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It was a pin crafted out of platinum, of a small child with their arms lifting up as if for someone to carry them. The Eleos symbol.
He stared at it, his face utterly unreadable, and nerves crowded in her throat. ‘It’s just a little thing,’ she said quickly, desperate to fill up the silence. ‘It’s probably silly. You’ve probably got hundreds of them and you don’t—’
‘I don’t,’ he interrupted, still staring down at the pin. ‘I don’t have a single one.’ Then he looked up at her, an emotion she didn’t understand burning in his black eyes. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I had it made. I wanted to give you a gift that meant something to you, but I don’t know you well enough and I...’ She trailed off, because he was still staring at her, a fierce storm in his eyes.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked.
Her heart was beating faster and she didn’t know what to say, because she wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not, or whether she’d somehow offended him. ‘Yes, it’s the symbol of your charity.’
‘It’s not just the symbol of my charity.’ A bright, intense flame glowed in his eyes. ‘It’s also you, Elena.’
Perhaps he shouldn’t have said it. Perhaps he shouldn’t have revealed something so personal. But it was too late now. He’d told her, he hadn’t been able to help it. She’d given him this pin, a symbol of his charity, a symbol of hope. Because she’d been his hope.
That night in the rubble of that town, surrounded by death and hopelessness, he’d wondered what the point of it all was. He’d been involved in the business of violence for years and he was starting to lose himself. He was starting to think that maybe there was no difference between himself and those he was protecting people from. After all, he was a killer just as they were. What made him different? What made him a good person? He’d killed his brother, been repudiated by his father... Was there anything good in him at all?
A black despair had been creeping up on him, and that was when he’d seen her, a small figure fighting back against impossible odds. Indomitable. Unbroken. Her braids had been lit by the setting sun, gleaming gold, and the blood on her face had made her look fierce. She’d been so small and yet there she was, fighting back against the dark.
He’d felt something leap inside him in that moment and he’d known immediately that he had to save her and that if he had to die to do so, then die he would. He’d lifted his weapon and fired the warning shots and her attackers had scattered, and he’d been expecting her to run from him too.
Yet she hadn’t. She’d lifted her arms to him as if she’d been waiting for him, as if she wasn’t afraid of him. As if she knew completely that he would pick her up and take care of her.
As if she could see that there was some part of him that was still good.
She’d had no idea what she’d meant to him that evening. No idea how she’d turned his life around. After he’d taken her back to Kalifos and to his father, he’d turned his private army into Eleos. Mercy. Dedicated to saving people throughout the world, no matter what they needed. All because a little girl had given him hope and he’d wanted to pass that hope on to others.
Now that same little girl was giving him a pin crafted in her likeness. Giving him the gift of hope once again.
He’d never been one for signs or portents, and he’d never believed in fate. He’d never believed in anything much at all, but this gift of hers...it meant something. Hope for the future maybe, or perhaps something else, but it was something.
She stared at him now and he could see anxiety in her eyes, as if she was she worried he wouldn’t like it. ‘What do you mean, it’s me?’ she asked.
He ignored her for the moment, holding out the box in her direction. ‘Come here. Pin it on for me.’ It came out sounding more like an order than anything else, but she came over to him and took the pin out of the box. Then she came in close and slid her fingers beneath his lapel, lifting it so she could pin the small Eleos symbol to his jacket.
He could smell her luscious scent, apples and musk, that never failed to get him hard, and could see the sparkle of a tear still caught on her golden lashes. His gift had meant something to her, too, something that had affected her every bit as deeply as hers had him.
Aristeidis’s ring had seemed like the natural thing to give her since he’d been concerned she hadn’t had an engagement ring. Why exactly he’d been concerned, he wasn’t sure. He only knew that she’d wanted the trappings of a real wedding and if she wanted to organise them, he wasn’t going to get in her way. Except it had bothered him that she hadn’t had a ring and he didn’t like the thought of her ordering one for herself.
He was the groom; it was his job to find one. So when he’d discovered Aristeidis’s ring in amongst his father’s belongings, knowing what his father had meant to her, it had seemed like the perfect ring for her. If she wanted something more feminine, he could get her something later.
But as soon as she’d seen it, it was clear to him that he wasn’t going to need to get her another one. There had been tears in her eyes when he’d presented it to her, and that had made something shift inside himself too. A deep pleasure that he could do that for her, that he could give her something meaningful.
Perhaps that was why her gift to him had affected him so deeply. He’d already been moved by her reaction to the ring.
None of this should mean anything at all to you.
It was true, it shouldn’t. Ever since that day when she’d got on her knees and made him lose control, he’d let her somehow get under his skin in a way he shouldn’t have. He’d been thinking that he’d give himself a week, up until their marriage, to indulge himself, and then, after the wedding, he’d take himself back to Jamaica, find his detachment and his focus again. So perhaps it didn’t matter if he let this be important to him now.
She finished with the pin, the platinum gleaming against the dark blue wool of his suit. It looked good there, a little reminder of the hope she’d always brought to him.
Her eyes were very dark as they looked up into his and he could see that she was still anxious. She wanted him to like this and it gave him a peculiar thrill to know his opinion mattered to her.
‘Do you remember when I first saw you?’ he asked. ‘You were standing in the rubble and you had a knife in your hand. There were about five men who were going to attack you and you looked as if you could take on each and every one of them.’
A small crease appeared between her brows. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I fired my gun and they scattered. And I thought... I thought you’d run, too. But you didn’t. You held your arms up to me instead.’
