When I got back to Athens, I told Ulysses that I’d had a wonderful time, but I was happy to be home. He was pleased for me, but he didn’t offer to let me represent him at any other social occasion and I didn’t ask. I wanted to stay in my safe place, with the people I was familiar with, with the beach I loved at my doorstep, and where nothing could hurt me.
But, of course, no matter how much I refused to think of him, Rafael kept creeping into my thoughts and into my dreams, too. I dreamt of being in his arms, his black eyes looking down into mine, his deep, dark voice saying, ‘Dragonfly…wait…’ I’d wake up after those dreams hot and sweaty, my body aching and restless.
I hated it. So I busied myself with the online jewellery-making course I was taking, trying to lose myself in plans for the studio Ulysses promised he’d build for me, where I could indulge in all my little creative hobbies.
Then I started to feel tired, unusually so, and my sense of smell seemed more acute. My period, always irregular, just didn’t turn up at all and my breasts hurt. I tried to ignore the symptoms as much as I could, because the possibility that kept nagging at me couldn’t happen, it just couldn’t.
But then, after I had to leave the dining room abruptly to throw up when our housekeeper served a fish meal, as I sat on the bathroom floor, my stomach still acid and unsettled, I was forced to confront the possibility I’d been ignoring for at least a couple of months, and it scared me to death.
I had no idea what I was going to say to Ulysses, so I didn’t say anything at all. I booked myself a doctor’s appointment with a doctor who didn’t know me or my brother, then sneaked out of the house, leaving my bodyguards none the wiser.
The doctor gave me the confirmation I’d been dreading and afterwards, I’d wandered around the city streets in a daze, feeling as if my entire world was collapsing.
I was pregnant to the man I’d met in Singapore, to Rafael Santangelo, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I was going to keep the baby. I didn’t know how to tell Ulysses that I’d betrayed the trust he’d put in me to keep myself safe. I didn’t know how to contact Rafael or even what to say to him, and I was afraid, terribly, terribly afraid.
I was already three months along, the doctor said, and that made everything that much more difficult.
In the end, I’d gone home and tried not to think about it since hiding my head in the sand was what I did best. I wore looser clothes and pretended nothing was wrong, that I was completely and utterly fine, and Ulysses didn’t suspect a thing.
I might have even convinced myself if I hadn’t got a call from a strange number earlier this morning. I answered it unthinkingly and a familiar voice, dark and deep, spoke, saying that he was Rafael Santangelo and he wanted to meet, because we needed to talk. My mind had gone blank with shock so I made a note of the time and the place, and agreed to meet him.
It wasn’t until afterwards that I had second thoughts, because while he hadn’t said anything about the pregnancy, why else would he have called me? And did I really want to leave the safety of my house for a meeting with a relative stranger? Ulysses wouldn’t have let me go, or at least not without my security, and for a couple of moments I toyed with the idea of just not going at all.
But I knew I couldn’t. He was the father of the baby and, whether he knew already or not, I had to face him. Ulysses had been very good at solving my problems since the day he’d rescued me from my abusive foster parents, yet he couldn’t solve this one. It was mine to deal with and deal with it I would.
So I’d dismissed my security—they made no argument since it was Christmas Eve and they wanted to spend time with their families—and went into the city.
I’d braced myself to see him, stoking my anger at how he’d left things between us because I needed it for the strength to face him. But seeing him has left that strength in ruins.
Now I’m sitting in the dim interior of this featureless black car, and I can’t help the instinctive heat that blooms inside me as I inhale the warm forest spice of his scent, feel the dark, dense pressure of his gaze.
He’s just as magnetic, just as compelling as he was four months ago, but now there’s an…edge to his presence that wasn’t there when I first met him. Or maybe it was and I just didn’t notice. Anyway, I can feel that edge now and it’s dangerous. It makes me afraid, yet the fear is also somehow laced through with excitement and an anticipation that I shouldn’t feel.
I mean, the man is essentially kidnapping me, taking me away from the brother I could never bring myself to leave, so excited is the last thing I should be.
‘You don’t own me,’ I snap, holding onto my anger for dear life. ‘Don’t be so damn arrogant.’
His onyx eyes glitter in the dark, though he remains silent.
I can’t stop thinking of what he said about Ulysses keeping me a prisoner. Firstly, it’s not true, I’mnota prisoner, even though sometimes I feel suffocated by my brother’s overprotectiveness. And secondly, why does Rafael think that means I’m Ulysses’s captive? He said something about a rumour, and I suppose that might be the case. Ulysses is in the media frequently, though he never talks about me.
And yet… Rafael said it so emphatically, his dark eyes searching my face. He even thought Ulysses would hurt me or the baby, which is ludicrous. My brother has a reputation for ruthlessness, it’s true, but there’s no way he’d hurt me, let alone his little niece or nephew, so why Rafael assumed he’d do so is inexplicable.
I stare at him and it occurs to me now that there is a lot that’s inexplicable about this man. I know next to nothing about him, except that he owns Atlas Construction, which I’ve never heard of, and that he’s Sicilian and he likes cars.
And he likes you, remember?
No, he doesn’t like me. If he liked me, he wouldn’t have forced me into his car and we wouldn’t now be speeding towards the airport.
Panic claws at my throat at the thought of what will happen when Ulysses finds me gone, but I force it away. I will not let it get the better of me, I’m stronger than that. I used to get frequent nightmares after Ulysses rescued me, and I’d wake up with this same feeling of panic coiling like a snake in my gut. He would hold me, his strong arms around me reminding me that I was okay, that I was safe.
Gradually those nightmares got less and less frequent until at last they stopped, and I haven’t had one in years. I haven’t felt that same sick fear that used to incapacitate me in years either, and I won’t let it take a hold of me now.
I’m not ten any more, hiding in the wardrobe of my brother’s house, too scared to come out. I’m twenty-five and I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. I handled Rafael Santangelo back in Singapore, no matter what he broke when he sent me away, and I’ll handle him now.
I swallow the fear using the tricks my therapist taught me, such as being conscious of where I am and the things around me. The leather of the seat I’m sitting on. The low purr of the car’s engine. The flash of street lights making Rafael’s eyes glitter. The hard, expressionless lines of his face…
‘So, what exactly is the plan?’ I force my voice to remain steady. ‘You’re going to take me to Sicily and then what? I need to call my brother and tell him where I am.’
