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She gazed at him in confusion, wishing he would at least look at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re the one who can’t tolerate me,’ Alex said flatly. ‘And I don’t blame you for it.’
She gaped, unable to frame a reply for several taut seconds. ‘Is that really what you think?’ she finally managed to gasp out. He’d always seemed so cold, she had trouble believing he could think that. Alex lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. ‘Look at me,’ Milly demanded. ‘If we are to be married, at least look at me.’
He swung around to face her, his eyes glittering like blue fire—or maybe ice, because his expression was cold. Cold and furious. ‘Are you sure you want to look at me?’
He held her gaze, and Milly did not look away. She didn’t even blink. ‘Is this about your scars?’ she asked evenly, willing her voice not to tremble. She could feel the heat rolling off him, inhaled the citrusy scent of his aftershave that awakened her senses. ‘Do you honestly think I’m so shallow? Why would you be willing to marry me if I was?’
‘Shallow or not, I’m not very pleasant to look at,’ Alex returned flatly. ‘Fact.’
‘Isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?’ Milly asked softly, and Alex rolled his eyes.
‘How can you even say that with a straight face? You don’t find me beautiful, Milly.’
She hesitated, sifting through her jumbled thoughts, and then chose honesty, painful as it was. ‘No, I don’t,’ she agreed, and something flickered across Alex’s face before his expression closed off completely. ‘But not because of your scars. Because of how...how cold you’re being. It feels as if you’re choosing to distance yourself, and that’s not how I want to start our marriage, even if it is one that is based on business.’
Alex was silent for a long moment, staring at her. Their faces were so close she could see the dark glint of stubble on his freshly shaven chin, the icy blue of his eyes piercing her like an arrow. She inhaled the musky smell of his aftershave again, and her heart tumbled in her chest.
Then Alex eased back, turning his head away from her in a deliberate movement. ‘Too bad,’ he said, and neither of them spoke again.
* * *
So she thought he was cold. Alex gazed dispassionately at his reflection in the mirror—full on, so he could see both the beauty and ugliness, the scars and the smooth skin. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the flesh—and in the soul. His face, he feared, was a reflection of who he truly was. Hiding the darkness. Pretending to the world that he was only half of who he was. That he didn’t hurt the people he loved. That he didn’t destroy them.
And she thought he was simply cold. Well, cold was better than cruel. Cold was fine—because it kept them both safe. And Milly would just have to learn to live with it, because he didn’t know how to be anything else. From his childhood he’d learned to stay distant from other people, out of self-preservation, and that had only been exacerbated since his accident. Eventually she would accept how he was, and realise it was better this way. It had to be.
In any case, he saw the way she looked at his scars. She might say they didn’t matter, but of course they did. How could they not? He’d seen the pity in her eyes, the way her gaze darted away, and that told him all he needed to know.
He turned away from his reflection and glanced at his watch; he was meeting Milly in a few minutes to take a limousine to his private yacht docked at Piraeus. From there they would travel to Naxos, where they would be married.
Alex had been planning on a civil ceremony at the city hall here in Athens, but yesterday, after they’d signed the prenuptial agreement, after that taut confrontation in the limo, Milly had asked if they could marry on the island, in a church.
‘I know it’s a business deal,’ she’d said with quiet dignity, her chin tilted at a proud angle, ‘but it doesn’t have to be businesslike in every particular, and I would like to marry in a church and say my vows before God.’
‘Wouldn’t you be saying them before God in any case?’ Alex had drawled, and she’d merely gazed at him steadily, waiting for his answer, refusing to be baited. He’d felt shamed by his seeming pettiness; the truth was the whole ordeal of being with her, having her look at him, having her want to know him, even in the smallest degree, left him feeling raw and exposed, as if yet another layer of skin had been peeled back to reveal the agonising nerve-endings underneath. He had enough scars already. He didn’t need any more.
‘Please, Alex,’ she’d said. ‘This is a small request.’
Small to her, perhaps, but not to him. She had no idea what awaited him on Naxos, why he’d been back only once since the fire, and he was hardly going to tell her now. And so he’d agreed, even though he dreaded the thought of facing the villagers of Naxos, because he didn’t want to have to explain and, in truth, something in him wanted to please her, which was absurd yet true. The small smile of thanks she’d given him when he had agreed had lightened his heart a ridiculous amount.
Milly was already waiting in the limousine when he left his flat; his driver had picked her up at the hotel before fetching him. Alex slid onto the leather seat, his thigh brushing hers before she inched away. He wondered if she would shrink away like that tomorrow night, when they were in bed. He thought it likely, but she would simply have to grit her teeth and bear it as she held up her end of the bargain.
‘I didn’t know you had a yacht,’ she remarked as the limo pulled away from the kerb. ‘You came to Naxos by helicopter.’
‘I don’t have time usually to travel by sea, but it does tend to be far more relaxing.’ He paused, and then, somewhat to his surprise, decided to make the effort of conversing. ‘Do you like sailing?’
‘I don’t know, I haven’t been, really.’ She smiled self-consciously. ‘The only boat I’ve been on is the ferry to Naxos.’
‘It is?’ He frowned. From what she’d said of her parents, he’d surmised they were fairly well off, and she’d said she had lived in several cosmopolitan cities. ‘I’m surprised.’
‘Are you?’ She shrugged. ‘I never had the opportunity.’
‘Yet you’ve lived in Paris, in London, in Buenos Aires.’
‘What does that have to do with sailing?’
‘I simply thought you would have had a variety of life experiences.’
