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“And waste money you don’t have? Then a flight back to London? That makes no sense.”
“Nor does going to the yacht and pretending none of this happened.”
“We won’t do that. We can’t.” His lips compressed and he angled his face away, his chest moving as though he too were grappling with dark emotions, trying not to let them win. And when he spoke, he was in command again, his voice measured. “In the morning, I’ll have you taken back to London.”
Have you taken, like an errant piece of luggage. She swallowed over a lump in her throat that might very well have been her pride. She hated how right he was. She couldn’t afford a hotel in Rome, nor a flight to London. She dug her fingernails into her palm and nodded stiffly. “Fine. Let’s consider my kidnap an economic one, this time.”
She turned away before she could see him flinch.
The silence was deafening.It had crackled the whole helicopter ride, where even the aerial view of Rome in the late night couldn’t distract her from the way he’d spoken to her—as though she were a piece of dirt on his shoe. Introducing her as their father’s ‘friend’, the word layered with so much cynicism and sneery contempt that even aliens would have inferred his meaning.
When the helicopter touched down, she unbuckled her seatbelt and removed the headpiece then fumbled with the door, but she had no idea how to open it. Anastasios reached across, his arm strong and capable, lifting the handle, then pulling back swiftly. He too was aware of the spark between them, even when neither wanted it.
She stepped out without a word of thanks, then thought better of it.
At the door to the main cabin, she looked back at him. “I suppose I should thank you,” she said caustically.
He walked towards her slowly, his face in shadows. She didn’t wait for an answer.
“Every year, I dread my birthday. I have this tradition, you see, of always having the very worst birthdays in the world. Like the year Dale saved up and bought me a CD I’d wanted for over a year and my father hit it with a hammer, or the year my father beat Dale until he had to go to hospital, or the year I was on the streets and cornered by three guys—god knows what they would have done to me if a routine patrol hadn’t driven past at that exact moment. Jail was a relief compared to that fear.”
His face was immovable, except for his eyes, which stormed with emotions she couldn’t interpret. She didn’t notice, anyway.
“Every year of my life, my birthday has sucked, except for last year, when your beautiful dad made me feel so good, Anastasios. So important and valued.” She shook her head. “And then there’s you, and how you made me feel tonight. I’ll never forget it. So congratulations, in a litany of truly awful birthdays, you’ve managed to take the cake. Thanks for everything.”
It was churlish and unnecessary, but her heart was hurting, and she was lashing out from that wounded place, wanting to wound him when she suspected she didn’t have the power.
She stalked through the boat, towards the stairs. It was only when she reached the door to her room that she realized he’d followed.
“It’s your birthday?”
She glared at him. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No,” she responded with a shift of her head. “You don’t know anything about me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? If you had known, would you have waited until tomorrow to humiliate and denigrate me?”
His eyes bore into hers, dark emotions swirling between them.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with a shake of her head, all the fight leaving her. “I’m going to bed. I just want this over with.”
“Stop.” His word was commanding. “Let me show you something.”
He pulled out his phone and pressed some buttons, then handed it to her. A photo appeared with a familiar note. She gasped when she read it, for the feelings of warmth and affection that flooded back to her.
“How did you get this?”
His eyes sparked with hers. “The source who’s selling the story to the tabloids produced this as proof. My friend sent it to me.”
She shuddered at the gross invasion of her privacy, shoving the phone back at him. “And you believe that’s evidence of an affair?”
“There is also this photo.” He swiped his phone screen and a photo came up. She stared at it with disbelief.
“We were just talking,” she said, even when a part of her could see their obvious closeness, could understand that it could be misconstrued.
“These things, combined with the bequest, the statue, the painting, the weekly rendezvous, and now, the reference to a fabulous weekend, they paint a very clear picture.”
She nodded, not because she agreed with him, but because she understood the truth of their situation. She’d never be able to make him understand.
