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There was a tight band around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She didn’t want to look up into his face, see that cold, set expression in his eyes. She was used to being strong, yet what she wanted passionately, right in this moment, was someone to hold her. Except she didn’t want him to know that.
She couldn’t be weak. Back in Jamaica, she’d allowed herself to weep in front of him, but that had been the shock getting to her. She couldn’t allow that to happen, not now. Once, long ago, she’d trusted him and he’d abandoned her. And even though she was an adult now and she knew why he had, she still couldn’t bring herself to let her guard down with him, not again.
She couldn’t rely on him, couldn’t trust him as she once had. She only had herself, and the only course left to her was to pull herself together and get on with it. Obviously, she’d have to leave Kalifos. Atticus wouldn’t marry her, which meant the entire island and the house with it would go up for sale, and she couldn’t afford to buy it. Why Aristeidis had believed his son would fulfil his wishes and marry her, she had no idea. Either way, though, she had nothing.
The thought of losing the only home she’d known for the past sixteen years twisted the knife in her heart, but she ignored the pain. Instead she clasped her hands tightly in her lap and forced herself to look up into Atticus’s cold black eyes. ‘That’s unfortunate,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with it. I had no idea Aristeidis would want to put that in his will.’
Atticus said nothing for a long moment, studying her face. ‘No,’ he said, his tone impossible to read. ‘I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘Good. Then there’s really nothing further to say. I’ll collect my things and—’
‘No,’ he repeated in the same expressionless tone. ‘You will not.’
She frowned. ‘What are you saying? I can’t stay here. The island will have to go up for sale and I—’
‘The house will not be going up for sale,’ Atticus interrupted. ‘And you will not be going anywhere. This is your home, Elena.’
Her throat closed and she had to force herself to swallow. ‘But...but if you want to keep the island, you’ll have to...’
‘Yes,’ he said steadily. ‘I’ll have to marry you.’
As soon as the lawyer had said the words Atticus had known there was no other option. Even through the shock, and he had been shocked—he’d been sure his father would have cut him out of his will the way he’d promised after Dorian had died. Yet apparently not.
Apparently his father had decided to make life even more difficult for both him and Elena. The old man could have just left everything to her and it would have been fine. Atticus wouldn’t have cared. He had all the money he’d ever need and Eleos to concern himself with. He didn’t need the family shipping company on top of all of that.
But no, Aristeidis had wanted Elena to have a family and expected his son to provide her with one.
Fury at his father had grabbed Atticus by the throat, and his first, reflexive thought had been to refuse. He’d never wanted a wife and he’d never wanted a family. The island and everything on it would be sold, as would the company, and he’d donate the proceeds to charity as they should, his father be damned.
Yet even as the thought had occurred to him, he knew he couldn’t refuse. Elena had spent the past sixteen years here, this was her house more than it had ever been his, and she’d already lost her home once. She’d already lost her family, too, and besides, the day he’d rescued her, he’d promised her that he’d look after her.
So while this was a responsibility he hadn’t asked for and he was furious about it, he had to accept it. She was his responsibility. She’d always been his responsibility.
He looked down at Elena now, sitting on the couch. She wore full mourning, a black dress with a black veil covering her rich blonde hair. Her attention was on her hands clasped in her lap, her face pale, shadows under her eyes. She looked so small sitting there. Fragile.
This whole week since they’d been back in Greece, she’d been outwardly calm, giving no sign of the grief he’d seen back in his house in Jamaica, where she’d wept on his couch, the glass of brandy he’d given her clutched in her hand. She hadn’t been calm then, or the stubborn, challenging, passionate woman he’d taken on that same couch, but a woman fractured by grief.
Something tight had shifted in his chest then, like boulders shifting after a landslide, his own grief stirring. Yet he’d ignored it. He wouldn’t cry for his father. He wouldn’t grieve. For years he’d tried to reach the old man after Dorian had died, needing his comfort and his reassurance, and he hadn’t got it. No, instead all he’d had from Aristeidis was blame.
‘You should have died,’ Aristeidis had flung at him in those first, terrible days afterwards. ‘It should have been you, not him. You.’
The worst part had been that Atticus had agreed. Yes, it should have been him. But it hadn’t. Dorian had been three years older than him. Dorian had known his way around a gun. Dorian had told him all about safety when hunting and to be careful and yet...
All of that had meant nothing, because Atticus had let the excitement of a hunting trip in the countryside with his adored older brother overwhelm him. He’d seen a movement in the trees and he’d pulled the trigger without thinking. But it hadn’t been a deer. It had been Dorian.
He shouldn’t hold his father responsible for all the years of blame, for all the years of distance, yet he did. He’d been sixteen when Dorian had died and ill equipped to deal with loss of any kind, let alone to bear the responsibility of killing his own brother. He should have been helped, not accused. Yet his father, still grieving the wife he’d lost nearly fifteen years earlier, hadn’t been able to get past it, and he hadn’t allowed Atticus to get past it either.
So no, the old man was dead and all he felt was fury. But as he looked at Elena sitting on the couch a ghost of the same protectiveness that had gripped him when he’d first spotted her in the rubble all those years ago gripped him again. Back then she had had a knife in her hand and blood on her face, determined and brave in the face of the threats around her.
She should look like that, not defeated and...broken.
He’d rescued her once and given her a home and a family, and it wouldn’t cost him anything to give her another one.
Are you sure about this? Marriage and fatherhood?
The thought of fatherhood particularly had unsettled him, which hadn’t done his temper any good. Then again, children were part of the stipulation and so why not? He didn’t have to be involved in their lives. In fact, it was probably best for all concerned if he wasn’t. And as for the getting of said children... Well, he knew that wouldn’t be an issue, not with their chemistry.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Elena said, her deep brown eyes still full of shock. ‘You can’t actually marry me.’
