He glanced down at her, a different man from the one who’d forced his way onto her boat. ‘Like the way I let you in?’
But had he? Really? She forced a smile. ‘Exactly, what could possibly go wrong?’
He looked a little arrested when she said that but then people jostled them from behind and his expression cleared and they continued moving with the flow of tourists.
After a while he said, ‘I’ll see.’
Cassie bumped him with her shoulder. ‘No man is an island, Ares. Not even you, or my brother.’
She realised with a pang that they’d come full circle. They were back at the main entrance again. She wondered desperately if she could pretend that she hadn’t noticed and go around the galleries again but Ares was saying, ‘Your security team are waiting.’
She saw the sleek silver SUV and the guards. They looked stony. No doubt under orders not to mess up. Cassie felt sick. Nauseous. Desperate. She couldn’t walk away from Ares without telling him…
She tightened her grip on his hand and looked up at him. ‘Ares.’
Ares steeled himself and looked down. Cassie’s upturned face was visible from under the lip of the hat and he felt as though he knew every curve and dip and line as well as his own. Better.
‘Cass, you need to go—’
She shook her head. ‘No, I need to say something first.’ She looked effortlessly regal in that moment, even in her trousers and silk T-shirt and flat shoes, designed to blend in with the crowd. Her cross-body bag. Who’d he been kidding? She would never blend in. She was a queen.
Not his queen.
‘Ares, do you really believe it’s not possible to have more? Something real? Love?’
Ares’s gut clenched hard. For the first time in his life it wasn’t so easy to dismiss. Because something had changed in him. Some chink had opened up and illuminated a space for wanting something he’d never wanted before. And it was her fault. He hardened his heart. When had it become so damned soft?
The moment you saw her dancing in that bar, and you know it.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sure it exists for some, maybe even for you, some day. But not for me.’ His stubbornness was like a hard piece of granite inside him. And there was something else he was too cowardly to admit to.Fear.
Cassie glanced over at where her people were waiting and back to Ares, eyes wide and beseeching. ‘You do know you deserve to be happy, Ares? These last few days…it’s possible to have that. All the time.’
The notion that they could really have that glorious togetherness without the world getting in the way was so…huge that Ares shut it down. She was talking nonsense. It had just been a moment.
If she left now then she’d have a chance of retaining that bright nature, but if Ares did what his dark soul really wanted to do, which was to spirit her away and keep her for himself, then hewoulddim that light for ever. He couldn’t give her what she wanted.Deserved.
Something had been irreparably broken in him when he’d been so traumatised at a young age. He’d lost a sense of childish optimisim and innocence. He’d cut himself off to protect himself and it was too late to change that now.
‘Ares, I love you.’
She spoke the words and it was too late to demand she take them back. They existed. The chink was cracking open and Ares’s very foundations were crumbling to pieces.No.She didn’t mean it. He was not lovable. He would ruin her. A self-preserving protective reflex snapped into action.
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘You don’t. You think you do. It’s been intense, that’s all. You’ll meet someone far better than me, Cass. Someone worthy of being your king.’
‘Youare worthy, Ares Drakos. I don’t want anyone else. I won’t. Will you?’
Ares looked at her and pushed down the ache in his chest and forced ice into his veins as he said as coolly as he could, ‘Of course I will. Nothing lasts for ever.’
It doesn’t, he told himself even more fiercely even as he felt as if a part of himself was dying inside. He still wanted her, that was all. It would fade.
He saw the way she went pale and a light went out of her eyes. He told himself it was a good thing, because she would get over this and him. He needed her to hate him a little. So she would go and get on with her life and not look back. She was a queen. He had no claim to her.
‘You need to go, princess. They’re waiting.’ He needed her to go. Now. Because the longer she stood there looking stricken, the more conflicted he felt.
But then he saw the way her eyes flashed at his use ofprincessand some colour came back into her cheeks. She took a step back and he saw her security team looking around, making ready.
‘No doubt you’re right, nothing lasts for ever.’ She smiled but it was brittle. ‘I’m just not as experienced in these matters as you. Goodbye, Ares.’
