Page 92 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

She knew she couldn’t let him throw gasoline on the kindling she could hear in his voice. Because once he did, when would they feel like this again?

When she thought about it that way, five years felt like an eternity.

“I thought it would be what you imagined it was,” she said.

They still hadn’t turned the lights on, and that was a help. It encouraged her. She could feel how taut he was as he waited for her to go on. She understood without him having to say a word that she was running out of time. That there was only so much space he would give to whatever stories she wanted to tell him before he moved them back to familiar footing.

“You already know that I met him at your sister’s and my graduation,” Jolie said. “There were events beforehand, and all that week he paid particular attention to me. So I paid particular attention back. And yes, I had no money. None. My situation was dire and I knew it, but your sister had already invited me to spend the summer here. And I had already accepted, thinking that on an island like this, surely I could find something—or, yes,someone—who might be a good prospect for the kind of life I wanted.”

“A life of ease and comfort, with your every whim catered to?” he asked, but very sardonically, because of course he thought he already knew the answer.

“The headmistress had made my situation very clear to me.” Jolie found his face in the shadows. “When I said I had no money, I don’t mean I had only a little. All I had was the kindness of friends, and you and I both know that people find it very easy to be generous to those who don’t appear to need it. And somewhat less easy to be equally generous to those who do need it, especially if their need is obvious. I was grateful for your sister, but I was nervous about what came next. I already knew that it would be difficult to spend a life like that, drifting from friend to friend and then, perhaps, to the questionable kindness of strangers.”

“Because a job was out of the question, of course.”

“It wasn’t out of the question at all,” she retorted. “That was actually what I was hoping I could find here.”

He shifted against the wall, leaning back and crossing his arms as he regarded her in that narrow, dark way of his. She still couldn’t understand why he, out of all the people in the world, could make hershakewith the need to prove to him that his opinion of her was wrong. “I assume that the moment you arrived here, you raced down into each and every village and put yourself about, shaking the olive trees for employment.”

“That would not be effortless, would it?” She said it softly, and though he didn’t reply, she could tell he understood what she was getting at. “That was the trouble, of course. I was afraid that if your sister saw how desperate I truly was, she would ask me to leave. I decided to wait for opportunities and then take them where I could. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time with your father.”

“I bet you did.”

Jolie sighed. “Did it occur to me that he might want tomarryme? Absolutely not. I assumed that he might be interested in an affair.” She sighed, remembering. “He had showed no interest in marrying any of the other women he was linked to over the years. It never occurred to me that he might wish to marryme.”

“So you thought you could get what you wanted if you just rolled around with him a bit,” Apostolis summarized. Witheringly. “Give the old man a little sugar and see if he paid for the pleasure.”

She was already regretting the urge that had led to this. “Your sister is actually the one who played matchmaker. Dioni thought it would be fun if she got to keep a friend here with her, which wouldn’t happen if I was just another affair. They all tend to storm off, sooner or later. So one night she laughed quite loudly while your father was telling me some story, leaned in close, and said,Father, really. If you’re going to captivate my friend’s attention every time you see her, why not marry her yourself?”

Apostolis looked as if he wanted to claim she was lying about Dioni, too.

“I don’t know if that was the first time he considered it,” Jolie told him. “But I do know that he changed his approach after that. He asked me to marry him that August. And I accepted.”

“Of course you accepted. It would be foolish to turn away a meal ticket.”

“But this meal ticket is not quite the one you think it was,” she made herself tell him, because she’d started this, hadn’t she? And there was no point telling only half the story. “After he proposed, and once he understood that I was prepared to accept, he didn’t sweep me off for some romantic evening. He sat me down and had a long talk with me about what he wanted. What he demanded of me, and would expect of a wife.”

Apostolis’s bittersweet gaze flared. “I’m certain he did exactly that, and I’m equally certain that I would rather not hear of it in any detail.”

“It’s not as lurid as the things I read about you in widely circulated newspapers,” she tossed back at him, with more heat than she wanted to show him. She tried to compose herself. “First and foremost, he regretted to inform me that—to his great regret—thatpart of his anatomy was not in service.”

Apostolis made a strangled sort of sound. “I... That’s not better.”

“What he wanted was a daydream. A fantasy. A beautiful young woman on his arm, who could convince the world by her very presence that he was still the man that he liked to see when he looked in the mirror. A pretty girl who could charm his guests, laugh at his jokes, and make him feel like a king for whatever time he had left. He told me he doubted very much that he would make it ten years. I assumed that meant he would last at least fifteen and more probably, twenty.” Jolie squared her shoulders. “The only thing he required from me was my assurance that I would never let anyone know the truth. That ours was not the intense, wildly sexual connection he wanted them to think it was. The connection you seem to be sure it was. The connection I think I wanted to pretend it was, too, because that was better than the truth. Better than atransaction.”

“And...” Apostolis’s voice was so soft. But she shivered, because she could hear the menace in it. “Do you expect me to believe that the two of you were simply...playing charadesfor seven years? That my father, who made a point of pushing what he liked to call hisearthinesson anyone who strayed near, was involved in this...chaste bit of dinner theater? You must think I am the most gullible fool who ever drew breath.”

“He was more my boss than my husband.” Jolie told him this quietly. “He was not entirely unkind. But both of us knew who was in control. Of everything. Every night he would critique my performance and to be honest with you, I don’t think he was very much interested in sex by then. Earthy or otherwise. Not when total control of another person was so much more exciting to have.”

That control had even extended to Mathilde, not that she wished to so much as whisper to Apostolis that her cousin existed. But Spyros had been very clear that Jolie was to exist out of time and only for him. He liked that she was an orphan, just as he liked that she was penniless. No family. No connections aside from his own daughter.

He wanted her entirely focused on and dependent upon him.

That she sent money to Mathilde was of no matter to him—but woe betide Jolie if she ever reminded him that her cousin existed. Or that she spent even one moment in his presence thinking of her.

Across from her, Apostolis muttered something dark and very Greek that she found she was perfectly happy not to understand.

“If you think about it, Apostolis,” she said in the same low voice, “I’m sure you’ll realize that what I’m telling you is the truth. He liked to manipulate people. He liked to watch everyone around him dance to his tune. It didn’t matter if it was a happy thing or a sad thing or if they hated it. He just wanted to see what he could make other people do. So it wasn’t charades, it was a puppet show. Does that make it better?”

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