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Chapter Two
“KEEP YOUR HEADSCARF ON,” Apollo muttered, a hand in the small of her back, guiding her across the palace courtyard, towards a fleet of expensive vehicles. As they neared a guard, Eleanor’s pulse ratcheted up at least a dozen gears, so that she was a throbbing mess of pounding blood.
She did as he said, arranging the scarf around her hair and cheeks, keeping her head dipped forward as an added precaution. It wasn’t as though the sight of her should alert anyone as to her true reason for coming to the kingdom, but Eleanor wasn’t a fool. Apollo had put the fear of God into her heart with his threat and suddenly she was desperate to be away from this palace and this Kingdom, before anyone discovered her ruse.
“What were you thinking?” Apollo asked with a shake of his head as they came closer to some guards. “You must have known the risks involved here…”
Eleanor hadn’t thought about anything other than Apollo – she hadn’t thought about the fact that the Sheikh and his wife knew who Eleanor was – and had every reason to think as ill of her as Apollo did. She thought only of Apollo, and of her desire to prove to herself that she was over him completely – and over her shame at what she’d done.
“I was only supposed to be here two days. I didn’t think …”
“That’s damned obvious,” he interrupted, sending her a scathing look. “Now, be quiet.”
They drew up beside the guards and if they were at all surprised to see their Sheikha’s brother escorting a servant from the palace, they knew better than to voice that to Apollo.
He spoke in effortless Ras el Kidan, and Eleanor had only a passing grasp on the language – tourist phrases, at best, so she had no choice but to stand mutely beside him, hoping that he wasn’t, in fact, doing as he’d threatened and dobbing her in.
Her heart was in her throat, fear spreading through her veins, but it wasn’t really fear of what Apollo might say or do.
She had loved him and she had trusted him and nothing had changed for Eleanor with the passage of time. She couldn’t simply cease to trust him now, just because he obviously despised her.
“This way.” He guided her to a car at the top of the line. The guard pu
lled the door open and Eleanor held her breath, anxiety taking over her central nervous system.
“In,” Apollo commanded, and she wondered then how she’d never seen this autocratic side of him before.
Their relationship hadn’t been like that – it hadn’t been defined by his dominance or her subservience. They’d simply fit together – as equals.
She suppressed a moan of despair as she did as he’d said, sliding into the back of the beautiful limousine.
There was no opportunity to catch her breath. Apollo was right behind her, his broad frame making the spacious interior seem crowded and confined.
Any comment Eleanor might have made was swallowed by the ferocious look on his face.
He was furious – furious with her, full of hatred and rage. And the worst part was, she couldn’t blame him.
She snapped her seatbelt into place and stared out of the window with a sinking heart. The article hadn’t been written by her, in the end, but Eleanor could still recite it word for word. She’d read it with a mixture of outrage and despair.
The details of Stavros Heranedes’s many marriages, many affairs; his predilection for women who were barely over eighteen, his habit of recording his sexual encounters without his partners’ permission. These were all details that, while salacious, Eleanor had never had any intention of using. So why the hell had she made the notes? Why hadn’t she let Apollo unburden himself and be done with it?
He’d been speaking to her as a man to a woman, as a man who wanted to – no, needed to – unload, and damn it, she should have left it at that.
But her training was ingrained. She recorded everything, even when she’d had no intention of using it. What an idiotic decision!
“I was very sorry to hear about Stavros,” she whispered, unable to meet his eyes, so not seeing the intensity of his stare, the way his gaze roamed her face as though he might find answers there to questions he didn’t know how to pose.
“I told you, I don’t want to hear your apologies. I don’t want to talk about my father with you.”
Silence resumed, save for the low, enigmatic purr of the car’s engine. She watched the view through the window change as the car slid away from the palace, towards the city, and at the last moment, detouring towards the airport.
He was doing what he’d promised – taking her away. Getting her out of this country before anyone could learn who she was.
It was a kindness, she supposed, and more than she had any right to expect from him.
“Where are we going to?” She risked a look at him now and caught his face in a brooding scowl.
He didn’t speak, so she wondered if he’d even heard her.
