‘Except?’ He moved a little closer, his face almost touching hers.
She swallowed. ‘What we were doing.’ She turned back to the window, needing some mental space from him.
He stood beside her for several beats, and a thousand thoughts and feelings rammed into her brain, asking to be spoken, but she stayed quiet, staring out to sea.
‘Please let me know if you need anything,’ he said a little formally, taking a step back from her. ‘If I did hurt you, and you need—’
She shook her head in frustration. ‘I’m not made of glass, Santos.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Are you?’ She regarded him carefully, her stomach in knots. There were many things about her life she might have changed if she could but she’d never wished more keenly to reach back through the fabric of time and alter her social experiences. She was aware how out of kilter she was much of the time—an anomaly—yet she’d learned to cover that, to integrate for the most part. But with Santos she felt like all her usual defences were missing; she was vulnerable and raw.
‘I am sorry.’
‘Stop saying that.’ She brushed his apology aside. ‘I get that you wish it hadn’t happened, that you wouldn’t have slept with me if you’d known I hadn’t done that before, but I knew and I chose to have sex with you and I’m still happy with that decision.’ She realised, as she said it, that it was true. ‘I’m glad we had sex. I liked being with you. I’m sorry if that’s disrespecting your wishes but I need to say it so you can stop tormenting yourself.’
She didn’t let him speak. ‘I’m not secretly imagining changing my name to Amelia Anastakos. I’m not fantasising about waking up beside you every morning for the rest of the time I’m on Agrios Nisi. I’m a big girl, Santos. As you keep pointing out, I’m in my twenties, and I understand how men like you operate. Sex is sex, and I’m more than okay with that.’
* * *
He stared at her, the words wrapping around him, each of them perfectly chosen to relax him, a balm to his worries. She was letting him off the hook, making him understand that she’d gone into this with her eyes wide open. His only objection, the root of his anger, was his fear that he had unknowingly hurt her—that perhaps he’d led her on in some way, that she’d chosen to give him her virginity because she’d been hoping it might lead to something bigger, but she was telling him clearly that wasn’t the case.
She’d wanted to have sex. That was all. It was no big deal. Meaningless, temporary, perfect.
So why didn’t he feel better? Why hadn’t her words done a bit to relax him? Why were they having almost the opposite effect?
I understand how men like you operate.
Men like him? Men like his father, did she mean? It coated the inside of his mouth with acid. He was nothing like Nico Anastakos. He’d spent a lifetime proving that.
‘You should not have let me be your first. I cannot give you—’
‘God, Santos!’ She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I just told you, you don’t have to give me anything. I don’t know what it is with you. I’ve never met anyone that I looked at and felt...’
Her words tapered off. What had she been about to say? Felt like I wanted to rip their clothes from their body?
She closed her eyes on a wave of embarrassment.
‘It shouldn’t have happened.’ When he sighed, his breath fanned her temple, warm and distracting. She angled her face away.
‘You don’t have to worry. It definitely won’t happen again.’
* * *
One of his stepmothers had bought him a puppy—a little brown Labrador. Santos had named it Atrómitos—Atró for short. He’d been ten, and it had been very easy to love the dog. Hard to lose it when the inevitable separation occurred and his temporary stepmother decided to take Atró away with her.
During thunderstorms Atró had cried, and the noise Santos heard in the early hours of the morning was so reminiscent of that sound he thought he was slipping back in time. He pushed up in his bed, his heart pounding, disorientation making him frown, and then he moved as the reality of what was happening woke him fully.
‘Cameron.’ He didn’t pause to pull on a shirt. Striding from his bedroom in only a pair of boxers, he moved through his home towards the suite of rooms he’d assigned his son. The cries grew louder as he approached. He pushed open the door and then paused.
His son was crying, but he wasn’t alone. Amelia was beside him in the bed, her arms wrapped around him, her hair like burnt caramel in the soft light of his room. He hadn’t seen her in days—not since he’d left her room with an uneasiness in his gut that she was casting him in the same light as his father—and for a moment all he could do was stare. Her elegant fingers moved over Cameron’s head, brushing the curls away from his temples, her words too soft for Santos to catch. Her pyjamas were hardly intended to seduce—a T-shirt and a loose pair of pants—but, knowing her body as he now did, it didn’t matter how she chose to dress herself. His reaction was instant—a stirring in his blood, a question his body wanted answered.
After a slight delay, she appeared to notice him, moving her eyes towards the door, her lips compressing, casting her face in an expression he didn’t understood.
He forced himself to look away from Amelia. Christos, he found that harder than he cared to admit. His son’s little face was streaked with tears, his eyes bloodshot, his small body moving with the violent force of his sobs.
‘Can I...?’ Frustration bit through him. He wasn’t used to this—not knowing what to say, how to act. He’d felt like this ever since he’d found out about Cameron. He hated it.