Page 103 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

But this picture hit her differently, now. She had heard a great deal about Apostolis before she ever met him. He had been one of Dioni’s favorite topics of conversation in school. Years before she’d met Spyros, Jolie had heard all about this big brother of Dioni’s who was her champion in all things—notably unlike her disinterested father.

Apostolis is my hero,Dioni had said, time and again.

When she heard the door to the carriage house open behind her she turned and tried to look at him as if he wasthatApostolis.

Not the bane of her existence.

Not her enemy.

Not the man she’d married despite the fact he had always been both of those things to her. The man who treated her like someone incalculably precious to him in public and told her he hated her in private, all the while making certain that they were more intimate with each other than she’d had any idea two peoplecouldbe.

Those were all contradictions.

But then, what in life was not? All she had, all anyone ever had, was faith—however misguided—that if they picked one of the many paths available before them, they would be heading in the right direction.

Her heart was a catapult against her ribs.

“I want to talk to you,” she said, as he started toward her.

He didn’t stop moving, though she thought that the expression on his face grew...more forbidding, perhaps.

Jolie took one last look at that picture of Dioni and him on the beach. Then she moved ahead of him, flicking on every light she passed, perhaps because she wished to signal to him that this was different from their normal late-evening activities.

She moved through the flowing spaces, one into the next in a tumble of bright colors, and found her way to one of the comfortable chairs. And was aware as she sat down that she was choosing it precisely because it did not invite him to sit down with her.

Jolie had no doubt whatsoever that he was receiving all of these messages loud and clear. She could see it in the slight narrowing of his dark, brooding eyes.

“I don’t know what you imagine we could have to talk about,” he said.

She watched as he prowled around the room, fixing himself a drink at the bar, though he didn’t taste it. He only rattled the ice cubes around in his glass tumbler and then lifted a brow in her direction. She shook her head, declining the offer of a drink for herself.

As if she needed to make herself feel even more precarious than she already did, after all the lovely wine she’d sipped at dinner.

“You can’t imagine anything at all we might discuss?” she asked, almost idly. Almost in the way she asked questions of all their guests. “How curious. I can think of a number of subjects without even trying.”

“I thought we agreed that time is behind us.” He roamed closer, then sat in the chair opposite her. Only he sprawled out in such a way that he seemed to take up the entire flowing ground floor that easily. “We have different weapons now. Different battles entirely.”

“This has nothing to do with your war,” Jolie said, feeling something like exhausted, suddenly. That had to be why emotion seemed to be poking at the back of her eyes. Moving all through her and making her chest feel tight. She pressed her palm against her heart as of that might keep it from beating so hard.

He stared at that hand a long while. Then lifted his brooding gaze to her face. “Nothing that occurs between us is about anything else.”

Jolie sighed. “Then you can view this as another attack, if you wish. I’ve decided to try a radical approach, Apostolis.” And it wasn’t that her self-preservation instincts had deserted her. She could feel them, kicking at her, as hard as ever. It was that on the other side of that were the things that he whispered to her in the dark. All those gruff, Greek words he thought she couldn’t understand. And it was all these bright, golden nights ofmaybes. All these intoxicatingwhat ifs. “After all, one of us has to be brave.”

He swirled his drink around in its glass. “You think that bravery is involved in these games we play?”

“I think that bravery is required to make certain that we are not playing games any longer,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you tired of them? I know I am. So I’ve decided to tell you where that money goes.”

She didn’t know what she expected. For him to go still, perhaps. To take on that watchful look he sometimes did.

But instead, he seemed to go...incandescentinstead.

It wasn’t that he moved. It wasn’t that he roared up out of his chair, like some kind of Roman candle.

But she watched him implode all the same.

“Have you now.”

It was all he said, but Jolie could almost taste the bitterness. It seemed a decent match for the color of his gaze as he stared her down.

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