‘Partying, drinking, anger. Leonidas held him together, just, but Thanos was on a dangerous downward trajectory.’
Alice wanted to do something, to say something. She clutched her own glass tighter, wondering why she couldn’t simply reach back through time and make everything okay for the scared little boy Thanos had once been.
‘I bought Petó because I truly believed Thanos would destroy it if he remained at the helm.’
This was news to Alice. She jerked her face to Kosta’s to find him watching her shrewdly. ‘I knew what it meant to him, what it had meant to my friend. I wanted to safeguard it from Thanos’s ability to obliterate it.’
Alice let out a little noise, a murmur, of sympathy.
‘You think that was wrong of me?’
Alice frowned so a divot formed between her brows. ‘I can’t say.’
‘I like him,’ Kosta surprised her by offering. ‘I always have. When he came to live with Dion, I remember feeling disbelief and rage—rage that a man like Dion Stathakis could be awarded two such fine sons when...’ He grimaced. ‘He had two fine sons, and he appreciated neither. He wanted neither.’
Alice frowned, pity shifting inside her. ‘He sounds like a fool.’
Kosta laughed, a crackly sound. ‘Yes, and then some.’
‘Thanos isn’t like you think,’ she said, after a moment. ‘He won’t do anything to hurt Petó, or P & A. In fact, I think he’s the best person to run both.’
Kosta’s eyes were on hers, a dark grey gaze loaded with intelligence. ‘I don’t worry he’ll hurt the company. I worry he’ll hurt himself. His lifestyle...’ Kosta shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘I understand how tempting it is to run from yourself. When our son died...’ his fingers dug into the arms of the seat, as though it would somehow alleviate the pain ‘... I drank solidly for at least a year. Numbing myself—or trying to.’ He fixed her with an intense gaze. ‘But Helen saved me. Just like you have saved Thanos.’
* * *
Alice stared out at the water that surrounded Statherá Prásino, a serious expression on her pretty features. One of Thanos’s yachts bobbed in the distance, immaculate and enormous, and—she knew from experience—staffed with a small army, all ready to take the boat out on Thanos’s whim.
In the two days since they’d returned from Kosta’s home, a sense of uneasiness had followed Alice everywhere. She couldn’t understand it, but she was waking up in the middle of the night with a curdling feeling of dread, the likes of which she hadn’t known since Thanos had taken away her every single stress. She was no longer worried about bankruptcy or how she was to pay the rent, her credit cards were clear as a whistle, and her mother was in one of the top facilities in the world.
So why did she have a sudden and intense sense of foreboding?
She looked over her shoulder, scanning the lounge area. It was empty. Thanos was working.
The day was warm, though, the water inviting, and suddenly Alice craved the freedom of lying on her back in the sea, staring at the sky, imagining herself to be truly weightless.
She didn’t bother to grab a towel or to change into her bathers. It was a private beach, a private island and she knew she’d dry off again by the time she reached the house. Something was driving her, pushing her to the ocean. At its edge, she stripped out of her dress, standing in only the designer briefs and bra that had been part of the wardrobe she’d bought to prepare for being Thanos’s wife. Of course, she’d had no idea when she’d bought them that he’d ever see them. She hadn’t even imagined that it might become physical between them.
She waded into the water, closing her eyes as she felt its salty balm against her sides, going deep enough to flip onto her back, just as she’d wanted, and stare up at the sky.
It was the perfect shade of blue, like something out of a fantasy. She lay on her back, breathing in and out, staying afloat as long as she could before she twisted onto her stomach and began paddling to shore. Her eyes scanned the house on autopilot, the enormous mansion so beautiful and breathtaking, and perfectly situated.
Alice hadn’t been able to imagine what her life would be like, married to Thanos. If she’d tried to imagine it, she wouldn’t have foreseen anything like the reality had been. And she struggled now to imagine her life in a post-Thanos world.
She’d have money, financial security, certainty for her mother’s healthcare for the rest of her life. But no Thanos.
A gulf opened in her chest, as wide and expansive as the ocean she was swimming in. She tried to imagine waking up without him in bed, going to sleep on her own, not sharing a meal with him, not talking t
o him, not laughing with him, and the panic was back, gripping her tighter.
Because she was about to be completely and utterly alone.
But more alone than before, because for a brief while she’d known companionship and compatibility and it was all about to be stripped away from her.
Alice straightened her spine as she emerged from the water. She’d fallen in love with Clinton a long time ago, and he’d hurt her. He’d broken her heart, yet she’d recovered. She’d moved beyond it.
Whatever she was feeling now, she’d be able to beat that, too, when the time came. And until then, she was going to just enjoy being with Thanos, not dwell on a future that loomed, uncertain and all kinds of wrong.
* * *