‘OH, MY GOD, Santos!’ She stared at him, her heart pounding in her throat, her eyes huge as she regarded him across the room. He was dressed as he had been that morning, but it was impossible to see him without seeing all of him now. She refused to think about him naked, refused to think about how he’d felt on top of her, inside her. ‘You scared me half to death!’ She was pleased when the exclamation emerged with a degree of irritation.
‘We weren’t finished talking.’ The words were quiet, carefully blanked of emotion, which was reassuring. Dressed in only a fluffy robe, she felt at a disadvantage, but she had no intention of showing him that. She moved towards the window—a safe distance away from where he sat on the edge of the bed—and planted her bottom on the window’s ledge.
‘I’m not sure there’s anything else to talk about,’ she muttered, lifting her shoulders as she dropped her gaze to the thick carpet.
‘I was angry.’ The words were simple and unexpected.
‘No kidding.’
‘I should have realised the difference in our experience but, the truth is, the intensity of my own needs for you deafened me to anything else.’ His grimace was wry, and then he stood, moving towards her so she had only a few seconds in which to brace, to fortify herself against her body’s instinctive reaction.
‘I hurt you.’
She blinked, her heart turning over in her chest. Had she been so easy to read?
‘I wasn’t gentle, and I would have been if I’d known. I would have made it so much better for you.’ He expelled a breath, his eyes heavy on her face. ‘Your first time shouldn’t be rushed like that. It should have been special, different.’
She didn’t admit that it had felt damned special to her—until his anger and disappointment had become evident.
‘It was fine,’ she said simply, turning her face away, no longer wanting to look at him, aware of how easily he could read her features.
‘“Fine” has never been a benchmark I considered worth aiming for.’
Her stomach squeezed. ‘It was better than fine. Is that what you want to hear? Did you come here for praise, Santos? To hear that you were amazing?’
Out of her peripheral vision she saw him shake his head and then he was crouching before her, his hand on her knee gentle and so kind that it was somehow all the worse. She resolutely straightened her spine, refusing to show him any more overt sentimentality.
‘I came here to apologise.’
It shocked her. She swivelled to face him, biting down on her lower lip. ‘I was angry that you would choose me to be your first lover, because of all the things I cannot offer you, but I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did. I don’t want that to be your memory of losing your virginity.’
She nodded a little awkwardly. ‘I’m not—I wasn’t building it up to be some big, momentous event.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s not like I was “saving myself” or anything so quaint.’
He pounced on her denial. ‘So how does it happen then that a beautiful woman in her twenties had never had sex?’
‘I just hadn’t.’ She pulled away from him, standing, turning a little to look out of the window. The Aegean glistened beneath her, beautiful and expansive, bright and blue.
‘There has to be more to it.’
‘Why?’ She angled her face to his. ‘Why can’t it be something I just never got around to?’
‘Because you are a sensual woman, and to have not indulged that side of your nature makes no sense.’
She nodded, his confusion easy to understand. ‘It’s a long story and I’m not sure it really matters.’
‘I don’t like mysteries.’
Her laugh was involuntary, a small sound of disbelief. ‘Is that what I am?’
He didn’t answer.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she said honestly. ‘I wondered if I should but then once we were in the pool house I couldn’t really think of anything except—’
‘Except?’ He moved a little closer, his face almost touching hers.
She swallowed. ‘What we were doing.’ She turned back to the window, needing some mental space from him.
He stood beside her for several beats, and a thousand thoughts and feelings rammed into her brain, asking to be spoken, but she stayed quiet, staring out to sea.
‘Please let me know if you need anything,’ he said a little formally, taking a step back from her. ‘If I did hurt you, and you need—’
She shook her head in frustration. ‘I’m not made of glass, Santos.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Are you?’ She regarded him carefully, her stomach in knots. There were many things about her life she might have changed if she could but she’d never wished more keenly to reach back through the fabric of time and alter her social experiences. She was aware how out of kilter she was much of the time—an anomaly—yet she’d learned to cover that, to integrate for the most part. But with Santos she felt like all her usual defences were missing; she was vulnerable and raw.
‘I am sorry.’
‘Stop saying that.’ She brushed his apology aside. ‘I get that you wish it hadn’t happened, that you wouldn’t have slept with me if you’d known I hadn’t done that before, but I knew and I chose to have sex with you and I’m still happy with that decision.’ She realised, as she said it, that it was true. ‘I’m glad we had sex. I liked being with you. I’m sorry if that’s disrespecting your wishes but I need to say it so you can stop tormenting yourself.’
