constantine.”
Her voice was hoarse, wrecked from crying, he thought. He felt it like a slap against his senses.
“You’re not invincible, you know. Or whatever else you like the world to think.”
His mouth twitched at her stern tone. “Was that moussaka I saw on the table?”
She gave a tight nod, lips pursed.
“I’m sorry I ruined your plans for a special dinner.”
“At least you came back alive,” she threw at him. And then she swallowed hard, her throat working around the words like they cost her something.
Something inside him twisted at the clear pain in her eyes.
How could that emotion shining in her eyes be fake?
Christos, to what end? She was already getting everything she wanted from him, was guaranteed a cushy lifestyle for the rest of her life.
Dios, he was going mad, second-guessing everything.
“Aliyah—”
She shook her head, lifting the kit a little higher between them. “Let me change the dressing. I don’t need you bleeding all over my brand-new sheets.”
He tried to catch her gaze, but she was already moving past him.
“Are you going to be mad at me the whole time?” he asked, lowering himself gingerly to the edge of the bed, his body protesting the movement with a hot pull of pain.
She didn’t answer. Just dropped to her knees in front of him with a sigh, popped the kit open and began pulling out antiseptic and gauze with efficient hands.
He leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose. “Fine,” he murmured. “Do with me what you will.”
She didn’t look up, but he saw her lips twitch.
And still, the tension remained. Like a current under the surface, waiting to break through.
He’d missed her—more than he cared to admit. Missed her dry wit, the way her body had begun to curl into him in sleep, the little notes she sometimes left on the kitchen counter in the mornings. The way she watched him with hungry eyes when he worked out. The way she demanded he satisfy her.
The sex was… Explosive didn’t begin to cover it.
Any man would be satisfied with a beautiful, accomplished, sexually responsive wife like Aliyah.
The bracing thought came from the resentful devil that lived inside his chest. Negating every good thing she had already brought to his life.
Reducing the quiet joy her mere presence brought him into some equations with her superior qualities.
God, but he was a bastard.
She peeled the napkin away from his wound, and he hissed at the fresh sting of air. Her fingers brushed his side, gentle but clinical. He caught the faint tremble in them.
No, this wasn’t an act.
And if it wasn’t, if she truly cared for him, what did that mean?
Did he want her to care for him beyond what their arrangement asked for?
Did he hold even the tiniest capacity to care for her in turn?
Or did that way lie more pain and ruin and resentment, like last time?
In that moment, for the first time in over a decade, Constantine admitted that the hurt she had dealt him last time had never healed.
Unlike the wound she was cleaning with deft efficiency, that one had festered, got poisoned, until it became a part of him.
Until it changed how he saw himself and how he dealt with the world.
It had seeped and spread until it had stolen away the little capacity he’d still had to love.
And now, suddenly, he wanted that ability back. But he also knew that, for all the wealth and power he had amassed, there was no way for him to turn back time or revert himself to an earlier version.
He bit back a sigh and let her prod and poke at his wound.
Aliyah knelt on the plush rug, the soft fibers cushioning her knees, her hands steady as she dressed Constantine’s wound.
The antiseptic stung, drawing a low hiss from him, but her touch remained gentle, clinical. She peeled away the blood-stained napkin, her stomach clenching at the sight of the angry red gash, but a wave of relief washed over her when she saw that the bleeding had stopped.
He was only wearing charcoal sweatpants, the drawstring loose, and her gaze kept snagging on the hard plane of his chest, the subtle ripple of muscles across his abdomen.
His thighs, straddling her shoulders as she knelt between his legs, felt like tensile steel, radiating a warmth that seeped into her skin.
Seeing him bleeding had thrown her off so badly, a visceral fear she hadn’t anticipated.
And now came the dawning, terrifying realization that she was irrevocably in love with him.
How was she to hide it? All she wanted was to feel him inside her, to know he was safe and sound, to hold him and soothe the clamoring of her own heart.
“The trip wasn’t a complete waste,” Constantine said, his voice low, pulling her from her thoughts. “I have good news.”
“What?” she asked, her voice a little breathless, her fingers still hovering over the fresh bandage.
“Rose’s uncle is backing off for a ‘certain sum’ that I’ll pay him.
He’s ready to sign off custody to us.” Constantine’s eyes, dark and intense, watched her.
“So give me a week or two to pay off that asshole, get her father’s estate held in trust for her and we can sign papers adopting her legally. ”
Aliyah froze, her hands still. “So soon? She can come live with us in a month?” Her heart hammered against her ribs. “She’ll be over the moon.”