Modern Romance May 2020 Books 5-8

Dear God, she loved him. Was that why she’d lied to him?

He wasn’t moving but standing very still. For heart-stopping seconds Sasha thought he might have changed his mind. But then he turned around.

‘Come here.’

It was a command. A command that Sasha could not ignore or disobey, even if she’d wanted to. The relief that he wanted her made her feel weak. She walked towards him and came to a stop in front of him. His eyes were so dark they looked black. His jaw was already darkening again with stubble.

‘Take down your hair.’

Sasha complied, lifting her hands to where pins held the bun in place. She took them out and her hair fell to her shoulders. Apollo reached out and caught a strand. ‘It’s like golden fire...little flame.’

Sasha’s nerves were tingling. Her breath came in short choppy bursts. She closed one hand around the pins and they dug into her palm. As if sensing she was hurting herself, Apollo took her hand and opened it, taking the pins and putting them on a nearby surface.

Then he caught her face in his two hands and moved closer. All she could smell was him. The scents of the island clung to him. Citrus, sea. And something infinitely more masculine and human.

She didn’t need his hands to raise her face to his as she was already doing it, every cell straining to get closer, for his touch. When his mouth covered hers, she wound her arms up and around his neck, telling him with her body that she wanted him.

Sasha could have happily stood there all night just kissing Apollo, but he drew back and took her by the hand, leading her through the softly lit villa to his room. Her dress whispered around her legs, heightening her sensitivity.

His room was at the opposite end of the villa from hers, with its own suite of rooms like hers, except much grander. She hadn’t been shown this part of the villa and felt a little pang of hurt now to think of how divided they’d been.

But all her thoughts fled when they entered the room. It was palatial but minimalist enough to be a monk’s cell. Albeit a billionaire monk. The sky was dark outside, cocooning them.

The massive bed was the focal point in the room. It didn’t have four posters like Sasha’s. It had no adornment apart from pillows and sheets. Stark. Like the expression on Apollo’s face now as he turned to her. Sasha locked her knees in a bid to stop her legs trembling.

She’d never been more aware of the disparity in their sizes. Everywhere he was broad she was narrow, slender. He was tall, she was short. He was hard, she was soft.

His hands were on her shoulders. He tugged her gently but inexorably towards him. He tipped up her chin and bent his head, hovering mere centimetres from her mouth for a second. Then he said, ‘Do you want this, Sasha?’

There was a tiny flicker of something in her brain at the way he said her name. Like something not fitting quite right. Like when she’d had that curious sense earlier that she hadn’t actually chosen her own clothes. But it was too elusive to try and analyse or pin down.

Apollo was asking her permission to make love to her, when he didn’t even have to. She’d answered him in the pool earlier that day. Her answer was in every cell of her body, in the rush of blood and liquid heat between her legs.

She nodded jerkily. ‘Yes, I want this.’ She put her hands on his chest, the heat of his skin nearly burning her hands through the thin material of his shirt.

His mouth touched hers and Sasha melted. One arm wrapped around her back and his other hand speared through her hair, cupping her head and holding it as he plundered and demolished any last coherent thought with his mouth and tongue.

He swept inside and explored with devastating precision. It was all Sasha could do to accept him and mimic his movements. He’d told her he wouldn’t let her drown earlier in the pool, but she was drowning now, her arms and hands climbing around his neck, arching her body against his in a bid to get even closer.

This felt familiar.

New, but familiar.

She was barely aware of him undoing the zip at the back of the dress, and then peeling the straps of her dress down over her arms. The top of the dress fell down to her waist. He pulled back and looked at her and she could feel her nipples tighten under his gaze. The design of the dress had precluded her wearing a bra. She brought her arms up and crossed them over her chest, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

He stepped forward and pulled them apart. ‘No, agapi mou, let me see you.’

There was a husky tone in his voice that made her feel less self-conscious. Feeling shy now, more than embarrassed, she said, ‘I want to see you too.’

Apollo put down his hands and looked at her. Presenting himself. She reached for his buttons, undoing them one by one, little by little revealing that broad impressive chest with its smattering of dark curly hair.

