Thanos was very still, watching her. ‘Do you think that is what I do?’
The little line formed between Alice’s brows. ‘I don’t know. What do you think?’
He expelled a breath, a grim set to his jaw. ‘Forse,’ he responded—perhaps, in Italian. ‘Parties became a habit some time in my teens. It grew to be a way of life I didn’t question.’
She sipped her champagne, surprised to see the glass was almost empty. A waiter appeared almost instantly, topping it up. ‘And now?’
He waited for her to expand.
‘When you’ve bought P & A, and our divorce gets filed?’ The words lined the insides of her mouth with acid. She swallowed to clear it. ‘Will I see your photo in the tabloids again, a different woman by your side every night?’
Thanos’s angular face was very still. ‘Would that bother you?’ The air around them was like mud; so thick, so stymying.
Alice dipped her eyes forward, shielding them from his inquisitive attention.
‘It’s not my business,’ she pointed out slowly. ‘We both know this is temporary. What you do when our marriage is over is up to you. I’m only asking if you still feel a pull towards that lifestyle.’
‘We’ve only been married a week,’ he pointed out.
Alice lifted her eyes to his, seeking something in the depths of his eyes. ‘Yes,’ she heard herself agree. ‘It’s only been a week.’
A week or a year, it didn’t much matter to Alice. Something had shifted inside her, pieces of her soul were changing shape and morphing into something else, something unrecognisable.
Confusion was threatening to pull her into a dark vortex, so she pushed the thoughts aside and plastered an over-bright smile to her face. ‘The calamari looks delicious.’ She speared a piece and forced herself not to think of anything beyond this moment. Who or what he became beyond their marriage wasn’t her concern—there was a reason she didn’t want to think about it.
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU HAVE NOT forgotten my invitation?’
Thanos leaned back in the wide leather seat of his private jet, Kosta’s words crackling a little through the distance of altitude.
‘Of course not.’
‘You’ll bring your wife to Kalatheros soon?’
‘Alice,’ Thanos inserted, a smile playing about his lips as he thought of his convenient bride. Their marriage had been born of a desire to secure a company—a business merger with a little matrimony on the side—but he’d never expected to find himself married to someone he found so distractingly pleasing.
Thanos had never been interested in a relationship, but playing the part of a loving husband to Alice wasn’t really a stretch. She was easy to get along with and the sexiest woman he’d ever known. He was still reassured to know he had the divorce documents sitting in a drawer in his lawyer’s office, to know that they could put an end to this and get back to normal once he had P & A in his control, but he acknowledged now what he hadn’t thought possible when he’d suggested this ruse: he’d miss her.
In his bed, in his life.
‘Alice,’ Thanos repeated.
Impatience cracked across his spine now. He wanted the company. He’d jumped through all the hoops. Enough was enough.
‘How’s Friday?’
Kosta was quiet for a beat. ‘Good, good. Come for the weekend. I look forward to it.’
‘As do I.’ Thanos disconnected the call, an unknowingly brooding expression on his face as he turned to look out of the window. The sky beyond them was dark, the plane cutting through the night, delivering them to Greece, to home. And he was looking forward to showing it to Alice, though he couldn’t say why.
* * *
Two days later, the waves lapped gently against the shoreline of Statherá Prásino, Thanos’s private island in the Aegean Sea, and Alice sat cross-legged on the grass in the shade of an impressive pomegranate tree, simply listening.
In and out, regularly, faithfully, tirelessly, the ocean kissed the sand, washing over it, spilling secrets into the tiny little gaps of crushed shell.
The sun on her skin was perfect—warm without burning, a light breeze lifting off the ocean to keep her feeling fresh. She blinked her eyes open, fixing her gaze on the expanse of green water that surrounded the white sand beach.