She didn’t let him speak. ‘I’m not secretly imagining changing my name to Amelia Anastakos. I’m not fantasising about waking up beside you every morning for the rest of the time I’m on Agrios Nisi. I’m a big girl, Santos. As you keep pointing out, I’m in my twenties, and I understand how men like you operate. Sex is sex, and I’m more than okay with that.’
He stared at her, the words wrapping around him, each of them perfectly chosen to relax him, a balm to his worries. She was letting him off the hook, making him understand that she’d gone into this with her eyes wide open. His only objection, the root of his anger, was his fear that he had unknowingly hurt her—that perhaps he’d led her on in some way, that she’d chosen to give him her virginity because she’d been hoping it might lead to something bigger, but she was telling him clearly that wasn’t the case.
She’d wanted to have sex. That was all. It was no big deal. Meaningless, temporary, perfect.
So why didn’t he feel better? Why hadn’t her words done a bit to relax him? Why were they having almost the opposite effect?
I understand how men like you operate.
Men like him? Men like his father, did she mean? It coated the inside of his mouth with acid. He was nothing like Nico Anastakos. He’d spent a lifetime proving that.
‘You should not have let me be your first. I cannot give you—’
‘God, Santos!’ She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I just told you, you don’t have to give me anything. I don’t know what it is with you. I’ve never met anyone that I looked at and felt...’
Her words tapered off. What had she been about to say? Felt like I wanted to rip their clothes from their body?
She closed her eyes on a wave of embarrassment.
‘It shouldn’t have happened.’ When he sighed, his breath fanned her temple, warm and distracting. She angled her face away.
‘You don’t have to worry. It definitely won’t happen again.’
One of his stepmothers had bought him a puppy—a little brown Labrador. Santos had named it Atrómitos—Atró for short. He’d been ten, and it had been very easy to love the dog. Hard to lose it when the inevitable separation occurred and his temporary stepmother decided to take Atró away with her.
During thunderstorms Atró had cried, and the noise Santos heard in the early hours of the morning was so reminiscent of that sound he thought he was slipping back in time. He pushed up in his bed, his heart pounding, disorientation making him frown, and then he moved as the reality of what was happening woke him fully.
‘Cameron.’ He didn’t pause to pull on a shirt. Striding from his bedroom in only a pair of boxers, he moved through his home towards the suite of rooms he’d assigned his son. The cries grew louder as he approached. He pushed open the door and then paused.
His son was crying, but he wasn’t alone. Amelia was beside him in the bed, her arms wrapped around him, her hair like burnt caramel in the soft light of his room. He hadn’t seen her in days—not since he’d left her room with an uneasiness in his gut that she was casting him in the same light as his father—and for a moment all he could do was stare. Her elegant fingers moved over Cameron’s head, brushing the curls away from his temples, her words too soft for Santos to catch. Her pyjamas were hardly intended to seduce—a T-shirt and a loose pair of pants—but, knowing her body as he now did, it didn’t matter how she chose to dress herself. His reaction was instant—a stirring in his blood, a question his body wanted answered.
After a slight delay, she appeared to notice him, moving her eyes towards the door, her lips compressing, casting her face in an expression he didn’t understood.
He forced himself to look away from Amelia. Christos, he found that harder than he cared to admit. His son’s little face was streaked with tears, his eyes bloodshot, his small body moving with the violent force of his sobs.
‘Can I...?’ Frustration bit through him. He wasn’t used to this—not knowing what to say, how to act. He’d felt like this ever since he’d found out about Cameron. He hated it.
Amelia almost felt sorry for him. His uncertainty was patently obvious. How could he see his son in such obvious distress and not simply rush into the room and bundle him into a reassuring hug? Perhaps he would have if Amelia hadn’t reached him first. Perhaps it was her being here that was confusing him.
She grimaced, turning her attention back to Cameron, very close to wishing that it had all never happened. Even as she thought it, she pushed the very idea away. She’d never regret what they’d shared.
‘There, there,’ she murmured, stroking the darling boy’s hair, brushing her lips over his brow. ‘I’m here, darling.’
‘I just...’ His little voice was so sad, and Amelia’s heart ached for him. ‘I miss her so much.’
‘Of course you do,’ she agreed, catching one of his hands and squeezing it.
Without intending it, her eyes moved to the door. Santos was blocking it. The light cast from the lamp was faint and golden, shading his face in a collection of geometric shadows.
‘Would you get Cameron a drink of water?’ she suggested quietly.
‘Water, nai.’ His voice did funny things to her stomach. He moved quickly, turning and leaving, relieved to have something to do.
