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He felt her sharp intake of breath and laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting that we continue this. It’s pure male ego.’
She exhaled slowly. ‘What if...’
The words were so soft he barely caught them. ‘Yes?’
She turned in the circle of his arms, her eyes looking deep into his own, stirring something in his soul. ‘What if, after this week’s over, we still...see each other?’ The muscles of her throat bunched delicately. ‘From time to time,’ she added quickly.
It was like being split apart by the stroke on an anvil.
There was danger here. Danger in the way Beatrice provoked him, spoke to him, pushed him—danger in the sweet little noises she made when they slept together, danger in the fact that he’d already spent more time with her than he had with any other woman. If maintaining control was the most important thing in his life, then Bea represented a very real threat to that.
He ground his teeth together, mentally distancing himself. ‘That’s not possible.’
He saw the hurt in her eyes briefly before she let them drift shut, her lashes forming two dark velvet fans against her cheeks. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it would just be prolonging the inevitable. I won’t let you waste your life like that.’
‘It’s my life,’ she pointed out defiantly.
‘And my conscience to live with.’ He regarded her warily, hating that she was trying to move the parameters of their safe agreement.
She turned away from him abruptly so he had no idea of her reaction to those words.
He had to drive his point home. ‘Bea, I like sex. I like it a lot. These last few weeks have been...better than I could have imagined. But we both knew it would end.’
Silence grew thick between them. When she spoke, her voice was stiff like iron, but quieter than the whispering wind, so he had to lean closer to catch the words.
‘This isn’t a protestation of love. I’m just saying we could—casually—see each other when I’m back in London. If you want to.’
Why did he hate that even more? Why did he want to shout that a no-strings relationship like that wasn’t good enough for her?
It was a double standard; if she wanted to limit herself to that kind of relationship—just as he did—then that was her choice.
But Bea was different to him.
Where Ares had grown hard and ruthless out of habit and necessity, Bea was soft and sweet, vulnerable beneath a thin outer layer that imitated coldness. She wasn’t cold though, and she wasn’t someone who was suited to live her life alone. She was just too scared to let herself love anyone.
He clamped his jaw, turning her gently and catching her hands, lifting them to his chest. She didn’t quite meet his eyes.
‘I want to enjoy the time we have left, and then I want you to leave my home and never look back. Don’t think about me, don’t think about Danica. Go home and start your life over—only promise me that you’ll keep an open mind about companionship. You deserve better than to keep pushing everyone away, agápi mou.’
Pain was slashing through her. A pain that was familiar and intense.
He didn’t want her.
He didn’t want her.
The words kept circling through her brain, prickly and sharp, so she had to bite back a groan. Her insides were awash with acid but Bea wouldn’t let him see her pain. Just like she’d learned to hide it from her parents, and from everyone else, she hid it from Ares now, flicking him a careless smile even as something inside her was shattering into a thousand pieces.
He didn’t want her.
‘I’ll grant you most of what you’ve asked for,’ she said gently.
He was very still and that stillness was all the confirmation she needed. He’d never want her. No one would.
‘I won’t think about you when I leave...’ the words caught in her throat a little ‘...but Danica will always have a place in here.’ She pulled her hand free and pressed it to her heart. ‘I can’t promise I won’t think of her often.’
It wasn’t just sunset that Bea loved; it was sunrise too. The bookends of the day that broke across the sky, rendering it with a sense of magic and newness, the promise of a new dawn and new hope.
