Contractually Wed

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN

J IA WALKED UP to the second-floor open terrace that looked out into the turquoise sea and took in a deep breath of fresh air on the unseasonably warm day. It did little to calm her stomach that afternoon.

She’d been feeling queasy all day but she’d kept it to herself. Apollo, with his usual bullheadedness, would’ve sent her back to bed and she’d miss seeing the house that his firm had custom-designed and nearly finished for a seventy-year-old Arab tycoon.

It was the first house they’d designed together. Granted, near to completing it, Apollo had been stuck in some aspects and Jia had helped make a few modifications. And now, there it stood carved into the side of a hill. The expanse of blue sea and green hillside working perfectly to encapsulate the all-white home.

Jia wasn’t usually a fan of the modern contemporary designs that lacked all warmth and color, and rejected natural elements like wood and fabric. Solely depending on steel and chrome, they looked like geometric cubes.

But here, in this house, the sharp, flat cube design had no flourishes. Only white walls and glass, which served to highlight the lush, natural landscape around it. A rectangular pool at the front of the house reflected sunlight like jewels on its blue surface.

It was a perfect escape for anyone who wanted to get away from the hustle, the perfect destination for a small family to spend the weekend. God, she was beginning to think like Apollo Galanis’s wife, with thoughts of summer homes and island destinations. When she didn’t have a single nickel to her name.

It had never bothered her before. All she’d lived for was to win her family’s approval, to somehow contribute to their well-being. Only last week, she’d learned that the stock she owned in her father’s company had shot up meteorically. Not unconnected to the formal press release that Apollo Galanis was taking over the firm.

Weeks after she’d made the offer to sign it over to him, Jia still didn’t understand why he didn’t take her up on it. How long could she bear to have the shadow of the past color their relationship?

Joy tingled on her lips when he kissed her, danced through her body when he made love to her, was beginning to shine like a flame in her chest when he looked through a crowd or coworkers or his family for her. When he spotted her, those little crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes and his mouth curled up. Everything around them dissolved, leaving the two of them alone in the entire universe.

Even knowing the truth of the trauma Apollo had faced when he’d discovered his father’s body and everything that had followed, Jia couldn’t find it in herself to hurt her father anymore. If that made her a sentimental pushover, so be it. It wasn’t like she was faring any better with Apollo. In a mere two months, she had shifted her loyalty to him without any qualms.

Absentmindedly, she took a sip of the champagne. It coated her throat with a slick bile, threatening to bring up the little she’d managed to eat at breakfast. Bad enough that her period was due any day now and...

Jia quickly checked her calendar. Shock jostled her stomach a little more as she looked at the colorful numbers. She’d had only one period since she’d arrived in Greece and that was nearly nine weeks ago, when they’d still been in Athens. Her legs trembled as she came down the stairs to the main level.

Was she pregnant?

Having a baby with Apollo was the last thing she’d ever imagined, when she’d struck the deal with him. But the thought of not having the baby filled her throat with fresh bile and she nearly tripped on the way to the bathroom.

Large hands held her hair back as she emptied her stomach, whispering reassurances, holding her when her knees buckled.

Jia washed up, doing her best to avoid looking at the large circular mirror and meeting his watchful eyes. If she did, he would know. And if Apollo knew, he would be...happy. She knew that as surely as her racing heartbeat.

A house for us and the family we might have.

Closing her eyes, Jia leaned into the hard warmth of his body behind her. His corded forearm clasped around her waist with utter gentleness. “I’ll have the chopper ready in five minutes. You should have told me you weren’t feeling well.”

Tears filled Jia’s eyes and she trembled with the effort to hold them back. She’d have to take a pregnancy test, yes, but she knew. Especially since she’d been told that antibiotics could mess with the pill.

Slowly, shock gave way to crystal-clear clarity.

“What’s wrong, agapi ? Where does it hurt?” Apollo said in a voice she’d never heard from him.

But she couldn’t say anything because the thing she did want to say was the biggest truth of her life. She wanted to stand at the highest peak, and scream into the sea and the sky that she had fallen in love with him.

She was in love with her husband. And with this baby, their baby , which was probably no bigger than the size of a tiny worm right then.

And she was in love with how precious their life together that he kept showing her tiny, taunting glimpses of, could be.

She was in love with a man who was obsessed with making her father pay for his sins and in the process, refused to feel anything else, a man who considered her an asset. A man who in the pursuit of that revenge had even alienated his own mother.

“Jia, look at me. Parakalo .”

It was the please that did it, full of his own desperation, that reminded her that he did care for her, but just not in the way she wanted him to.

She turned around and threw herself at him and cried like she’d never done before. How could he be the storm that was wrecking her and still also be the only harbor left to her?

God, she couldn’t bear the weight of loving Apollo without him loving her back. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life locked in a marriage with a man who would always see her last name first, or her brains and now the fact that she was his child’s mother.

