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Ironically, the one memory she did have, of the night they’d met, she remembered him smiling. Laughing even. His face transformed from breath-taking to devastatingly gorgeous. She remembered his voice. Deep and accented.
Except she’d been told that that night had been four months ago. And since then they’d been married. And she’d apparently moved to Greece from England. It was all too huge to absorb and Sasha found herself avoiding thinking about it too much.
‘Are you ready? The car is waiting outside.’
/> Was she ready? To leave here with a man who was little more than a stranger to her? In a foreign land she had no memory of coming to? But she nodded once, briefly, and stood up, her limbs still feeling a little weak.
Apollo picked up a bag. He’d brought her clothes to change into and they only compounded her sense of disorientation because she couldn’t imagine choosing clothes like this. Flared cream-coloured silk trousers with slits up each side, a matching silk singlet top and a cropped blazer jacket. Spindly high-heel sandals that made her feel even more wobbly.
He opened the door and stood back. Sasha locked her limbs and walked out of the room with as much grace as she could muster.
Apollo walked down the corridor beside his wife. She was walking slowly, as if she’d never worn high heels before, with all the grace of a spindly-legged foal. Which was bizarre because the only time he could recall ever seeing her in flat shoes had been when they’d met that first night.
She stumbled a little and he took her elbow to steady her. She glanced up at him, her cheeks a little pink. ‘Thank you.’
Her hair was down around her shoulders in soft natural waves that he knew she usually preferred to be straightened.
‘It’s nothing.’ He gritted his jaw at his body’s reaction to the feel of her arm under his hand, her slender body brushing against his ever so slightly. She wasn’t wearing the scent she usually did. He’d watched her take it out of the bag earlier and she’d tested it on her wrist, immediately scrunching up her nose. She’d looked at him. ‘This is my perfume?’
He’d nodded. Privately he’d always had the same reaction when he’d smelled it. To recoil. It was too overpowering. Sickly sweet. She’d put it back without spraying any.
But now all he could smell was her. Soap and something uniquely and mysteriously feminine. Her scent reminded him uncomfortably again of meeting her for the first time when he’d been blown away by her fresh-faced beauty. Her impact on him had been like a punch to his solar plexus, driving the breath out of his lungs.
And to this day he couldn’t figure it out. He’d seen plenty of women who were more beautiful than Sasha. Slept with them too. But something about her, from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, had got to him. Captivating him. As much as he hated to admit it.
She’d seduced him with her wide-eyed act of innocence, and had then trapped him with the oldest trick in the book. The burn of that transgression and the burn of his momentary weakness for her was like permanent bile in his gut.
His desire for her had dissipated as quickly as it had blown up, and he’d welcomed it, in light of her betrayal, but now it was back, as if to mock him for ever believing he’d had it under his control.
She was playing him all over again but this time he wouldn’t stand for it.
Sasha winced as Apollo’s fingers tightened almost painfully on her arm. She tried to pull away and he looked at her. ‘I’m okay now, you can let go.’
Instantly his expression blanked and he took his hand away, saying smoothly, ‘My car is here, just outside the door.’
Sasha saw a sleek silver SUV waiting for them, with a driver holding the open back door. It reinforced her sense of being in an alternate dimension where nothing made much sense.
She stepped out of the hospital and gulped in fresh air, hoping that might make her feel more grounded. The Greek sun was warm but the early summer air wasn’t too humid yet.
Sasha climbed into the car. Her shoes were pinching painfully after only walking a few feet. She couldn’t believe that she wore this kind of shoe on a regular basis.
Or... She slid a look at Apollo, as he got into the back of the car on the other side, maybe Apollo liked them and she wore them to please him?
That thought sent another shiver through her. The thought of pleasing him. Except, if the frosty vibes were anything to go by, he wasn’t pleased and she had no idea why.
The car pulled away from the hospital and Apollo exchanged a few words in Greek with the driver, who then put up the privacy partition. Sasha was so aware of him it was as if an outer layer of skin had been removed.
A hand rested on one thigh. Square, masculine. Long fingers. Blunt nails. His suit looked as if it had been made specifically to hug his muscles and emphasise his powerful physique. He looked at her and she didn’t have time to pretend she wasn’t ogling him.
‘Okay?’
She nodded. It was a civil question but the tension was palpable. Instead of asking a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to, she asked, ‘Where are we going now?’
‘The villa. It’s not far from here.’
‘Have I lived there long?’
‘For the past three months, since we married.’
