Page 9 of His Forgotten Wife
And Dahlia knew every inch of his business as well as him since she dealt with most of the personnel and board members and new investors on his behalf.
So every other moment, he found himself looking for Dahlia, a hundred questions pulsing on his lips.
“Come, let’s mingle,” Mama said, warily extending her arm to him. “There are so many friends and family members that want to meet you after all this time. Remember Athena Skyros?” she said, the words rushing out of her. “You used to be inseparable as kids. She runs her father’s fashion magazine now.”
Ares looked in the direction his mother pointed to find a tall brunette with an open smile, waving at him from across the large living room. A spurt of affection burst in his chest. “She came by the other day. It was pleasant catching up with her.” His easy friendship with Athena was another thing he regretted giving up on.
“She’s unmarried, you know,” Mama said, catching his eye. There was enough twinkle in hers for him to know that she was teasing for teasing’s sake. Testing the waters between them.
Athena’s obvious wariness as she approached him made him feel a tightness in his chest.
“Please don’t create confusion around this, Mama,” he said, making sure there was only gentle rebuke in his tone. “I’m engaged to Dahlia, which means there’s no place in my life for another woman.” Again, the certainty with which thosewords poured out of him surprised him. “I am, however, more than happy to catch up with old friends. Although, with my faulty wiring right now, I’ll probably insult her with a far too straightforward comment or some such.”
Mama slapped the back of his hand. “Don’t talk about yourself that way,” she said, her rebuke laced with worry.
As they reached her, his old friend’s smile broadened.
If he meant to repair his relationship with his family and plant new roots in the place his brothers had driven him from, rekindling old friendships was the best way to go about it.
He laughed when Athena asked his permission to hug him. Her perfume, while subtle, surrounded him like a force field, trapping him inside. Pulling back without looking like he was recoiling from her, Ares answered his childhood friend’s eager questions with more than one-word answers. It didn’t even require any extra effort on his behalf.
And yet, restlessness skittered under his skin, like a line of marching ants. Which was when he found himself comparing Athena to his missing assistant—slash-fiancée—he corrected himself.
Athena’s smile, while genuine, was too broad, and she laughed at his nonexistent wit far too readily, and agreed with him far too much. She was, as she’d been as a girl, eager and kind but…not Dahlia. And suddenly he knew what the source of the restlessness was.
He missed his assistant with a shocking intensity that he had never known. He missed Dahlia’s dry wit and her hard-to-earn smile and how she smelled of nothing but soap and herself—a scent that both grounded and excited him.
That his brain could instantly summon up exactly how she smelled, while he was surrounded by familiar sights and sounds, unnerved him. Because Ares did not like unknowns. Especially when it came to his own mind and emotions.
Christos, why the hell did he miss her as if she were some vital organ? And what had transpired between them that she would give up on him so readily? She’d omitted the truth about their engagement…was there something else that she was holding back?
Dolly stared up at the sprawling villa that looked like it had been carved straight from the limestone cliffs surrounding it. The sky was a brilliant mix of gold and lavender, the sun slowly sinking toward the sea, casting a warm, honeyed glow over everything. Beyond the villa, rolling hills stretched into the distance, blanketed in a patchwork of olive groves and vineyards. Cypress trees punctuated the landscape, their tall, slender shapes standing guard along the hillsides.
She had never seen anything so stunning—or so out of reach.
The warm September air clung to her skin like a silk veil, rich with the scent of the sea and olive trees. Her breath hitched in her throat and she thought she might never forget the sight.
She had known, of course, that the island of Corfu was beautiful from the few pics she had seen on the web but Ares’s home was even more grand in real life, and yet still graceful, a fusion of old-world charm and modern luxury.
Her eyes flitted to the swimming pool as she walked up the sweeping staircase made of natural stone—an infinity edge spilling toward the horizon as though it was kissing the Aegean.
The echo of live music and clinking glasses and loud laughter filtering in from the gardens greeted her as she entered the large marble foyer. As she stepped farther inside, the villa opened up to the terrace, where the sun was now kissing the sea.
The grandeur of the villa was overwhelming, almost surreal, and for just a second, she considered turning around and fleeing.
God, she was being ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she had to fit into the grand charm of the villa. She was here for a monthlong assignment, her last assignment probably, hopefully, with Ares. She wouldn’t be surprised,and definitely wouldn’t mind, if she was relegated to a tiny outhouse or one of the touristy motels.
Still, the sense of being overwhelmed clung to her. And she knew part of it was seeing Ares after all these months, and seeing him here. In his palatial home. It felt like one of those nature shows she watched on TV—like seeing a wild predator in his natural habitat.
How and why had he left this place at all? Let alone not return for years at a time?
It wasn’t just the sheer luxury but the heirloom tapestries on the walls, the deep-gouged wooden beams in the ceiling and the sense of permanence that came with growing up in a place like this. Knowing so perfectly where you belonged.
It wasn’t as if her grandfather didn’t love her, he adored her. But she had come to him at the age of twelve after her parents’ death in a car accident. By then he himself was dependent on her uncle and aunt for his own stability, which meant Dolly had never been allowed to forget the fact her aunt had taken her in because of her generous nature. Despite their own financial situation being hard.
As soon as Dolly had moved in, her uncle had lost a leg in a factory accident and, of course, her aunt had blamed her for bringing bad luck down on them. First her parents, then her uncle, and now her grandfather. For a long while, Dolly had believed herself to be the harbinger of bad luck.
So much so that she had stopped talking to her grandpa for weeks at a time, afraid that contact with her would somehow cause her to lose him. And now with his hip surgery and other health problems, that moment was getting closer and closer.
