‘I know you’re not.’ She’s very calm. ‘But I don’t want to have to reassure you about something that happened to me.’
That stops me in my tracks and I have to recalibrate. Because no, she shouldn’t have to deal with my anger on her behalf. Not given what she went through.
‘I don’t need you to reassure me,’ I say, forcing back my anger. ‘I’m just so sorry that happened to you, Olympia.’
She eyes me a long moment, then relaxes a little. ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘It’s just… I had to deal with Ulysses’s anger about it for years and, after a while, it’s just another burden I have to bear.’
I can only imagine. Her brother might be a bastard but it’s always been clear that he cares very much for his sister.
I tighten the lid on my fury and lock it. ‘How long were you there?’
‘In that foster home? A couple of years, I think. Ulysses actually rescued me in the end. He and some…associates of his stole me away. He was old enough by then to look after me and I’ve stayed with him ever since.’
I hate Ulysses Zakynthos, but right in this moment I don’t hate him. No, I’m thankful to him that he managed to rescue her and take her away from the people who were hurting her.
‘I had nightmares for years afterwards,’ she goes on. ‘And I was…quite fragile for a long time too. But…’ Her amber eyes darken as they meet mine, but her gaze is very steady. ‘I know what people are capable of and I know what cruelty looks like. I wasn’t ever sexually assaulted, because my foster father preferred girls over the age of twelve and so I wasn’t quite old enough for him. But if I’d stayed there much longer, I would have been. You think I’m a sheltered, spoiled girl, but I’m not. I’m not innocent, Rafael.’
I am trying very hard to keep the lid on my fury and failing. And this time the fury is at myself for thinking that she was spoiled and sheltered. Because now I’m looking into her eyes and I can see the strength there, the brick wall, the iron at the centre of her. Whatever she went through as a child has hammered her on an anvil and made her into a sword, sharp and dangerous.
‘I can see that,’ I say. ‘But just so we’re clear, I never thought you were a doormat, Olympia Zakynthos. And you made that very obvious from the second we met.’
Her gaze flickers as if I’ve said something unexpected and colour flushes her cheeks. ‘Iamsheltered,’ she says. ‘That much is true, but that’s because Ulysses was kind of a helicopter parent as I was growing up.’
‘Why?’ I ask straight out. ‘Did you need him to be?’
She sighs. ‘I did… At first. I don’t think any kid can go through something like that and not be traumatised in some way, and I was traumatised. But Ulysses got me some great doctors and I came through it.’ Her gaze holds mine. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to him. I love him for rescuing me and for looking after me. For making sure the rest of my childhood was a good one. But I’m stronger now and I’m tired of being cosseted. I’m tired of being protected like a hothouse flower, and, more than anything else, I’m tired of being a living reminder of his failure to protect me and a receptacle for his guilt.’
Of course she’s strong. I never thought of her as anything less and the evidence of that strength is sitting before me now, naked as the day she was born. I have a feeling that what she just told me was the tip of the iceberg of what those pathetic excuses for foster parents had done to her, and, if so, no wonder her brother is consumed with guilt. I would feel the same.
But now I truly understand why she doesn’t want rage. If she’s had to bear her brother’s guilt and his anger for years, then she really doesn’t need mine, no matter how hot and strong it burns.
‘Then don’t be,’ I tell her. ‘You’re not his responsibility any more. When you’re my wife, you’ll be mine.’
She scowls. ‘I’m not anyone’s responsibility. I’m not a child.’
‘I didn’t say you were.’ I scowl back. ‘You’ll be my responsibility, which means that whatever you want, whatever you need, just tell me and I’ll give it to you.’
She eyes me. ‘Ulysses used to say the same things to me, you know.’
Abruptly I understand why she’s been so suspicious of me, not to mention so resistant. Her brother was protecting her, I can see that from what she said, but he’s also been holding her back. He’s been keeping her just like the hothouse flower she complained of being and now she’s afraid I’ll do the same thing.
I can’t deny that a part of me agrees with her brother, wanting to keep her safe and protected and away from all harm. But I can also see the strength in the woman sitting on the bed. She had a horrendous thing happen to her, but she went through the fire and came out the other side, battle-hardened and even stronger. You can’t keep a woman like that trapped in a castle like Rapunzel. She’s not a princess, she’s a knight, and knights are sent into battle, not kept within castle walls.
‘But I’m not Ulysses,’ I say flatly, meeting her stare. ‘And I won’t treat you like a cosseted child or a hothouse flower. I’ll treat you like you’re my wife, which you will be as soon as I can manage it.’
The darkness in her eyes flickers, the shadows in them moving, and I realise that I want to banish those shadows. I want to banish that look of suspicion, of guarded wariness. I want her to smile at me the way she did back in Singapore when our eyes first met. She’s doing something to me and exactly what I don’t know, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t care.
‘And how would you treat a wife?’ she asks, still confronting, still challenging. She’s not going to let me get away with anything, is she?
And you like it.
Yes. I do. It’s been a long time since I’ve been challenged by anyone, let alone one pretty, young woman, and the feral part of me is excited by the thought.
‘I’ll have to think about that,’ I say. ‘Since I haven’t had a wife before.’
‘You’ve never had a child before, either,’ she says. ‘Or perhaps you do and you’re just not being honest—’
‘No,’ I say, cutting her off. ‘I don’t have any children. Like I told you, children have never been part of my plans.’