Amelia kept talking to Cameron, reminding him of all that she knew about Cynthia and of England; of the first day they’d met—short little anecdotes that seemed to work. When she made intentional little mistakes, Cameron, in that way children had, effortlessly corrected her. ‘No, I wasn’t wearing a red shirt, because we were dressed in house colours; it must have been blue.’
Santos didn’t take long, striding across the room. She looked in his general direction rather than towards the wall of muscles that was right at her side.
‘Thank you.’ She held the glass out to Cameron. He’d stopped crying now, though his breaths were shallow. He drank half and then Amelia stood, almost bumping into Santos—she would have done so had he not moved quickly, sidestepping her with easy athleticism. She placed the water on the bedside table and rearranged an exhausted Cameron, easing him back against the pillows, his little face dark in contrast to the crisp white pillows, stroking his hair until his eyes grew heavy.
‘Amelia?’
His voice was thick with tiredness.
‘Yes, dearest?’
‘I’m glad you’re here.’
Her heart flipped over in her chest. She straightened, watching as sleep devoured him, turning his breathing rhythmic, relaxing his little face.
Santos moved behind her, surprising her, and she stiffened, bracing her body to ward off its usual, predictable, unwanted response to his proximity, but he was only turning off the lamp. The room plunged into darkness.
Amelia moved towards the door, aware he was right behind her, crossing into the corridor.
‘What happened?’ he asked, almost unnecessarily.
‘He had a dream. About Cynthia.’ There was a little light out here, coming from a room down the hallway. A quick glance showed the foot of a bed. Santos’s room? Great. That was a detail she’d prefer not to know.
‘He was so upset.’
‘Well, yes,’ Amelia agreed. ‘He woke up thinking it had all been a terrible nightmare, that his mother was still here, only to realise he’s living that nightmare.’
Santos’s jaw clenched tight and Amelia could have kicked herself for being so insensitive.
‘I don’t mean that knowing you is a nightmare—’
‘I know what you meant.’ His eyes lingered on her face, so her heart skipped a beat.
‘Anyway...’ She let the word hang in the air. What was she waiting for? An invitation? How ridiculous.
‘You’re so comfortable with him.’
That pulled on her focus. She lifted a brow, but before he could say anything else he put a hand in the small of her back, guiding her a little way down the hallway, away from Cameron’s bedroom.
‘I’m a schoolteacher,’ she said quietly. ‘I spend my days with six-year-olds, and I’ve known Cam for years. It’s easy for me to be comfortable with him.’
He nodded, but his eyes were still appraising her, distracting her, making it hard to concentrate. What genius? she thought with a self-deprecating grimace.
‘You just need to spend time with him,’ she urged quietly. ‘Getting to know him will make you feel more comfortable.’ She tilted her head to the side. ‘You work such long hours. It’s no wonder you don’t feel comfortable with him yet. Why don’t you take some time off? Or even truncate your work day a little so that you can have breakfast with him, or dinner? It takes time, Santos,’ she pressed when he didn’t say anything. ‘There’s no magic pill, no secret. Time and attention.’
His expression was like stone, reminding her of the first night here.
Do not expect miracles while you are here. Your concern is my son’s happiness, not his relationship with me.
‘Anyway,’ she said again, on a small sigh. ‘He’s asleep now.’
‘Nai.’
Neither of them moved. The air around them seemed to thicken, making breathing almost impossible. God, he must work out a lot to have a physique like this. Her eyes followed the ridges of his chest, chasing each undulation until her breath was burning inside her lungs and her fingertips were tingling with a desire to follow the course of her eyes.
She had to break free of him now or it would be too late. She stifled a groan but before she could turn and move away he lifted a hand and curved it over her cheek.
Neither of them spoke, but she felt a thousand and one things deep in her soul. ‘I am very grateful you came here, Amelia.’
For Cameron, she mentally added. Of course, for Cameron.
She nodded, dislodging his hand, and took a step back while she still could. ‘So am I.’ Silence wrapped around them once more.
He broke it. ‘Kalinychta, Miss Ashford.’
‘Goodnight, Santos.’
He couldn’t say why but after Amelia had left him, disappearing into her own room, he didn’t return to his own. He couldn’t. Not while his son’s cries were still at the uppermost of his mind. He had no idea what he could do to ease the young boy’s suffering if he awoke again but he wanted to be there if grief tore through his sleep once more.
It was a long night but Santos didn’t sleep. Instead, he sat beyond his son’s door, crouched in the corridor, his head bent, his breathing deep, perched ready to react if Cameron needed him. He couldn’t explain why, but in that moment, for that night, Santos obeyed one of his instincts—that to comfort his son.
