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Don’t you regret, even for a moment, not having the chance to speak with Aristeidis before he died?
Something tugged at Atticus, but he ignored it. No, he didn’t regret it. Not at all. He’d leave here and go back to Jamaica and his island once he’d married her, and all this was cleared up.
His parents’ own marriage had been a loving one, though his mother had died when he was small and he didn’t remember her. Sometimes he’d wondered, after Dorian had died, what would have happened if she’d still been alive. Whether his father would have been quite so grief-stricken and determined to take it out on him. Whether he might have had one person who wouldn’t have blamed him so completely. But those thoughts weren’t productive, since the past was the past and you couldn’t change it.
Dorian remembered her though.
Ah, yes. Yet another thing to lay at his door. Dorian’s memories of their mother that he had destroyed when he’d mistakenly pulled that trigger. His father had never ceased reminding him about that, either.
Elena was silent. Then, abruptly, she pushed herself up from the couch and moved restlessly over to the windows, looking out over the sea for a moment. Then she turned back to him, her eyes very dark. ‘And love? What about that?’
The question caught him off guard. What did love have to do with any of this?
‘I don’t believe my father mentioned love,’ he said coolly. ‘He only mentioned marriage. Love has nothing to do with this.’ Not that love mattered to him anyway. He’d got rid of that and all the rest of his agonising, useless emotions when he’d turned his back on Kalifos and his father and joined the army.
Love was something that turned on you when you least expected it. Love was unforgiving. Love was vengeful and full of retribution and he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Elena glanced back out of the window. ‘In that case, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not marry you.’
For a second, all Atticus could do was stare at her. He’d not expected her to refuse him. ‘What do you mean you’d rather not marry me?’
‘I think it’s obvious what I meant. I know your father wanted to provide for me, but I don’t want to marry someone who’s been forced into it. And I certainly don’t want to have a child by that someone.’
His anger pulled against his grip on it. She was his responsibility. She had nothing and no one, and he knew what that was like. To have no family at all. But he could provide her with one and he would.
She’s right; it is your guilty conscience talking.
Maybe it was, but did that matter? He wasn’t going to change his mind. The past week he’d found out from various Kalathes staff members that Elena had taken over managing various aspects of Kalathes Shipping as his father’s health had declined. It had been with his blessing and she’d been an astute and capable manager. Whether she enjoyed the work, he wasn’t sure, but, regardless, all the more reason it should be in her name.
‘It was not a request,’ he said. ‘If you want Kalifos, if you want the company, there’s only one way for that to happen and that’s by marrying me.’
‘You’re assuming I want those things.’
Atticus opened his mouth to send back a sharp reply, but then bit down on it. Her temper sparked too easily off his and he was allowing it. He liked arguing with her, but that wasn’t helping.
Anger isn’t the only thing you spark, remember?
A thick, hot feeling shifted inside him. That was true. Perhaps there was...another way to get her agreement. A way that would end up being far more pleasurable for both of them than bickering.
‘I know what you want, Elenitsa,’ he murmured, letting his voice drop.
She gave him a glance. ‘Oh, yes? What?’
He held her melted-chocolate gaze with his. ‘Me.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE WORD SPOKEN in his deep, dark voice sent a lightning strike of heat straight down Elena’s spine. His gaze was electric, full of sparks and black flames, as if he’d suddenly thrown open a door and all the light and heat inside were spilling out.
There had been nothing but that tight band of grief locked around her chest and yet, looking at him now, she forgot all about it.
He dominated the room, filled it with the intense, primal energy she’d felt back on his island. The black suit he wore fitted him so perfectly, yet he might as well have been naked. It couldn’t contain him or his presence.
He’s right. You do want him.
She swallowed, her mouth gone dry. ‘No,’ she said, lying through her teeth. ‘No, I don’t.’
He raised one dark brow. ‘I see. So you don’t want me just like you weren’t a virgin?’
