Page 54 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“I just find that sometimes your heart gets tangled up in a way that you didn’t quite expect, and then you end up feeling pretty bad about it when you went in with your eyes open and you still get yourself a bit wounded.”

“I appreciate it. But I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m focusing on the work. And I’ll be back in Athens in a couple of months. I’ll be able to do the work from there instead of being here.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes. Greece is my home. In a way that New York just isn’t anymore. I’m going to have to invest in a house here, but I’m going to get a place of my own in Athens. I think I’ll feel... Whole. Finally. Like something is mine. Like it’s coming together.”

“What feeling are you looking for exactly?”

“It’s like I need to take back all those years. Those years when I was living a life I didn’t choose. Those years when I was lonely. My parents mandated loneliness to me. And I will never not be angry about that. Angry at them. I wanted... For a long time I wanted somebody to love me. And it was like I had to sit around and wait for it to happen. I’m never going to do that again.”

“You have friends here,” Mariana said. “And we love you. For all that we’re a pretty ragtag group.”

“I know you do. I appreciate it more than I can ever say.”

“I would be your friend even without this job. You do know that, don’t you? I know that you were stuck with the parents you were born with, and then Apollo was your guardian. I feel like maybe you’re trying to create a situation where you force your friends to stay friends with you.”

She paused. Because maybe it was true. Maybe in some ways she was trying to continue those friendships in the best way she knew how. Agreements and documents, because beyond the parental relationship it was really the only way she knew to reinforce things.

“Maybe I am doing that,” she said. “Maybe this is me trying to make a situation for all of you that was made for me. And that isn’t fair.”

“No, because you definitely don’t make me feel like our actual friendship is contingent on me doing what you want. You gave me choices. And I could’ve stayed at my job, and I know that you would have stayed my friend. Of course, this is a better job, and it’s definitely more what I want. But I’m never going to use our friendship as an excuse to slack off.”

That bolstered her. This whole thing had been such a confidence boosting experience. Because she didn’t really need Apollo to navigate this job. She didn’t need money to keep her friends. She could use it to build her life, and she could trust that she wouldn’t have to live in that isolation again.

But then she thought of Apollo. And the furtive nights between them. The increasingly intense feelings that she had whenever he walked into a room.

It frightened her. Made her want to run away.

But she also wanted to cling to it forever.

“When are you coming back?”

“I think probably I’ll come back for a visit on the fifteenth.”

“Great. Will make sure that we can go to dinner. And give you a tour of the property. I think it’s already looking better.”

“Great. I can’t wait. I’ll see you then.”

She sat down at her desk. And mused. She and Apollo had a year of marriage left. In a way that was comforting. It would give her time. It would give her time to burn this thing out between them. To maybe figure out what the rest of her life looked like in a personal regard.

She’d been sitting on the truths about her parents. About how the denial of time was the real enemy, much more so than them.

Her mother had been a prostitute. Her father the man who loved her, not in spite of it, but as part of who she was. To hear Apollo tell it they’d been so devoted to each other. They just hadn’t known how to show her that same love, but it didn’t mean they hadn’t felt it.

They’d done the best they could at the time. And they’d never had the time to do better.

If they’d still been alive, she’d have told them what she needed.

Because she deserved to be fully loved.

She couldn’t fix that with her parents but...

Maybe after Apollo.

She would date a nice man. One who didn’t have all those scars in his past. One who wanted to give her...

Everything she’d been denied.

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