Her fingers were toying with the necklace, sliding the diamond from side to side, a little line between her brows, the frown line he’d seen a lot these last few days. Something had shifted between them, at Kosta’s place. He couldn’t say what, only he felt an air of seriousness, of urgency, when they touched and kissed. He felt a sense of desperation, and he didn’t know if it was coming from Alice or from him.
He had precisely zero experience with women to know what he could say to make her smile again. At least, not beyond one night. One night, he was fine with. But this kind of thing—something longer, something more meaningful—just didn’t suit him.
And it was meaningful with Alice. He’d expected he could marry her, and even sleep with her, and somehow still abide by his usual behaviour with women, but nothing about Alice was like what he’d experienced before.
But that didn’t change the fact that this thing was running its course. Not just because they’d agreed it would, but because Thanos had no hope of knowing how to maintain a relationship.
There was a reason he’d always avoided anything like commitment.
He was terrible at it.
And he didn’t see a need to change that aspect of his personality. Still, he didn’t like seeing Alice frown.
‘You’re going to break the chain,’ he said, aiming for teasing and light-hearted. Her fingers immediately snapped away from it, her features apologetic.
‘I didn’t realise I was doing it.’
He bit back an impatient sigh. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
The stars of the night sky sparkled brightly, the isolation of his island ensuring complete clarity in the atmosphere.
‘Kosta said something interesting about you,’ she said slowly, her eyes roaming his face as though whatever it was might have an answer in his features.
‘Did he?’
She sipped her wine, perhaps buying time. ‘He said you were on a dangerous downward spiral, after your father’s conviction.’
Thanos felt as if a knife were being sliced along the side of his heart. ‘Oh?’
She nodded, somewhat self-consciously. ‘He said your brother held you together.’
Thanos’s smile was a self-deprecating acknowledgement of this. ‘I think Kosta was right.’
‘You’re very close to him?’
‘To Kosta?’ Thanos joked, deliberately misunderstanding, looking for a smile any way he could get it.
She offered him a half-hearted lift of her lips.
‘Leo and I were pretty much raised as twins from the time I came to live with him.’
‘He didn’t resent you?’
Thanos’s lips were a grim line in his face. ‘Perhaps.’
‘I don’t mean he should have,’ she said quietly, reaching out and putting her hand over Thanos’s, her comfort and perceptiveness qualities that made something sharpen against his insides. ‘Only that he was a young boy himself, and his world must also have felt a bit like a bomb had been exploded into it.’
‘I’m sure.’
Alice bit down on her lower lip. ‘But you’re close now?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled, because he wanted her to smile back at him, and she did, so his stomach rolled and all his breath threatened to explode from his lungs. Her smile was every bit as beautiful as the stars overhead.
‘He seemed nice,’ Alice said. ‘And I liked his wife.’
‘Hannah? She has been good for him.’
Alice was quiet a moment. ‘In what way?’