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‘It’ll be too big,’ she said, suddenly feeling horribly fragile. ‘It’ll be too big and I—’
Without a word, Atticus slid the ring onto her finger. It fitted perfectly.
‘I had it resized for you,’ he said.
Despite her best efforts, a tear slid slowly down over her cheek as she stared at the ring, but she resisted the urge to brush it away. Perhaps if she ignored it, Atticus wouldn’t notice. ‘You don’t want it for yourself?’ she asked, keeping her gaze on the soft glow of gold around her finger.
‘No. He was a better father to you than he ever was to me.’ After a moment, he went over to her dresser, where there was a tissue box. Taking a couple of tissues out, he came back then took her chin in one hand and tilted her head back so she was looking at up him.
She didn’t want him to see her tears, to see her vulnerability, but his hold was gentle and she didn’t resist as he began to carefully wipe her tears away.
Elena trembled. She felt raw all of a sudden, yet his touch was very kind, with none of his usual sexual demand in it, and, strangely, she found herself relaxing in his hold. She still couldn’t meet his gaze, though. Her instinct was to say something sharp or pull away to protect herself, but part of her liked the gentle way he was touching her far too much.
Aristeidis had cared about her, but he’d never been physically affectionate. He’d never given her hugs. And he’d never known what to do when she cried, so she’d soon learned that if she wanted something from him, it was best not to cry. It was best not to look as if she needed anything at all. It wasn’t that he was negligent or cruel. He just wasn’t physically affectionate and outward displays of emotion made him uncomfortable.
So Atticus taking care of her like this, giving her a gift that meant something to her and then wiping her tears away... It set up a painful ache deep in her heart, the tug of a need she hadn’t realised she still felt, a weakness she couldn’t allow herself.
Yet still she stood there, letting him touch her.
‘You know that, not only will the island be yours,’ he murmured, giving her face a critical examination as he wiped away the last of her tears, ‘but everything in it will also be yours, too.’
She swallowed, half sad when he finally released her chin, half relieved. ‘There must be something that you want here, though,’ she said.
He put the tissue in a waste basket near her dresser. ‘No. I don’t want any of it.’
‘Why not?’ It wasn’t the best thing to be discussing now, but she still felt overly emotional and she didn’t want to answer any questions he might ask her. Much better to turn the conversation back on him. ‘I would have thought you might—’
‘I said no.’ The concern he’d shown her just before was gone, only annoyance snapping in his black eyes.
‘It’s because of Dorian, isn’t it?’ She wasn’t going to regret the loss of that concern. His anger she could deal with far better than his tenderness. ‘And because of what happened afterwards?’
Instantly Atticus’s expression went hard then it blanked completely. ‘I don’t want to discuss this now.’
She shouldn’t push. It would only ruin the moment and make things difficult between them, which, considering they were getting married in the morning, wasn’t a great start. And anyway, she was suddenly tired of arguing with him, tired of things being difficult between them.
‘Okay,’ she said simply, dropping the subject.
Surprise flickered over his features. Clearly he’d expected an argument, and it gave her a brief thrill of satisfaction that she could upset his expectations and take him off guard in a way that wasn’t sexual.
In fact, she wanted to do it again.
‘Wait there,’ she said, holding up a finger. Then she went over to her dresser and pulled open a drawer. She’d been saving the small wedding gift she’d had made for him until tomorrow, but he’d given her Aristeidis’s ring and she wanted to give him something in return now.
Taking out the small box in the drawer, she turned and came over to him. His gaze narrowed as she approached, and a wave of unfamiliar shyness overcame her. What if he didn’t like it? Or what if it wasn’t meaningful to him? She didn’t know him, that was the issue. Oh, she knew about his boyhood here on Kalifos, because Aristeidis had told her all about it, stories of him and Dorian and the things they used to get up to, the scrapes they got into. Atticus loved the outdoors, and was always the more boisterous of the two, Aristeidis used to say. The naughtiest, the more high-spirited, and the one who took the most risks. A typical youngest child, whom, by his own admission, Aristeidis had been harder on than Dorian.
‘I have something for you, too,’ she said and held out the box.
He stared at it as if he’d never seen a box before in his entire life. ‘Something for me?’ The disbelief in his voice was palpable.
She smiled, pleased that she’d managed to shock him, because there was no doubting the shock on his face. ‘It’s a wedding gift. I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but you may as well have it now.’
‘A wedding gift,’ he repeated, as if the words were foreign to him. ‘But...this isn’t a real wedding, you know that, Elena.’
‘I know. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have the trappings of one. And you’re still going to be my legal husband, whether it’s real or not, and so I wanted to get you a gift.’
He stared at her for a long moment, then reached out and took the box from her hand. Her heartbeat sped up, nervousness kicking in. She hadn’t realised how much she wanted him to like this, but she did. His opinion mattered.
Slowly he took the box in his large hands, the scars standing out whitely against his olive skin, and he opened it, staring down at the small item sitting in the black velvet.