The other instinct—to be wrapped up in Amelia Ashford and how he’d like them to spend their night—he ignored resolutely.
It’s no wonder you don’t feel comfortable with him yet. Why don’t you take some time off? Or even truncate your work day a little so that you can have breakfast with him, or dinner? It takes time, Santos.
She was right. Of course she was right. He couldn’t avoid the fact he was a father. He might not have any idea how to be a father but that didn’t change the fact. And since when had Santos Anastakos been a man to run from the unfamiliar? Never. Whatever he’d faced in his business life, he had conquered, even when that meant scaling an almost impossible mountain.
This would be no different.
A week after Cameron’s broken sleep, after he’d spent the night in a silent vigil outside his son’s room, Santos surprised them all at dinner—Talia, Cameron and Amelia—even more so when he took a seat at the head of the table, accepting a plate of food and a wine glass from one of the helpers Chloe hired through the summer to keep on top of the housework.
He watched Amelia across the table as she spoke to Cameron and Talia, completely calm and reserved, no hint of emotion on her features, no hint of warmth at his presence. What had he expected? A marching band? For her to pause proceedings and congratulate him on doing something so banal as returning home a few hours earlier than normal?
‘That can’t be true!’ Talia laughed but Amelia shook her head so her dark hair shifted around her face, distracting him with its glossy, water-like consistency, reminding him of the way it had tousled around her face when she’d been in the bed in the pool room.
‘It absolutely is.’
‘How can it be?’ Cameron placed his cutlery neatly in the middle of his plate. Santos turned his attention to his son and as always felt the clip of pain—the gaping hole inside him where knowledge and familiarity should have been. Cameron had excellent manners—a credit to his mother, he supposed. He wished he could remember more about Cynthia. The truth was, he’d been twenty-seven and celebrating a huge takeover of a rival shipping company the night they’d met. He’d spent most of their time together either responding to emails or drinking Scotch.
‘The warmth in the atmosphere causes a thermal expansion,’ Amelia said with a smile. She lifted her knife, holding it in the air. ‘When the weather gets warm, the iron that was used to build the Eiffel Tower grows bigger—expands—until it’s around four inches taller than in winter.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Cameron laughed. ‘It’s a building, they can’t change shape.’
‘Not shape, necessarily, just size,’ she insisted, laying her knife back down. ‘When I was studying in Paris, we measured it over the course of the year.’
‘You studied in Paris?’ Santos’s voice came out deep and Amelia’s gaze flicked to him, something flashing in her eyes so it was impossible not to feel the snaking heat of response. It had been several days since he’d last seen her and when she looked at him now he wanted to stand up and drag her body to his, to throw her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs. He wanted to spend a long, hot night making love to her, rather than the rushed coming together they’d experienced in the pool house.
‘Yes.’ She lifted one perfect brow in a silent challenge then turned back to Cameron. It was as if she felt nothing for Santos, no temptation, no curiosity. Frustration shifted inside him—he wanted to kiss her until that ice dropped from her completely, until it melted away in an incontrovertible acknowledgement of desire.
‘How did you measure it?’
‘With lasers, of course.’ She smiled and Santos tried to focus his thoughts; the strength of his erection beneath the table was hardly helpful.
He could see what a good teacher she’d be. She was patient and engaging and seemed genuinely passionate about the subject matter.
‘But what—?’
‘No more questions for Miss Ashford.’ Talia grinned, standing up and resting her hands on the back of the chair. ‘It’s time for bed.’
‘But it’s only seven-thirty!’
‘Exactly,’ Talia said with a crisp nod. ‘The perfect time for little boys to have their stories read.’
‘I’m not tired.’
Amelia’s smile was all indulgence. ‘You always say that, right before your head hits the pillow and you’re fast asleep within minutes.’
Something inside Santos shifted. Guilt? Jealousy? He had no idea about his son’s bedtime rhythms.
Cameron opened his mouth to challenge that statement but then nodded with a glimmer of obedience. ‘Okay, then.’ He stood up and rounded the table, coming to Amelia’s side. She lifted an arm around him, holding him there, burying her face in his hair, and for a minute there was such a look of unguarded sadness and love on her features that his breath snagged in his throat.
‘Goodnight, darling.’ She kissed his hair, smiling directly into his eyes. Warmth replaced the sadness; she was beautiful.
‘Night.’ Cameron moved further down the table. It was a new thing for Santos to dine with his son. Even in England, Santos had come home too late for Cameron’s mealtime. They therefore didn’t have any kind of routine established and the little boy looked unsure as to what to say or do to his father. It clutched something tight in Santos’s chest.
