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Chapter One
Apollo took my hand and kissed the back of it. “I feel like I don’t have to finish my salad,” he said as we sat at our table in the dining hall that night.
“I feel like you should eat your salad,” I countered with a laugh.
Apollo gave me puppy dog eyes as he brushed his fingers along my cheek. “But I ate my chips. Chips are a vegetable.”
I tried not to smile and further encourage him. “Avegetable. Singular. Salad is multiple vegetables.”
“Not if it’s lolly salad,” Marco said with a cheeky grin around whatever he was shovelling into his mouth.
I wasn’t really sure what to say to that. I was smiling at Marco and trying to think of a reply when movement to my left pulled my focus.
Valen was standing up, his vape pen hanging from his mouth as he pulled his hoody up over his head. His eyes glanced around at everyone, and he paused when he saw we were all looking at him.
“What?” he snapped.
“You heading out...or...?” Apollo asked, slight hesitation in his voice.
I didn’t know if there was really a change in Valen over the last week, or if I was seeing one because he and I had changed.
Had it really only been last Sunday when I’d snuck out of his room in nothing but a jacket and heels? Had it really only been Monday when we’d both been practically adults and realised this could work, that we could do this moving on thing? That had been six days ago. And since then, life had gone back to the way it had been months ago.
Well, almost.
“Can a man not go for a piss without the fucking inquisition?” Valen asked Apollo as he blew out a torrent of smoke around his head.
“You’re mighty defensive for a guy just going to take a slash,” Marco observed.
“You just concentrate on whatever the fuck a lolly salad is.”
Valen’s eyes darted over me as he walked out, and I realised I was fiddling absently with his cross at my neck. And fully visibly, too, as I was wearing an open collared top. His hand lifted, then jerked up to tug at his hood like he’d been subconsciously reaching for something he shouldn’t be.
Suddenly nervous, I cleared my throat and turned back to Marco, who was regaling us all with his perfect lolly salad recipe.
A body dropped on my other side with a tray of dinner, and I actually jumped. Apollo’s arm tightened around me.
“You right, babe?” he laughed as he nodded to Florence, as the body who’d just appeared beside me. “Flo.”
She kicked her chin to him in perfect imitation of Marco and didn’t even correct him. “Yeah, hi.”
“Where have you been?” I asked her.
She shrugged as she tucked into her dinner. “Art room. Big project. Not going well.”
“I’d offer to help, but...”
She smiled at me. “But you suck at Art. I know. I’ve just got so much to do before the retreat. And if that all goes well, then...”
As Florence talked, mainly just nervous chatter that I knew was her way of working through her worries, Apollo’s hand was busy roaming my body under the cover of the table. For all intents and purposes, he was chatting with Marco and Gage across the table from me, and I was listening to Florence. But in reality, our attention was on each other.
Apollo’s body encased my own as he ran his hand slowly up the inside of my leg. His thumb brushed over my clit and pleasure shot through me that I wouldn’t feel bad about. I wouldn’t apologise for letting Apollo touch me like that. I wouldn’t let myself doubt wanting him to do so much more.
Valen was out of my system, and I was going to see where this new spark with Apollo went. There were worse people to be physically attracted to than the man you were contractually obliged to marry.
I slowly lay my hand on his leg and squeezed gently. He dropped his lips casually to the spot under my ear and kissed me. I felt his smile as he kept teasing me and tried not to smile in return and raise Florence’s suspicions. There was letting Apollo touch me at the dining table, and there was other people knowing about it, even my best friend who would have been all for sexy shenanigans right under the nuns’ noses.
“...and if that goes well, I might get to go to Paris,” Florence finished, and I forced myself to look like I’d been paying attention.
