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They stared at each other in angry, crackling silence and then she pushed the door inwards, so close to the sanctuary and privacy of her room.
“Your father was a complex man, Anastasios. He felt things deeply. A month before he died, he was in a very dark place. He was full of regrets and grief and anger. I spent the weekend with him, yes. Not romantically, but as a friend, because he was falling apart, and I wanted to hold him together—I owed him that much at least.”
Anastasios crossed his arms over his chest, his skepticism obvious. “My father wasn’t someone to ‘fall apart’.”
“Not in front of the family,” she agreed readily. “He held it together for all of you for so long, but he never got over her. He never got over the loss of Valentina, and how he blamed himself. That grief was with him every step of every day and I understood it. I mirrored it, in so many ways.”
“He gave you something to wear,” Anastasios said, reminding her of the note. His tone indicated how little he wanted to speak of his father’s grief, nor his sister’s death.
“A hat,” she said with a shake of her head, half-laughing, half-sobbing, clutching a hand to her chest. “A stupid hat, because we sat in the sun for so long that I got badly sunburned. He was upset and I didn’t want to interrupt him talking, so I sat there, but later that night, when he realized, he felt awful. So he sent me a stupid hat. It was like Van Gogh’s. That’s all.” She gestured towards his phone. “What you have there is evidence of two friends and a shared joke, nothing more. But I know you won’t believe that.”
He said nothing and her heart broke.
“That’s fine. I don’t think I even care anymore.”
Chapter 11
THAT WASN’T EVEN A little bit true. She still cared, she cared a lot more than she could acknowledge, even to herself. The idea of Anastasios believing the worst of her was like being doused in acid. She lay in bed, staring at the window, eyes closed and leaking salt water, for a long time, until the tears slowed and finally stopped, and only her deep, soft breathing remained.
She loved him, and he hated her.
Or perhaps it was more nuanced than that; she couldn’t have said. There was chemistry between them, but for Anastasios, that’s all it was. For Phoebe, every moment, every conversation, had all been a prelude to love.
Her throat was raw, her body aching all over. In the small hours of the morning, she pushed out of bed, restless, and went to the bathroom, splashing her face with water and staring back at her reflection. Her eyes were hollow, and she looked—so broken.
She could have screamed.
How had she let this happen? After everything she’d been through, wasn’t she better than this? Stronger?
She stared back at her reflection, willing herself to remember that strength, to fight. But could anyone ever fight Anastasios and win?
Her eyes dropped lower, to the mark he’d made on her breast, a mark she’d taken to mean—to feel—she groaned, lifting her hand to cover the mark and beneath it, her wounded heart.
She was going to leave in a few hours. As soon as she could. There was no way she could be around Anastasios when he saw her as he did. She valued herself too much to be spoken to and treated the way he had.
But she’d always regret leaving without resolving things properly. She craved him on an instinctive level, and leaving him without fulfilling that need would be like walking the earth half alive for the rest of her life. Would she ever feel this way about another man? Or would she die a virgin, because she hadn’t taken this opportunity when it was right before her?
Slowly, she stripped the nightgown from her body, then her underpants, until she stood, naked in the bathroom. Before she could second guess her intentions, she galvanized her body, moving through the bedroom towards the door, and her destiny.
It was a tortured sleep. He tossed and turned, dreams fragmented by memories and thoughts, unpleasant and dark, so he would wake suddenly, sit up, remember the events of the last few days and sink back against the pillows, wondering when he’d allowed things to spiral so completely out of control.
He was therefore not asleep when a sound came from just beyond his door. Barely a sound, more of a click. He stilled, holding his breath, listening with every fiber of his being. Silence.
But he knew.
He felt her.
He moved quickly, standing, not bothering to grab a robe, stalking to the door and wrenching it inwards, his naked body before her naked body, so he groaned, his eyes devouring her even as his mind was clanging with alarm, and warning, begging him to pull back and think.
“I’m leaving as soon as I can,” she said quietly, chin tilted with determination and pride.
He was silent. He couldn’t speak.
She was so beautiful. His eyes fell to her breast, to the mark, and he closed his eyes on a rush of need.
“This is the last time I’ll ever see you. I mean that, Anastasios. After I leave this boat, I don’t want to hear from you again. Not once. Not ever.” She lifted a hand to her neck, as if searching for a necklace. His gut twisted as he remembered the diamonds he’d removed earlier, the way he'd made her feel about wearing them, despite the fact she’d demurred and he’d insisted.
“But?” He prompted, his body still, the world no longer spinning, as he waited, on tenterhooks.