Would he ever want her for herself, even as he built castles for their now very real family? Would he love her as she longed to be loved, as she loved him?

And if she stayed, she would be trapped and miserable, unable and unwilling to give him up. But could she leave him and raise this baby alone? Would he even let her? Or would she be ruining a bright present in search of a future that didn’t exist?

“Enough, Jia,” Apollo was whispering into her temple, his hands moving over her back in a frenzy, a rough bite to his words. “You will make yourself sick and I will not allow it. Enough, agapi mou . Whatever it is, I will fix it.”

The scent of him filled her lungs and instantly her body calmed, as if it knew him better than her mind did. Even better than her heart.

Jia clung to him, took solace in his words, even though she knew it was only temporary. “I’m scared, Apollo. I...”

“Of what, Jia?”

She buried her face in his neck—her safe space. Here, she could feel his steady pulse and breathe in the pine and clove scent, and know that with those arms around her, she wouldn’t be lost.

His hands moved over her, kneading and pressing, gathering her so tight to him that she felt like she might break apart. His mouth was at her temple, warm and soft. “Shh... Tornado. You’re with me and I won’t let you go.”

And when he lifted her in his arms, and walked through the house that he’d built and carried her to the roof in front of all the staring guests as if she were precious, as if nothing else mattered, Jia wondered if she could be brave enough to do the one thing she’d never done in her entire life.

For Apollo, could she hope? For this baby and the life they might build together, could she trust in herself that she was worthy of his love? Could she stay and love him as she wanted to?

Apollo watched Jia as she half-heartedly riffled through the design folders he’d brought in from the firm, at her request. From playing video games with Camilla’s sons to cooking with his mother, to her work, everything she did these days was with half a heart, her mind a million miles away.

Something was wrong, ever since that day two weeks ago when they’d been visiting a client’s home in Andros Island. He had never seen such panic in Jia’s eyes and even now, if he closed his eyes, her expression haunted him.

To this day, she wouldn’t tell him what had made her cry as if her heart was breaking.

Oh, she pretended that everything was good, but he caught that haunted look in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t watching or when she forgot to keep her armor up. He also didn’t miss how her moods fluctuated from happiness to sudden sadness, like a shroud dimming her spirit.

The only place where he had her completely, where he knew only his touch ruled her, was in bed. She was as desperate to be touched and held and consumed as she’d been before and if it wasn’t for that intimacy that tethered her to him, he might have lost his mind by now.

He was getting there slowly though, seeing the constant shadow in her eyes, wondering what he could do to fix it, wondering how he could get the old Jia back.

He’d even hounded Rina about the cause, wondering if her family was at the root of her problems, as always. Rina had not only come up empty, but finally showed a little backbone by asking him if he’d considered that he could be the source of Jia’s pain.

Jia married you because she had no choice , Rina had pointed out, with sudden acidity, and the doubt had been planted.

Jia was unhappy with him , with their relationship, and he had no idea how to fix it, for all he’d promised her he would. Asking her had got him nothing but evasion.

I’ve given you everything, Apollo. There’s nothing left , had been Jia’s sarcastic taunt when he’d probed. And then, like a child seeking approval from an adult they’d alienated, she had clung to him that night.

“You’re worried about her.”

Apollo turned to find his mother next to him, holding up a cup of dark coffee in one hand. Just the scent of it told him she’d prepared it the exact way he liked it. The realization arrested his childish impulse to snub her offer.

He hadn’t even been aware of her presence in the kitchen, so caught up he was in watching Jia. For once, all his sisters and their broods were busy elsewhere and the house was eerily quiet.

With nothing else to do, he took the coffee mug and turned away.

“Will you not talk to me, Apollo?” Mama said, her words heartbreakingly soft.

He shrugged, a sudden patina of grief and anger clinging to his throat. For so long, they had been at odds with each other. She had been critical of everything he had done, and he hadn’t cared enough to mend the direction of his life. And now, when he’d achieved everything he’d set out to own, when the world was at his feet, this rift with his mother was still an open wound.

Was it too late to mend it? Did he even want to?

The moment the resentful thought came, he found the answer. Of course he wanted to build a bridge to his mother again. But he didn’t know how. Just as he didn’t know how to help Jia.

“I’m still your mother, Apollo, even if you have conquered the entire world,” she said, rebuking him with the same thoughts.

She came to stand next to him and her subtle sandalwood perfume came to him. A river of longing opened up, touched by memories of baking with her in a tiny kitchen, of hugging her and feeling so secure, of...seeing her strong face break into terrible sobs when she’d seen Papa’s body, of how long she’d spoken to him that night about how it wasn’t his fault. That Papa had loved them all, but he hadn’t been strong enough.

“You tried very hard that evening, after I...found him,” he said.

