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CHAPTER NINE
‘I’DSTILLLIKE you to come to New York with me.’
Sofie sucked in a breath. She’d more or less told him she loved him without actually saying it and he’d barely blinked. Further evidence, if she needed it, that his emotions were encased in ice. Exactly what he’d been accused of by one of his previous lovers. As if she needed that reminder now.
‘But...why?’ Her heart thumped. Maybe she had got through to him, but on a level he wasn’t ready to accept. Maybe—
‘Because our relationship has been good for business. I have an event to attend and I’d appreciate you by my side, to really affirm for people that things are changing.’
‘Oh.’
‘You said that New York was one of the places you wanted to visit most.’
She had. But she hadn’t really envisaged visiting with her ex-lover while he was using her to maximise a PR opportunity. Did she really mean so little to him after all these weeks?
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Look, the last thing I want to do is hurt you, Sofie. We won’t sleep together again. But I have enjoyed...being with you. Let me treat you to one last trip and then we can go our separate ways. No harm, no foul.’
No, Sofie thought. Not for him. Just a broken heart for her.
She knew it was madness even to think about agreeing. That his offer only demonstrated just how walled-off his emotions were, if he couldn’t even appreciate how hard it would be for her...
He said, ‘Pictures are already on the internet of us meeting Athena and Georgiou at the party, with renewed speculation as to whether or not I actually had an affair with her. Your presence has obviously mitigated that. But if you go home now, and if I appear in New York alone, it’ll fuel the speculation even more.’
Sofie felt a lead weight in her belly. Along with that queasiness again. ‘Wow. I mean, I know you’re ruthless, because you’d have to be to thrive in a world like this, but I hadn’t expected to experience it first-hand.’
You saw those headlines, didn’t you? mocked a small voice.
The picture of that Spanish beauty’s petulant face came back into her mind’s eye.
At least he wasn’t dumping her.
But, perversely, what Achilles was saying, even if he was driving a knife into the heart of her with every word, actually made things easier. Surely she could be as ruthless as him, couldn’t she? Seize the opportunity for a free trip to one of the cities she’d most wanted to visit ever since she was a little girl?
Could she put her emotions on ice too? Just for a few days?
The thought of insisting on leaving and of Achilles having an idea of just how much he meant to her, of returning home to her house alone, was suddenly anathema to her. Even though she refused to admit it to herself.
Then he said, ‘I would really appreciate it.’ And she knew that she didn’t have the strength to say goodbye forever, just yet.
She lifted her chin and said, with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘Fine, I’ll come to New York with you and I’ll go home from there.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Okay. Goodnight, Achilles.’
Sofie turned and left the room, escaping into one of the spare bedrooms before she did something stupid like throwing herself into his arms and begging him to make love to her one last time.
She was doing the right thing, she assured herself. Seizing an opportunity to broaden her horizons and putting down some clear boundaries with Achilles. She should be proud of how she was handling this, even when she knew that she was fooling herself by believing for a second that she had things under control.
‘Are you okay?’
Sofie looked at Achilles where he sat across the aisle from her on the private jet. They’d taken off from Athens airport a short while ago, after picking up some things from Achilles’s apartment at the hotel.
She nodded her head vigorously. ‘Fine. Just a little queasy. Something I ate from the buffet last night, maybe.’
A light flutter of concern resided in her belly as she acknowledged that the queasiness she’d felt the previous evening was lingering. She’d felt properly nauseous that morning, but hadn’t actually been sick. She wasn’t even allowing her head to go in the direction of scary speculation, because it was impossible. She was on the pill and she took it religiously every day. She never missed.
She told herself it was due to the emotional turmoil of deciding to be a masochist by agreeing to stay a few days longer with a man who was quite unperturbed that their relationship was over.
They’d returned to Athens that morning and Achilles had been perfectly civil. As if Sofie was now in the role of employee. Which in a way she was.
Part of her was seriously impressed with Achilles’s ability to switch from red-hot lover to distantly polite companion, and another part of her wanted to bang her fists against his chest, demanding that he show some tiny vestige of emotion. To show that he’d cared. That he was so overcome with desire that he simply couldn’t not touch her.
Feeling prickly more than queasy now, she looked out the window at the brown earth far below. A stewardess approached with a glass of champagne and another surge of nausea took Sofie by surprise.
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’ She undid her seatbelt and went to the bathroom before Achilles might see her reaction.
Inside the luxurious cubicle she took deep breaths to stave off the nausea and splashed cold water on her face. She looked at herself in the mirror and barely noticed the spray of freckles across her sun-kissed nose.
A very ominous suspicion was taking root in her belly.
Queasiness.
Reacting violently to the thought of alcohol.
This was more than food poisoning or emotional turmoil.
But she wasn’t going to go there. It was too potentially huge even to contemplate. If there was one thing she knew for certain after last night it was that Achilles Lykaios was possibly the most family-averse person on the planet. And for very understandable reasons. He’d seen his entire family disappear right in front of him. The scars of that trauma were not scars he was willing to heal. And certainly not with a baby.
Sofie felt sick again and sat down on the closed toilet seat. She put her head between her legs until the nausea passed. And then she vowed not to think of it again. Because the universe could not be that cruel.
She’d already suffered the trauma of not having siblings and living with the weight of her parents’ sadness. Achilles had suffered an even more unspeakable trauma. Bringing a lone, illegitimate child into that equation was not an option, so maybe if she just ignored the ominous signs it would go away.
Achilles watched Sofie come back down the aisle of the plane. She was avoiding his eye. Something twisted in his chest. Did she want to be gone that badly? Even though she had said she cared for him?
But then in his world words were cheap. He’d been told dozens of times by lovers that they adored him and couldn’t live without him, only for them to turn and show their real feelings were far less than adoring when he called it quits.
Sofie hadn’t even said she adored him. She’d said she cared for him and, considering how considerate she was with everyone around her, from his housekeeper to the concierge of the hotel whom she’d hugged goodbye before promising to send him some Scottish shortbread, Achilles figured he might sit somewhere in her affections just above those two. She was just a caring person.
She sat down in her seat and Achilles couldn’t stop his gaze straying to her silky-smooth bare legs. She was wearing a button-down silk shirt dress with a belt around her waist. Gladiator style sandals.
His fingers itched to slip off the belt and undo those buttons, baring her soft curves to his gaze. He could pull across the privacy curtain and have her straddle his lap, draw her mouth down to his and kiss her while he released his aching—
Enough. He looked away and cursed his lack of control. He needed her for one thing now—to consolidate his improved image. That was all. He had more control than this.
