Defenses shattering, she gaped. “H-how do you know that name?” Her heart tripped and fell over this complication. She waved him off. “No, I don’t believe you.” She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. It’d be too dangerous.
“Your mom said you wouldn’t,” Apollo said. “She told me to say, ‘religieuse may be your favorite, but it is not the best pastry.’”
Leighton recoiled, sucking in a breath as those words spilled a torrent of grief and shock through her. Her eyes stung. She turned away, hiding the tears. The ache constricting her chest. Relief that Ummi had not been killed or discovered. But she could not afford weakness. Could not let this man come here— “I don’t care.” She jutted her jaw. “This can’t happen. You cannot be here.”
“Well, I am.”
“I do not want you here,” she spat, anger tumbling over every ounce of self-restraint she had left. “You’re going to ruin everything!”
Apollo scowled, glanced around, then edged in, his voice dangerously low. “If by ‘everything’ you mean ruin your getting beaten again, your getting raped or killed—yeah.” He seemed to bare his teeth. “I’m going to ruin things.”
“Sweet, merciful menaces!” she hissed. “If they suspect we know each other?—”
“So you do remember me.”
She wanted to claw that smirk off his too-perfect face! Yet she also faltered that he could even question that she didn’t remember him. She’d done nothing for weeks after that party but troll him online. There might even be a screenshot or two—or ten—on her phone that she’d captured from Sophia’s social media. But that was beside the point. “This is not about you!”
“Hate to beg to differ, but it really is—at least, you’re making it that way. I was sent here to rescue you, so I’m getting you out, one way or?—”
“No!” Heat rose into her cheeks at the infuriating man. “You aren’t.” How had she ever daydreamed about this egotistical jerk? “I’m staying here, I don’t want your help, and I most definitely do not need to be rescued!”
“Yeah, because that bruise on your cheek and the insidious way you shrink at every man in this palace says this is such a great place to be.”
“It’s the only place I want to be right now.”
“What in the Dark Ages is wrong with you?”
“You! You are what’s wrong with me.”
“So, what—you enjoy being treated like a slave?”
“It’s better than Ummi being killed because I couldn’t hack it, or worse—because I let some guy overstep what I know is right and best.”
Apollo drew up at that, eyes sparking in the sunlight as understanding washed away all tension. Compassion and empathy rippled into place, and for the love of all that was holy, he looked even more gorgeous.
“Now,” she ground out, “I think my hour is up. At least, I hope it is, because this conversation is over.” She marched back toward the house.
“Whoa, whoa. Wait.” He caught up and slid in front of her, rocks crunching beneath his shoes. “Two minutes. Just give me two minutes for clarification.”
Leighton fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“Your room is bugged?”
Her frustration wavered, but she managed a clipped nod—anything to avoid those eyes.
“And out here it’s safe to talk.”
“No, I just like to sabotage work I have literally put my entire life into.”
His eyebrows winged up. “Girl, you have a lethal bite to your words.”
Though her conscience quailed at his rebuke, she wasn’t backing down. “Any other questions?”
“So, hear me out… If I can somehow get it arranged to extract you on the safari, would you go? Or will you fight me the whole way?”
“My mother?—”
“Is safe. My team has her. Navas is with her.”