She frowned, an instant shadow of grief touching her eyes. A long sigh then. “You were always your Papa’s son. I knew how much you adored him and I also understood how betrayed you must have felt. Because I felt the same.”

The mug clattered onto the tiled counter with enough noise to wake the dead, but across the open space, sitting in the living room, staring at something in the distance, Jia didn’t even stir.

Apollo pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, the past and present combining and separating as if in a science fiction movie—one Jia had made him watch. “I felt so...helpless and angry.”

His mother, so tiny and small beside him, wrapped her arm around his waist and squeezed. “I wish I had helped you in a better way to—”

“No, Mama. You were right when you said that he could have been stronger for us. None of us wanted the wealth he lost or needed it. We would have moved into a hut with him and still been happy. He didn’t see that, didn’t realize the value of that and I...” his breath came in shallow pants “... I chose a path that made me lose you too.”

“But you have not lost me, or your sisters, Apollo,” she said, her voice steely in its resolve. “We have all been here, waiting for you. And you haven’t lost the kindness that was so much a part of your Papa’s either. All the good parts are still there.”

“I am not so sure.”

Mama covered his hand on the countertop. “You’re admitting defeat, Apollo?”

He laughed and examined his hands. “I’m admitting that everything I have done so that I never feel helpless again...doesn’t work. All the wealth, all the power I have amassed are no use to me when I want to...”

“What?” Mama said, following his gaze to the woman in the living room. The woman he realized held his heart in her slender, tender hands. “Tell me.”

“Something is wrong with her.”

It came to him slowly, as if he was moving through a fog, that his mother wasn’t surprised. “In what way?”

“She smiles but there’s a shadow. She talks but it’s different. She clings to me at night, but it’s as if she’s running away from some great sorrow. She will not tell me what it is and I’m afraid that she’s slipping from my fingers. I’m afraid that there is nothing in the world that I can do to fix this for her.”

“I have seen what you speak of, Apollo. She’s quieter than she usually is. Maybe she’s homesick?”

Apollo turned so fast that his neck hurt. “Did she say that to you?”

“She has been talking a lot about families and how they come to be. She asked if I had been happy with your father. She’s been begging Camilla and Christina to talk about children and families and how they knew if they were ready.”

Was that simply it, that she missed her damned family?

“I wondered if she...”

“She, what?” When his mother hesitated, Apollo grabbed her hand. “I’m going mad trying to figure this out.”

Her soft gaze lit on his face, carefully scrutinizing every inch. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you so worried?”

“Because I’ve pulled her away from her entire world, her family, her friends and she’s mine. Because I...”

Because he was in love with her and he would do anything to make the world right for her again. Except let her go, he added to himself.

Maybe it wasn’t love, then. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was his need to control this too. Wasn’t love supposed to be selfless and grand and divine?

He felt the opposite, like there was a storm brewing in his stomach. Like he’d never know certainty in anything ever again.

“Please, Mama.”

“I wondered if she...” hesitation danced in her eyes “...is pregnant.”

It felt like he had been slapped so hard that the echoes of it rang in his ears. Every inch of him stilled.

“When Camilla asked gently, she said you two are not planning for a family and...”

The rest of his mother’s words drifted away as Apollo moved past her to the stairs. He took them three at a time, his heart thrashing around in his chest like a crushed toy.

All her stuff lay in half-open cosmetic bags or in haphazard piles in the drawers in the bathroom. He rifled through her handbag and her jewelry box and her pen case and her...

He found the discarded pill sheet first, sitting innocently under a pile of underwear. And in another drawer, a pharmacy receipt for two pregnancy tests. He didn’t have to see the tests themselves to know that his mother’s guess was right.

Jia had been sick that day when they’d been touring the client’s house in Andros Island, had had no appetite for days after and she had been so panic-stricken because she... She was pregnant.

With his child.

Their child.

A child she’d never planned for, and had made it clear enough times that she didn’t want with him. A child whose very conception had made her sick at heart. A child she was keeping a secret from him, over whom she was turning herself into a shadow.

Did she hate the idea so much, enough to want to...leave him?

It felt like a crack reverberated through his heart, the thought was that painful.

And in that moment of utter confusion and anguish, Apollo knew. In that moment when he had to face the possibility that Jia wanted to leave him, he knew.

It was as solid and real as the house he had built for his mother. As real as the anger he had finally allowed himself to feel against his father for abandoning them. As real as the hope he’d been nurturing for weeks now.

Dios mio , he was in love with his wife and he had no idea how to sit with that knowledge. When he knew that she was only in his life because he had forced her hand. When he knew that anything they had shared, anything they had created together, like this precious child, had been an accident of his path, not her choice.

He sank to the floor and clutched his head in his hands, feeling like he had hit the bottom of the world. Still, the crash was unending. But even through the panic pulsing through him, there was a pinprick of awe at this new emotion swirling through him.

He was in love and he had never known anything more terrifying or more wonderful.