Page 61 of The Actor and His Secret

‘Okay, Adonis.’ Oli offers that smile again and I swear it shatters my fucking heart. He extends a hand to me in offering. I don’t know what it’s for until the final word comes out his mouth. ‘Deal?’

‘Deal.’

Oli picks up his book, opens the page again and hides himself in the pages. Although this time, I know he’s not reading. His brows don’t move and his eyes don’t linger over the lines. They stay glued to one spot in the book as he attempts to conceal the tears rolling down his cheeks.

I’d experienced heartbreak before, but nothing like this. As I navigate the boat back towards land, I feel myself cracking little by little, until the pieces of me are scattered across the ocean for the creatures of the sea to feast on.

23

OLI

I don’t want to go home, but it’s inevitable.

The process of pulling away from Nikos is unbearable, and I want nothing more than to kidnap him and go back to the little house by the ocean that we’ve spent five magical days in. But Nikos is needed back in New York for more publicity, and I’m needed back at work to continue promotion of the next book in the series.

There was a time when thinking about my work made me happy, but now it just gives me a pit in my stomach. All I want to do is avoid it. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to think about An Age of Dragons again without visions of Nikos lying in the sand, feeling the heat of his skin and the way his fingers traced my body. And that’s going to be more of a torture than Geoff leaving me ever was. When my ex left, I knew it was the end of a relationship, the death of a vision of my life that was expected and stable and boring and perfect.

Leaving Nikos feels like the end of me. The end of the carefree Oliver who’d thrown caution to the wind to run off with a movie star. The end of the Oliver who was worth enough to make Nikos Ridge - Nikos Drakos - bare his soul and sweep me off my feet.

I’m going back to my sad, pathetic life, and I know Nikos will have no trouble moving on without me.

‘Oli?’ Nikos is sitting next to me in the car, and he nudges my leg with his foot. ‘What’s on your mind?’

I swallow hard. It’s difficult to speak, and has been since we’d pulled up to the shore in our boat the day prior. Every time I try to talk, there’s a lump in my throat stopping the words from coming out.

A few deep breaths and I manage. ‘I’m alright. Just thinking about everything that’s awaiting me when I get back. I’m sure it’s a lot.’

We haven’t really connected our phones to the internet or cell service, an unspoken agreement to keep the fantasy going for a little longer. When we get to the airport in Thessaloniki, there’s going to be no excuse, but we can cling to the isolation for another hour.

I’m sure that there’s a pile of emails waiting for me, not to mention all of my notifications on social media, but at least that will be something to distract me from the total, abject heartbreak.

Nikos reaches out and puts a hand on my thigh, and I take the comfort. I feel like I’m stealing something from him, since there’s no way that this can continue on once we step off the jet in London.

‘I wish it could be different,’ he says. ‘I really do.’

‘I know.’ I do. I can see it in every line of his face. ‘But these is are our lives, Nikos. We can’t play pretend anymore.’

He sighs, and his hand tightens on my thigh. I watch the landscape roll by out of the car’s windows, and wonder what would happen if we just ran away together. If we returned to being anonymous, the way he’d been before he left Greece. The way I’d been before he noticed me.

‘Agape mou.’ He presses his lips to my head and breathes the words into my hair. ‘I’m never going to forget this week. The one week of my life where I could truly be myself.’

‘Neither am I.’ I swipe at my cheeks with the back of my hand, wishing that I wasn’t so quick to cry. I don’t want to waste the few hours I have left with Nikos being sad. I want us to go back to being Adonis and Honey, the way we’d been able to have fun with each other and take pleasure in each other's bodies before we’d come to know each other. Before the reality of Nikos being unable to be open about being with a man came back to bite us.

Before -

Before I fell in love with Nikos Drakos. The real him, not the one carefully cultivated for the cameras to see.

It’s hard to even admit it to myself, but I do. I’ve fallen fast and hard, and no matter what I do, he’ll always have a piece of my heart.

The rest of the car ride is silent, since we’ve run out of things to say that aren’t sad or goodbye. I just sit with my head pressed to Nikos’ chest and listen to his heart beating, memorising the way that his skin is hot against mine. The solid, reassuring presence of his muscular body. I don’t beg him to stay, to reconsider, and I’m proud of myself. I just imprint all of this on my mind so that when he’s gone, I can at least dream about this week.

The airport is busy, but the car drops us off at a private terminal. We’re at passport control before I know it, and Nikos shifts his bag off his shoulder. ‘Can you hold this for a second? I need to get the passports.’

He gives me his cup of coffee and his phone, which is currently vibrating like crazy. I can only imagine the sheer number of notifications on every single platform that Nikos must deal with, if he has access to his own social media. I can barely handle it when one of my posts gets a few hundred likes, and I can only imagine what it’s like when we’re talking about the tens of thousands of comments and likes and everything else that are generated every time Nikos posts a thirst trap. Not that I can blame the people, not when I’ve personally had my hands all over the man’s incredible body.

The coffee is hot, and the cardboard sleeves aren’t doing nearly enough to stop my hands from burning as Nikos talks to the customs agent in Greek. I need to put them down, so it’s a good thing there’s a counter nearby. But as I juggle the coffee cups, I jostle the phone and the screen lights up. It’s a bunch of emails coming in - from the subject line, they look like offers for more movies - and texts from his manager Selina.

One, though, catches my eye. I touch the notification, causing the rest to slow. It’s a text with a picture attached, one which turns my world upside down.

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