AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I wasn’t scared of you,’ she said. ‘I just...knew you were here to save me.’
Atticus touched the pin. ‘This is you, Elena. That night I’d felt I’d come to a dead end. That I was no different from the men I was trying to protect people like you from. Then you appeared, and you seemed to see something in me that I’d thought had died a long time ago. You gave me hope. So when I started Eleos and I wanted a logo, all I could think about was you. You in the rubble, lifting your arms to me.’
Her eyes widened, a flush creeping over her skin. ‘I... I had no idea. I didn’t even realise you remembered that.’
‘Of course, I remembered that.’ Perhaps it had been a mistake to tell her what she represented to him, a ceding of power he hadn’t been prepared for. Then again, if anyone should know the story behind the Eleos child, it should be her. She had been that child, after all.
Elena glanced at the pin then up at him once more. ‘You like it?’
He put his hand over it, feeling the cool metal warm against his palm, and held her gaze, let her see what her gift had meant to him. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
She smiled, so warm and sweet it stole his breath, and the glow that suffused her face made something inside him tighten.
You like making her smile.
And he wanted to do it again.
‘I’m so glad,’ she said, a little shyly. ‘I love the ring too. Just before the will was read out I was hoping I’d get a few keepsakes from him. I thought you’d probably want the ring though.’
He hadn’t known she’d actively been hoping for the ring. He’d just thought she might appreciate it.
You should tell her why you don’t want anything from him. She deserves to know.
A cold thread wound through his pleasure. He’d been harsh when she’d asked him why he hadn’t wanted anything of his father’s, because harsh was his usual response when anyone asked him about Dorian. Harsh made sure no one ever questioned him again.
But...she knew already what had happened to his brother. It wasn’t as if he was going to be telling her things she wasn’t already aware of. Also, she was really the heir of the Kalathes fortune, not him, so why shouldn’t she know the truth?
‘You wanted to know why I didn’t want anything of my father’s?’ The words came out roughly, but he didn’t try to soften them. ‘Because after Dorian died, he cut me off. Both emotionally and financially. He told me that he wished I had been the one to die, not Dorian. He told me that I had to leave Kalifos, and that he never wanted to see me again. I was sixteen.’
Shock then sympathy flickered over her face. ‘Oh, Atticus...’
‘So I left home and, since there was nothing else for me here, I joined the army. Over the years I tried periodically to make contact with him, but he always refused. He didn’t want to talk to me and he didn’t want to see me. He’d meant it when he said he never wanted to see me again.’
She’d gone pale, her eyes darkening. ‘That was unforgivable of him,’ she said quietly but with some force.
That surprised him. He’d expected her to come to Aristeidis’s defence. ‘He had reason,’ Atticus said.
‘He was wrong.’ Her chin came up. ‘He told me that he’d treated you badly and that he’d said some terrible things, but he was never clear on what exactly he’d said. He just didn’t blame you for not wanting to see him.’
Unexpected grief twisted inside him. He didn’t want to know about Aristeidis’s regrets, especially when it was too late to do anything about them.
You let your own bitterness eat you alive the same way he let it eat at him.
Atticus gritted his teeth. Well, if he was bitter, didn’t he have a right to it? The days, weeks, months and years after Dorian’s death, he’d been suffering in his own private hell and had been desperate for someone to save him. Yet the one person who could had left him there to suffer instead.
Memories rose inside him, memories he’d been struggling to keep at bay while he’d been back here. Memories of his childhood here, with Dorian. Of playing chase in the villa and hide and seek in the gardens. Games of war with sticks for swords and the time he’d tied a towel around his neck as a cape and tried to jump from the window in this very room, thinking he could fly. Only for his brother to stop him, saving him...
A suffocating feeling rose inside him, the memories drowning him.
He had to get out of the room, go somewhere else. Perhaps to the pool or to run along the island’s beaches. He needed fresh air, the scent of salt and the sea. He needed to push himself to exhaustion, needed the burn of his muscles as he pushed himself physically instead of the ache in his heart.
He went to turn, but then Elena reached out and gripped his arm. ‘Wait.’
He could have pulled away, but somehow her touch eased the constriction in his chest so he stopped and glanced at her.
Her expression was full of painful sympathy. ‘He was a good father to me,’ she said. ‘But he wasn’t a good father to you, I can see that. He shouldn’t have said all those terrible things to you. He should have been there for you, and I realise why you didn’t want to talk to him.’
He hadn’t known he’d needed her understanding until he saw it glowing in the depths of her eyes. ‘Like I said. He had a right to it.’
