She opened his message.
Have changed flight time to earlier slot. Will collect you at 3. If you’re not ready on time, you’ll be put in the cargo hold. D.
PS: Sleep well.
Wiping away a tear, a smile as wide as the pulse of light his message had injected into her heart broke free. She fired a message back.
Yes, boss. A.
PS: Sleep well too.
Athena wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed that Grace was already in the car, seated beside Draco, when she climbed in. She was still trying to work out if she was relieved or disappointed that Draco hadn’t got out of the car for her.
She’d woken at seven with a buzz in her veins and a weight in her stomach. To distract herself from thoughts of Draco and thoughts of her family celebrating her nephew’s christening that very day without her, and especially to distract herself from emotions she couldn’t begin to dissect, she’d spent the intervening hours doing her laundry, a task she’d hated when she’d first had to do it—alas, her salary did not stretch to dry-cleaning bills—but now found quite soothing. As a result, she’d been waiting outside her apartment block with her luggage when Draco’s car pulled up. She’d thought someone would be impressed at this exemplary show of effort and timekeeping, but no. It was almost as if her being ready on time was the bare minimum expected!
‘Sure you packed enough stuff?’ Draco’s PA asked archly, referring to the four large suitcases the driver was wrestling into the boot.
Athena plonked herself opposite the woman who seemed to hate her more than anyone outside of the Tsaliki family and gave her best Athena-everyone-loved-to-hate smile. ‘I can always go shopping if I run out.’
‘This isn’t a holiday. There will be no time for shopping or hairdressing appointments or beauty treatments or any of the other frivolous things you like to waste money on.’
Athena pouted. ‘That’s such a shame—I was going to surprise you with a girly day out.’
If Grace hadn’t then given her a look that quite clearly said she’d rather spend the day in a car filled with hornets, there was a slim chance Athena wouldn’t have then said, ‘I had it all planned. I was going to take you shopping and then find a decent beautician to sort your moustache out.’
‘Ladies, that’s enough,’ Draco interjected before Grace could launch herself off her seat and rip out Athena’s hair. ‘Athena, apologise.’
Scowling, she folded her arms. ‘Why?’
‘Because that was rude and because I said so.’
She puffed out a breath. So what if she’d been rude? Grace despised her and never missed an opportunity to put her down. If the lunch Grace gracelessly threw on her desk every lunchtime wasn’t prewrapped, Athena would assume she’d laced it with arsenic. But this was Draco asking and she could deny him nothing…even if she couldn’t currently look him in the eye. Lifting her chin, she flashed her teeth in her latest nemesis’s direction. ‘Sorry for being rude, Grace.’
Grace just stared at her mutinously.
‘Grace, you need to apologise too.’
Grace looked as startled at that directive as Athena felt. ‘For what?’
‘I saw the look you gave Athena and all the other looks you’ve given her these last few weeks, and I’m not going to spend the next week with you two at each other’s throats. Athena doesn’t know any better but you do, so lead by example.’
‘I do know better!’ Athena said indignantly.
The piercing blue eyes she’d been avoiding locked onto hers, the left eyebrow raised. ‘Are you really admitting that?’
The warmth that filled her… It stained her skin and expanded her chest, flying out of her throat as a short laugh. ‘No.’
His lips twitched. The lips that had kissed her senseless. But his eyes…they danced with meaning and for that one tiny beat of a moment it could have been just the two of them in the car’s cabin.
Her chest swelled so hard and so fast that the stain on her skin deepened. Feeling her tongue starting to tie itself, she swallowed and turned to Grace, leaning across to take her hand. ‘I really am sorry. I’m a defensive, prickly pear and I say mean things, not always without thinking, but you didn’t deserve that and I promise to make more of an effort not to be a bitch to you this week.’
Not for Grace’s sake but for Draco’s. Because he’d asked.
But then Grace’s eyes softened, only a tiny amount, but it was a definite softening, and she gave a tiny squeeze of Athena’s hand, and a different kind of warmth filled Athena’s chest that made her want to cry and laugh all at the same time.
They were met at the airport by Theodore and Stav, the remainder of Draco’s core entourage who, with Grace, worked across all of Draco’s businesses. One day, Athena thought, she might get around to finding out what they actually did. But not today. Today, her stomach was too knotted to do much more than arrange her face and stop herself from continually seeking out Draco’s gaze. She had nothing to distract her. Nothing physical. Not on a fourteen-hour flight where even Draco didn’t pretend to have any work for her to do and she’d packed her drawing stuff in one of her suitcases.
Every time their eyes locked it felt like an explosion in her heart.