He smiled reassuringly, his gut churning for how alike they were—Cameron could have been Santos at the same age. ‘You know,’ he said thoughtfully, scanning the little boy’s face. ‘Paris is only a short flight from here. Perhaps we could go there and see the magical, growing Eiffel Tower for ourselves?’
Cameron’s eyes turned into little round plates of blue. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ He shifted his attention to Amelia. ‘What do you think, Miss Ashford?’
She sat back in her seat as a young woman cleared the plates. ‘I think Cameron would enjoy that,’ Amelia said with a small smile, reserved just for the little boy.
‘I would.’
Santos laughed. ‘Then I’ll arrange it.’ He didn’t expect his son to hug him. It was still new—they were learning. But he reached out and tousled Cameron’s hair, then put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Kalinychta.’
Amelia’s eyes flew to his, and now heat sparked between them. She wasn’t ice. Not at all.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means goodnight.’
‘Kalinychta,’ Cameron repeated, his pronunciation close to perfect.
‘Excellent,’ Santos praised.
‘Kalinychta,’ Cameron said again, apparently enjoying the feeling of the word in his mouth. He repeated it to Amelia as he left the room, Talia’s arm wrapping around Cameron’s shoulder as she shepherded him away for the night.
Leaving Santos alone with Amelia.
‘Well.’ She moved to stand, as though she couldn’t leave quickly enough. He shook his head, the single gesture holding her where she was a moment. Their eyes held, a challenge moving from him to her and being returned with twice the intensity, so his whole body began to ache for her, to want her, to imagine what being with her would be like.
‘When were you in Paris?’
She reached forward, toying with the stem of her wine glass. It was filled with a clear liquid—mineral water. ‘I went last summer.’ She sipped her drink.
‘To measure the Eiffel Tower?’
‘No, that was when I was a student.’
‘A school exchange?’
She hesitated a moment, as if choosing her words with care. ‘No. I was enrolled at the Académie for a time.’
He couldn’t say why he was surprised. Perhaps it was the idea of a teacher from a down-at-heel comprehensive school having studied at one of the most prestigious institutions of tertiary education in the world.
‘What did you study?’ He leaned back in his chair, reaching for his own glass—his filled with red wine from grapes that were grown here on the island.
Another hesitation. Was he imagining the blush on her cheeks? For what reason?
‘Mathematics.’
He watched her as he took a drink of wine then replaced his glass on the table. ‘That’s your speciality?’
‘I don’t really have one speciality,’ she said, obfuscating a little, and now she stood, fixing him with a cool gaze. ‘I do, however, have work to do.’
‘It will wait.’
Her expression clearly showed surprise. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t beg my pardon,’ he responded, his eyes half-shuttered, his chest expanding with the strength of his need for her. ‘Just sit back down and talk to me while I finish my dinner.’
‘Mr Anastakos...’
‘Amelia.’ He laughed then, a thick, gruff sound. ‘Do I need to remind you of how well we know one another?’
Her lips parted on a small noise of shock. The ice was gone. He wondered if she’d been like that for Cameron’s benefit. Perhaps it was a defensive mechanism, so that no one else realised what had happened between them?
She shook her head a little warily. ‘No.’
‘So, please, call me Santos. And sit down.’
She stayed right where she was, staring at him, so frustration bubbled through him. He pushed his chair back, standing, moving to the chair at his right and drawing it from the table.
‘Sit,’ he instructed, his eyes mocking. ‘I don’t bite.’
He saw the way she swallowed, her hesitation making him want to pull her into the chair—better yet, onto his lap. He didn’t. His desire for her was hard enough to control without bringing any physical contact into the equation. But he had to control it. Amelia was off-limits.
‘Fine.’ He stayed where he was as she sat down, pushing her chair in a little, resisting an impulse to brush her shoulders with his fingertips. She was wearing a simple dress with spaghetti straps, her bare skin flawless and golden. When they’d made love, his stubble had left red marks there. On her shoulders, above her breasts. How long had they stayed on her skin before fading into nothingness? And why could he think of little other than dragging his mouth over her body now, leaving the same trail of red marks, the same covering of goose bumps, over her skin?
‘Cameron was very happy you came home for dinner.’ She said the words with a slight hint of reproach and he understood her reasons for it. He wanted to tell her that he was new to all this, and to be patient with him. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing with the child, but that he wanted to work it out.
But Santos wasn’t a man who generally bared his soul, so he said instead, ‘And you, Amelia? Were you happy I came home for dinner?’