AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’d hated her when he learned the truth. Then the article had been published, and twenty four hours later, the subject of her investigate piece – Stavros Heranedes – had died of a heart attack.
She’d killed Apollo’s father, and he’d never forgive her for that.
Apollo wasn’t why she’d taken this assignment on. Or maybe he was. Maybe there was a small part of Eleanor that needed to prove to herself that she was completely over Apollo – that he no longer wielded the same intense power he once had.
And she was off to a flying start. In the twenty four hours since arriving in Ras el Kida and posing as a lowly household assistant, she’d seen Apollo three times, all from a distance, and all encounters had almost knocked her to her feet.
He couldn’t recognize her – she had made a point of keeping her head bent, the fine, gauze scarf she wore around her glossy brown hair providing an added shield. She knew it would be a disaster if he were to pick her out of the crowd, but in that moment, watching the ceremony, how she wished he would look her way! How she ached for his head to turn, for his eyes to scan the crowd and land on her face. For him to see her and her to see him, and for Eleanor to once more feel that heady throb of acknowledgement that had always raged between them.
It was absurd.
She was in Ras el Kida to get what information she could and get out. The political article would focus on the Sheikh and his heirs – one acknowledged, one not.
The crowd stood, and Eleanor blinked. The ceremony had come to a close – it was over. She flashed her gaze at the royal couple for a brief moment before returning her eyes to their original resting place, homing in on Apollo as though her every breath was dependent on seeing him.
And by the hand of fate, for no reason that Eleanor could offer, Apollo’s head turned at precisely that moment and his eyes, as green as a stormy ocean, landed directly on Eleanor’s face.
The butterfly inside her burst to life – she’d been discovered.
Chapter One
“WHAT THE HELL ARE you doing here?” He demanded, and though the words were said quietly, there was no point pretending she hadn’t heard. Nor that she didn’t know he was addressing her.
With a heart that was hammering so hard and fast she thought her ribs might splinter, Eleanor turned, her skin pale, her eyes on the alert. “Apollo,” she said, the very name on her lips a lash of desire that should have been long-dead.
The ceremony was over but there were people everywhere, and already Eleanor could feel eyes turning towards them. Dressed as she was, in the traditional robes of a palace servant, it was highly irregular for her to be conversing with a guest – particularly the honored brother of the Sheikha.
“Please,” she implored softly. “People are looking.”
His eyes knit closer together and his handsome face formed a dark scowl. “Yes, of course they are.” He put a hand beneath her elbow and steered her away from the crowd, through the assembly room and into a wide hallway with tall, vaulted ceilings and so many floral arrangements that the air was thick with the sweet fragrance of outside.
“What are you doing here?” He demanded once more, when they had slightly more privacy. He didn’t stop walking though, frog-marching her through the palace as though she were a criminal. Which, she supposed, in his eyes she was.
“Apollo, please, this has nothing to do with you.” Her eyes, honeyed caramel in colour and shaped like a cat’s slanted to him in time to catch his harsh intake of breath.
“You are here in Ras el Kida, dressed as a palace staffer, on the occasion of my sister’s son’s naming d
ay. You who single-handedly sought to destroy my father and the empire he built… and yet you don’t think I have a right to concern myself with your presence?”
Eleanor’s step faltered for a moment, but she covered it quickly. “I’m sorry about the article…”
“Don’t.” He increased his speed, so that she almost had to jog to keep up with him. The corridor came to an end with large windows overlooking a lush garden and then the desert beyond, but there was a hallway to the left, and one to the right. He took the latter, not pausing to allow her breath, let alone to enjoy the spectacular view that fell away from them.
“You think you can simply apologise after three years?”
“You wouldn’t speak to me,” she reminded him stiffly, but it was with a vocal rigidity that hid her trembling emotions.
“I was a little busy,” he muttered, subjecting her to the full force of his mocking glare. “My father died, you might recall, shortly after your filthy exposé hit the news.”
Eleanor’s stomach rolled and without even trying, she mentally conjured the article. She could see the headline: BILLIONAIRE LOTHARIO and the picture that had accompanied it – a rather unflattering long-lens photo of Stavros Heranedes clearly inebriated with a young, half-naked woman sitting in his lap.
It had been awful. Gutter press at its worst. Her part in that still had the power to fill her with shame.
“I was sorry to hear about Stavros --,”
Now Apollo stopped walking and the look he reserved for Eleanor was brimming with contempt. “You do not get to use his name to me,” Apollo said darkly. “You do not deserve to speak of him, to think of him.” He raked his cold, hateful gaze over her body, landing with utter disgust on her pale face. He resumed walking, and she didn’t think about not going with him.
But every step forward had her stomach dropping lower and lower, so that, by the time he came to a stop at the top of a spiraling marble staircase, she was almost nauseous with guilt.
