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Sophy turned around. Apollo was standing on the other side of the turnstiles with his hands braced on the sides—as if ready to vault over. Sophy walked towards him, trying not to let a flame of hope spring to life.
He looked wild. She could feel the electric pull between them, even here.
She came closer. ‘I won’t be your mistress, Apollo. I’m not mistress material.’
He said, ‘I don’t want you to be my mistress, Sophy...just come back over here, please?’
Sophy was aware of a crowd gathering. People whispering. Slowly, she walked over to the exit turnstiles and came back through. Apollo had tracked her progress from the other side, his eyes never leaving hers. He was waiting for her. Big, solid.
Sophy knew if he asked her again she wouldn’t have the strength to say no. She knew she was weak enough to clutch at any more time he would give her to be with him.
She stopped in front of him and he put his hands on her arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘For disrespecting you. And for the ten seconds too long that it took me to remove my head from my—’
A public announcement blared at that moment, blocking out Apollo’s words, but Sophy could guess what he’d said.
She was too full of trepidation to let the bubble of euphoria she felt rise up inside her. ‘What are you saying, Apollo?’
‘I’m saying that it’s too late. Any hope I might have had of protecting myself against the pain of losing you—letting you go in Athens, trying to make you my temporary lover—is well and truly shattered. Because I would prefer to spend one more perfect day with you, if that’s all we have, than a lifetime of regret because I was too much of a coward to admit my fears and open my heart.’
Sophy heard someone sigh near them, but Apollo filled her vision. And her rapidly swelling heart. ‘Are you saying...?’
‘That I love you. Deeply, irrevocably. Infinitely. I fell for you the moment you looked at me for the first time but I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that I had to have you.’
He tugged her towards him. ‘Please...don’t walk away from me. Give me a chance.’
Sophy shook her head. Suddenly she was the one who was scared. She whispered, ‘I can’t do this, Apollo. It’ll kill me if you’re just saying this to get me back in your bed.’
He kissed her then. In the middle of the concourse of one of London’s busiest Tube stations. A deep kiss, full of remorse and pain and...love. A promise.
They broke apart and Apollo looked at her. They were oblivious to the crowd that had formed around them, phones raised.
‘All I can do is ask you to trust me. I do want more. You’ve made me want more, and I’ve denied it to myself, or tried to, but I can’t any longer. I want you, Sophy, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you give me a chance to prove that to you?’
A voice nearby said loudly, ‘If you won’t, love, I will!’
A giggle of pure emotion burst up from Sophy’s belly. Along with hope...a hope that she couldn’t push back down. She smiled a wobbly smile. ‘One chance.’
His eyes burned like dark emeralds. He took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘One chance is all I need.’ He took her hand and led her back up, out of the dark underground and into the light. The sunlight made everything shimmer. It felt like a benediction. A new start. And Sophy took a deep breath and let herself trust.
Sophy looked out over the sight of the city waking up to a brand-new day under a pink dawn. She was wrapped in a voluminous robe and her body felt pleasantly lethargic and sated. She’d left a sleeping Apollo on the bed, his brow smooth in sleep.
She was still trying to absorb what had happened and she couldn’t help but feel slightly fearful that it had all been a dream. Or had she projected her love onto Apollo so much that she’d heard what she’d wanted to—and he hadn’t actually made those declarations...
‘Here you are.’
She tensed against his inevitable effect on her, but it was useless when his arms slid around her waist and he brought his body flush with hers. He said into her ear, ‘When I woke up just now, and I was alone in the bed, I thought I’d dreamed it all up. That you were gone.’
Sophy turned around in Apollo’s arms and looked up at him. ‘I was just afraid of the same thing, that I’d imagined it all...that you hadn’t said—’
‘That I love you?’
She nodded her head, biting her lip.
‘Well, I did. And I do. I love you, Sophy Jones. And if it’s all right with you, I’d like us to marry as soon as possible.’
