CHAPTER FOUR
SOFIEGOTWASHEDand dressed in record time, while Darius—Achilles?—made his phone call. Or a series of them. When she came downstairs he was still on the phone, his voice deep and authoritative. He was speaking French now, and it sounded pretty fluent to Sofie.
She was reeling at the speed with which everything had flipped. Her house no longer felt like a sensual cocoon. There was a new energy in the air. The outside world was creeping into this isolated corner of the country.
She didn’t even want to allow her mind to go to who Achilles was. He hadn’t seemed all that shocked to have his memory returned. Just...grim.
The door to the small study off the living room opened and Sofie sprang back, feeling guilty even though this was her house. She looked up at the man she knew more intimately than herself and he was a stranger. Expressionless face.
She said all she could think of right then. ‘Coffee?’
Something in his expression cracked enough to show her a glimpse of the man she had come to know.
He said, ‘Yes. Please.’
When they’d both taken a sip of coffee Sofie sat down at the kitchen table. Afraid that her legs wouldn’t keep holding her up.
‘So...you are Greek?’
He nodded.
‘But you speak French fluently.’
His mouth twisted slightly and that made Sofie think of how only a few hours ago it had been on her body, exploring every inch—She clamped down on that rogue imagery.
He said, ‘I also speak Spanish, Italian, and passable Portuguese and Cantonese.’
Sofie’s eyes widened. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Achilles Lykaios. I run a business based in Athens.’
Sofie frowned. ‘Lykaios...is that something to do with a wolf?’
Achilles nodded. ‘Lykos is wolf in Greek, so it’s a derivation of that, yes.’
Sofie said, ‘Your tattoo...of the wolf. It’s very personal, then.’ She’d been fascinated by the tattoo high on his right arm ever since she’d first seen it in the hospital, but hadn’t asked about it because she’d known Darius—Achilles—would hardly remember why he’d got that if he couldn’t remember anything else.
Achilles’s head was still throbbing, as if it was hard to contain all the information he’d recovered. As soon as he’d woken up he’d known exactly who he was and where he was. It was as if the knowledge had been there all along and some mischievous force had decided that enough was enough and pulled back a curtain.
There were some things he shied away from, though. He didn’t need to go all the way back to the past. Just having had his memory taken and now given back was cruel enough. For the last few days he hadn’t been the man who had lost—
‘Your tattoo is linked to your name, then?’ Sofie said.
She must have thought he hadn’t heard her. He looked at her. She’d put her hair up in a knot on her head that his fingers itched to undo. She wore a plain shirt and jeans. Even now, even when he knew everything, he was still consumed by her.
It hadn’t been an anomaly due to extreme circumstances. They had a powerful chemistry. And she was beautiful. Just not in the way he was used to women being beautiful. She was earthy. Real. Unmanufactured.
The tattoo. Achilles remembered getting it. Stumbling—drunk—into a tattooist’s parlour in Paris, yanking off his jacket and shirt and giving them the instructions before he’d all but passed out on the bed. He’d woken up and realised that he’d imprinted his family pain—an eternal howl of pain—on his arm, and pure stubbornness had made him leave it there even though his advisors had begged him to get it removed.
Pictures of him getting the tattoo had, of course, surfaced online, with the main focus being on his shirtless state. Thankfully no one had seemed to notice his inebriated state. And certainly no one knew anything about why he’d chosen to get a tattoo. About his need to inflict some kind of pain on himself...to have a constant reminder of the fact that he was still alive while others weren’t.
Achilles’s attention came back to Sofie out of the past. He said starkly, ‘Yes, it’s linked to my name.’
A pain spiked through his head at that moment and he put a hand to his forehead.
Immediately Sofie was standing, ‘I think we should go to the hospital and get you checked out.’
But Achilles shook his head. ‘No need. My physician in London will check me over.’
‘Oh. Okay. You’ll be leaving then?’
Thankfully the sharp pain receded, and Achilles said, ‘Yes, my assistant is organising my pick-up as we speak. A driver will be here within the hour.’
Sofie’s face paled. ‘Within the hour? That fast?’
Achilles realised she had no idea who he was. If he was quick he could avert a story appearing in the papers about this entire episode. The last thing he needed now, when he was doing his best to restore people’s opinion of him, was to bring about more headlines.
His memory had returned just in time.