‘Yes,’ she said, voice unwaveringly clear. ‘I’m ready. Let’s do this.’
His eyes showed a hint of approval that warmed her chest from the inside out, and a moment later he was stepping out of the helicopter, ducking to avoid the still slowly spinning rotors. Before he could reach her door, though, three men in dark suits, wearing headsets, approached the helicopter. Two moved to Nikos and one to Genevieve, opening the door and saying in accented English, ‘Duck your head down.’ She did, glad she’d opted to secure her hair in a low bun as a cool breeze whipped past the marina at that moment.
The suited man gestured towards a set of wide stairs. Genevieve cast a glance over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Nikos’s even when he was deep in conversation with the other men. He cut off what he was saying immediately and strode towards her, all confident and strong, still her Greek island mountain man, beneath the contours of that incredibly fine suit.
The helipad was on the aft upper deck, and beyond it was a spa and some sun loungers. Beyond these, there was a set of sliding glass doors, which the man in the suit activated by swiping a card across them.
‘Tight security,’ Genevieve murmured, with a glance up at Nikos.
He simply nodded once, at the same time he put his hand in the small of her back and a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttered to life inside her stomach.
Once inside, Genevieve almost lost her footing. The luxury of the yacht was beyond compare. From shiny teak surfaces to white leather furniture, enormous windows showing the twinkling lights of the other boats and, beyond them, the city. They walked through the room with Nikos barely reacting, so she knew that, for him, this was normal, and ordinary. The contrast to his cabin on the island was the strongest she could imagine. There, he’d been stripped back to his most basic elements, surviving through his grit, and ability to pluck fish from the ocean. Here, he had every luxury one could want, including, by the looks of it, an army of staff.
Having cut through the room, they reached the top of a sweeping staircase, carpeted in beige, with gold handrails. His hand stayed on her back as they descended, arriving in yet another palatial living area, this one with a grand piano, and more creamy white leather sofas.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, frowning a little, because she had never been up close with this kind of wealth. ‘Truly, Nikos.’
She glanced up at him to see a muscle jerking in his jaw, as though he was clenching his teeth.
‘I mean, it’s no stone cabin in the woods,’ she joked. ‘But it’s pretty nice.’
At that, he flicked her a grin, and her heart twisted in her chest cavity. A man in a suit entered and approached a low-set coffee table in the middle of the room. She realised, belatedly, that a bottle of champagne sat in an ice bucket, with two glasses beside it. There was also a small tray of chocolate-dipped strawberries, which reminded Genevieve that she hadn’t eaten much in the last two days. Her stomach gave a dip of hunger.
The man in the suit unfoiled the top of the bottle and then turned to Nikos. ‘May I, sir?’
Nikos nodded once, staying where he was, at Genevieve’s side, as the staff member uncorked the champagne then poured two perfect glasses, before discreetly leaving again.
‘You have a small army working on here,’ Genevieve remarked as Nikos moved towards the champagne flutes and picked them up.
‘It takes a small army to keep it running.’
The yacht was the size of a hotel, and undoubtedly a significant investment. It made sense that he would maintain it properly, to make sure it didn’t lose value through neglect.
‘Is it always ready for you, like this?’
‘Not with champagne,’ he said, handing her a glass. Their fingers brushed and a thousand sparks ignited in her bloodstream, reminding her of the way she’d tried so hard, that first night in his cabin, to avoid touching him. Even then, she’d known there was something cataclysmic about his touch.
‘To our engagement,’ he said, holding his drink towards hers.
Genevieve’s heart lurched fully then, almost leaping out of her body. She blamed a combination of factors. The champagne, his suit, the luxurious yacht, the warm, moody lighting, but, for the briefest hint of a moment, when he said the word ‘engagement’ a part of her forgot that it was fake. And forgot that she never wanted to get married again, that she never wanted to put her heart and life in the hands of another person.
‘Fake engagement,’ she heard herself correct, with a tight smile that earned an answering flicker of his lips. Her heart twisted back into place.
‘Of course. There is nothing fake about this, however,’ he said, reaching into the breast pocket of his suit and removing a black velvet box.
Memories of James’s proposal slammed into her, and she hated that he had that power. That he would always have that moment in her life, her brain. The way he’d taken her to a celebrity-studded restaurant to make sure the moment would be captured on camera—a wonderful political opportunity for a man who cared so much about his image. Bitterness washed over her, but it did not last long.
Not when she saw the ring. It was clearly an enormous diamond, but it was the lightest blue in colour, shaped like a raindrop. Her eyes lifted to his. Had he chosen it because of the rain that had fallen on that night? The rain and storm that had brought her to him?
Or, more likely, it had simply been what he could find at short notice. The gem itself was surrounded by a circlet of white diamonds, and when he removed it from the box and slid it onto her trembling finger, she fully appreciated the size of the thing, for it almost came up to her knuckle.
‘It’s…incredible,’ she said, staring down at it with a strange feeling that she might cry.
‘Your eyes are this exact colour,’ he said, putting paid to any idea she might have held that his choice had been random. Her spine tingled with an electrical current as he put the box down on the table and then clinked his glass to hers once more.
But Genevieve felt completely twisted, caught between the illusion of this and reality. Between what she knew had to be her path in life, and what she was glimpsing might just be her fantasy and deepest desire.
For this to be real.
