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“Apollo?”
He dragged his flinty stare to her eyes. “Somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”
A frisson of warning ran down her spine. “You don’t need to… “
“I need to make sure you don’t write another word about my family.”
“I told you, it’s not about your family. It’s a political piece, about the state of Ras el Kida, the changes that a new heir will bring…”
“I don’t believe you,” he said with a shake of his head.
Sadness punctured Eleanor’s heart. His cynicism was only natural. “So what do you intend to do? Kidnap me?”
His brows shot up and then he smiled, but it was a smile devoid of any humour or pleasure. “Until I think of another solution.”
The car drew to a halt and a quick look out the window revealed they were on a tarmac, a sleek jet in front of them bearing the insignia of H.E – Heranedes Enterprises.
“Apollo.” The word was a strained husk. “Just send me home…”
A muscle throbbed in the base of his jaw and then one of the passenger doors was pulled open. “I wish I could, believe me.”
He stepped out of the car, so Eleanor was alone, and she sat there, breathing in, trying to find a sense of calm when her insides were swimming with doubts and confusions. Fear, as well, because she was leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
But what choice did she have?
Apollo held all the trump cards and he was using them with ruthless efficiency. If she refused to go with him, there was a guard behind the wheel of the car. She was still in Ras el Kida, with her assignment notes on the digital recorder in her pocket. The risks were as real here as they had been at the palace.
She had to leave the country – no matter where she ended up. It wasn’t like Eleanor hadn’t had to dig herself out of messes before – she’d manage to do so again.
Steeling her nerves, she slid from the car, refusing to show an ounce of the emotional trepidation that had settled in her gut.
Apollo was angry with her, but she knew the truth at the centre of his being: he was a good man, and he would make good decisions. He couldn’t help but do so – it was who he was.
He paused at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her, his eyes pinning her as though she were an errant, runaway puppy and he the master. Impatient, scolding, bored.
He didn’t speak as she passed him, but he didn’t need to. His disapproval hit her like a wave.
She held the railing for support as she moved into the plane, her stomach flopping the whole way. Inside was everything she could have imagined. She’d seen inside his lifestyle, she’d had a taste of the glamor and luxury that enveloped him at every turn – from the two-story penthouse in Knightsbridge to the chauffeured Range Rover that took him all over London, to the impossibly fine silk sheets and the gourmet meals his personal chef prepared: Apollo Heranedes was nothing if not used to the very finest things in life, and this jet was further confirmation of that. It was the shape of a normal, commercial airline, but where rows and rows of seats would usually be, there were comfortable white leather armchairs. The carpet was cream, giving the plane the sense of a very pleasant living room.
“This way,” he murmured, stalking through the body of the plane and wrenching open a door that led to yet another corridor. Several rooms came off it on either side and, her investigative curiosity leaped to the fore, so that she couldn’t help looking in each room they passed.
The first two were both offices – with large timber desks, comfortable chairs and shelves. There was a cinema room next, and a bathroom behind it, and then two bedrooms, each equipped with what looked to be a king-size bed and armchair.
“You may use this room while on board,” he said, without meeting her eyes. That same muscle jerked in his jaw and she ached to push up on to the tips of her toes and kiss it, to kiss him, to taste him.
The temptation caught her by surprise and she tamped down it instantly. Foolish, futile longing – if only she’d been strong enough to ignore it in the first place!
“Apollo,” she said quietly.
He still didn’t drop his gaze.
“Why won’t you look at me?” She asked. “Can’t you bare the sight of me?”
Slowly, he did as she’d asked, lowering his expressive green eyes to her face, and running them across her features as though he’d been dying to do so for years.
“No.” It was a plea – a husky admonition. “I never wanted to see you again.”
Eleanor understood that, but suddenly she found it unbearable to know that he thought so ill of her.
