The doctor nodded. ‘I can imagine it’ll take some adjustment. And your memory...anything coming back yet?’
Sasha shook her head. ‘Not really. It’s just all blank. But I had dreams last night.’ She stopped, blushing.
The doctor said, ‘Go on, my dear.’
Embarrassed to have mentioned this, Sasha said, ‘It’s just that they felt like memories more than a dream. Of me and my husband.’
The doctor nodded. ‘That could very well be the case. I’d advise you to keep a notebook by the bed, write down your dreams and that could help jog something. But don’t put too much pressure on yourself, our minds work in mysterious ways.’
The doctor stood up and Sasha stood too. ‘There was something else.’
‘Oh?’ The doctor was putting things back into her bag. She stopped.
‘I just... My husband tells me that I’m behaving differently from how I was before. Would that be normal?’
The doctor considered this and then said slowly, ‘It has been known...for head trauma injuries to cause some kind of personality change but we saw no indication of such trauma in your brain scan. You just got a very hard knock to the head. It’s just going to take time to readjust to your life, Mrs Vasilis. Don’t worry, and let me know as soon as there are any developments with your memory.’
By the time Sasha had waved the doctor off, it was late morning. She turned around to see Kara adjusting a vase of exotic blooms on the table in the middle of the hall. Sasha walked over, ‘Have you seen Apo—my husband?’
Kara nodded, ‘He left a little while ago for the office. He said to tell you he’d be home later this afternoon.’
‘Oh.’ Silly to feel so disappointed. She wasn’t even sure what she would have done if he had been here.
Feeling her way, she said, ‘He seems to work a lot.’
Kara looked at her and rolled her eyes. ‘Always he is working. Morning, noon and night, except before we thought it was because—’
Suddenly she stopped and Sasha felt a burn of humiliation rise up inside her.
To get away from her?
She swallowed it down. ‘Thank you, Kara. The truth is I’m not sure what to do with myself. What did I normally do?’
Kara avoided her eye, clearly embarrassed. ‘You liked shopping, a lot.’ Sasha’s heart sank at the thought of shopping. What could she possibly need?
‘Was there anything else?’
The young girl’s face brightened. ‘You could go and lie by the pool, you like that.’
‘I do?’
Apollo walked into the gardens towards the pool, where he’d been told Sasha had been all afternoon. Maybe she’d finally cracked and was showing her true colours again. He’d found her by the pool countless times before, surrounded by the detritus of afternoon snacks and sugary drinks. Dog-eared magazines.
Once he’d questioned whether it was good for her, but that had been before he’d found out about—He came to an abrupt standstill as he rounded the bush that artfully hid the pool from prying eyes.
Apollo lifted his sunglasses onto his head. Sasha lay on a sun bed under an umbrella. At first he thought she was naked and his blood rushed straight to his groin. It wouldn’t be the first time. She’d habitually sunbathed topless, scandalising Rhea. Trying to tempt him. Not that it had worked.
But, no, he realised she wasn’t naked. She wasn’t far from it though, in a flesh-coloured one-piece, which was low-cut enough to reveal the plump pale flesh of her breasts. He could already imagine what it might look like if she stepped out of the pool, her red hair slicked back like a wet flame down her back. The clingy material would leave nothing to the imagination. The way her nipples would have gone hard in the water, pressing against the—
Christos.
Disgusted at his lack of control, Apollo tore his gaze off his wife’s body. There was no detritus around her. Just a book. And a glass of water.
He could still recall how close he’d come to hauling her against his body last night, crushing that rosebud mouth under his. He could try to convince himself that he’d just been testing her, but he knew his motivations went much deeper and darker than that.
He wanted her again.
When his assistant in London had told him that she was waiting to see him three months ago, a month had passed since their night together. She’d been on his mind constantly, especially at night, when he’d got used to waking from erotic dreams, aching with frustration.