‘You can call him when we get there.’
‘And after?’
‘We’re not having this conversation now,’ he says flatly. ‘I’ll explain everything when we get there.’
‘No.’ I try my best to channel Ulysses, injecting as much command into the words as I can. ‘You will explain now.’
Rafael says nothing, staring back at me as we engage in a silent battle of wills, the atmosphere in the car, already thick with tension, becoming even thicker, dense as a storm cloud.
His phone abruptly rings and he pulls it out of his pocket, glances at the screen, then answers it in a stream of liquid Italian. The sudden release of tension makes me gasp silently for air as he turns away, still talking.
It’s very clear that he’s not going to give me any explanations until he’s ready and I know from experience that it’s pointless to push with a man that stubborn. My brother is the same, not budging from whatever position he’s taking, not until he’s good and ready, which I’ve always found incredibly frustrating.
However, it’s also been my experience that a stubborn man can be handled if you find his point of vulnerability and Ulysses’s point of vulnerability is me and my happiness.
A pang of grief and worry hits me yet again at the thought of my brother and the empty house he’ll come back to, but I push it aside, turning away instead as Rafael keeps on talking, staring sightlessly out at the cars flashing by on the motorway. Maybe Rafael is the same. Maybe he has a chink in his armour somewhere. Ulysses will generally do what I want if I make it about how happy it would make me, but I’m assuming Rafael won’t care about my happiness, so I’ll have to find another vulnerability.
I give him a sidelong glance. He’s still talking, not paying any attention to me. His voice is implacable, the lines of his face hard, his mouth cruel. But that mouth wasn’t cruel when it was on mine, and the lines of his face weren’t hard when he was inside me. They were fierce with hunger and desperation.
Does he still want me? Could that be his weakness? I need to find out at some point, because I have to have something to right the balance of power in my favour.
You could use the baby.
Instinctively, I put a protective hand over the swell of my belly. No, that wouldn’t be right, I would never use any child like that, let alone my own.
It’s his as well, don’t forget that.
As if I could, especially when he’s made it so clear he has no intention of letting me forget it.
I remain silent for the rest of the trip to the airport. Rafael makes other phone calls, but since he’s speaking Italian, which I don’t understand, I have no idea who he’s talking to or why.
Once we reach the airport, Rafael goes to deal with some officials, while I am escorted to a small private jet that sits on the runway, all ready to go. Once I’m belted into my seat, Rafael arrives and the plane door is shut. We take off almost immediately, leaving the lights of Athens and my home behind us.
It’s a quick flight and in just a couple of hours we’re already descending into Palermo. Rafael does not speak or at least not to me. He’s still busy with his phone, either talking or typing on the screen.
As we disembark the plane, Rafael indicates that I should follow him to where a sleek red low-slung car waits. It’s the same one he drove me to Raffles in, the doors opening like wings as he ushers me into it. He mustreallylike cars if he had this shipped back to Sicily.
We leave the airport and Palermo behind us, and soon we’re following narrow, twisting roads that wind along the rocky coastline, before curling inland again. Rafael is silent, making good on his determination to tell me nothing until we get to wherever we’re going. It’s frustrating, but protesting and making a fuss won’t get me anywhere. I’ve learned patience over the years and, anyway, there is a tiny part of me that keeps whispering that I’m in Sicily and how wonderful to be out of Athens again, to be away from my bodyguards and my brother’s overprotective security. At least, it would be wonderful if I wasn’t in the hands of yet another man, seemingly hellbent on ordering me around and making me do whatever he wants.
Eventually, after an interminable trip in darkness, we turn onto a very narrow lane, with stone walls on either side, that twists once again in the direction of the coast. A driveway leads off it and Rafael follows it as it winds through tall pines before opening out into a wide gravel area in front of an ancient-looking villa built of stone.
I stare, open-mouthed. It’s beautiful. The stone is pale grey, the sloped roofline covered in old terracotta tiles. There are colonnades and wide porticos, green lawns and rows of cypresses. Discreet garden lighting illuminates the old stone walls and giant terracotta pots full of herbs and other shrubs.
Rafael parks the car and the doors open. The air is cold, but I can smell the sea. It must be close, perhaps just beyond the cliffs that the villa backs onto.
I get out and he ushers me to the villa’s front doors, opening them then standing aside to let me enter first. It’s warm inside the house and it smells of pine, reminding me of home, and some of the tension in my muscles relaxes.
‘Come,’ Rafael says imperiously, gesturing at me. I follow him down a wide central hallway, the walls smooth and whitewashed, before we come to a long, airy lounge area. There are tall windows along one wall, the view obscured by the curtains that have been drawn. A fireplace is down one end, the leaping fire sending out heat into the room, and gathered around the fireplace are a group of soft-looking couches and armchairs. Bizarrely, or maybe not so bizarrely since it is Christmas Eve, a Christmas tree stands beside the fire decorated with glass baubles and tinsel.
My heart catches oddly at the sight. I love decorating our tree at home, because every Christmas Ulysses buys me a new ornament, and I love hanging them all up, a record of how many wonderful Christmases I’ve had to balance out all the ones I didn’t.
Ulysses will be on his way with a new ornament for me, but I won’t be there. Our house will be dark and cold, and he’ll be worried.
My throat closes as my concern for him returns. I hate to make my brother worried. It seems a poor reward for everything he’s done for me.
Rafael indicates the couch near the fire. ‘Sit,’ he orders, his tone hard.
I don’t move. ‘I need to call Ulysses.’