When it was open he shrugged his shirt off and it fell to the floor. With efficient movements, he undid his belt, opened his trousers and pulled them down and off, taking his underwear with them.

He stood before her, naked. Sasha’s eyes widened as she took in the sight of him. How could she have forgotten this? He was erect, long and thick. The head was glistening with moisture.

‘If you keep looking at me like that, this will be over before we’ve even started.’

Sasha looked up, mortified. There was an echo of a memory now, feeling the same way, gauche. Inexperienced. Out of her depth. But before she could focus on it, Apollo was taking her by the hand again and leading her to the bed.

He sat down on the edge and pulled her in front of him. He slowly pulled the dress down over her hips, leaving her standing before him in just skimpy lace underwear.

He spanned her waist with his hands and tugged her forward, pressing kisses against her exposed skin, mouth and tongue finding a nipple and sucking it into his mouth. Sasha gasped and clutched his head, losing all sense of reason and sanity at that delicious tugging sensation.

Her legs finally gave way and he caught her, placing her back on the bed, coming over her on two hands. His eyes were glittering.

He claimed her mouth again in a kiss that felt almost desperate. It resonated inside Sasha and she matched him, stroke for stroke, reaching for him.

Apollo’s hands were on her breasts, cupping them, thumbs stroking her sensitive nipples. Tension pulled tight low inside her. She felt empty, hollow. She needed him to obliterate those disturbing dreams. To replace them with reality. To finish what they’d started earlier, exactly as he’d promised.

Ever since she’d woken in the hospital with nothing but blankness in her brain, she’d felt rudderless. Here in Apollo’s arms, his mouth fused with hers, she felt anchored again.

Safe.

He pulled back and Sasha realised how fast her heart was beating.

His mouth trailed across her jaw and down to her neck. She was panting. And her breaths got even faster when his hands expertly dispensed with her underwear.

His torso lay against her belly. Her thighs were spread wide to accommodate his body. His mouth lingered on her breast, teasing. She let out a little moan of distress and he looked up at her. ‘Patience, little flame, patience...’

He dipped down lower, spreading her legs even further apart and he just looked at her there. A moment ago she’d been breathing like she’d run a marathon and now she couldn’t breathe at all.

When Apollo put his mouth on the centre of her body she nearly wept.

She knew this. It hadn’t been a dream.

Apollo was so drunk on the taste and feel of Sasha’s body under his mouth, and his hands, that he almost forgot.

Almost.

At the last second, he reached for protection in his bedside drawer, ripping it open with all the finesse of a horny teenage boy and rolling it onto his penis.

He looked down for a moment after donning protection and almost came there and then. Her breasts were rising and falling with her breath, pink after his ministrations. Her entire body was flushed with arousal.

Her lips were swollen. Her eyes were huge and blue enough to make his breath catch, as if he’d never seen them before.

Making love with women had always been a short-lived thing—he’d gone through the motions dictated by society in order to find fleeting physical satisfaction—the chase, the seduction and the consummation. Invariably the seduction and the consummation never lived up to the promise. And Apollo had always chosen women who were experienced. The kind of women who understood not to ask for more. The kind of women who were not expecting anything beyond physical fulfilment.

But with Sasha there had been none of that. They’d met and combusted. There had been very little logical thought involved.

And right now all of his logical faculties were melting in a haze of lust. He notched his erection against the centre of her body, where she was so hot, and wet.

Ready for him.

He hadn’t even entered her yet but his mind was already blasting back to that night in London and the way her body had clamped so tightly around his, sending him into orbit.

Something desperate caught in his gut. It couldn’t possibly have been as amazing as that—and in a bid to try and prove to himself that he’d misremembered how amazing it had been before, Apollo thrust into Sasha’s body, seating himself deep.

He saw her eyes widen even more, colour race across her cheeks. Her hands went to his arms, fingers curling around his biceps.

For a second he couldn’t move, because in that moment he knew that the last time hadn’t been as amazing as he remembered. It had been more. And that this was going to eclipse everything.

Sasha’s hips moved tentatively and he nearly exploded. ‘Please, Apollo...make love to me.’

A thousand horses couldn’t have stopped him from obeying her entreaty. He pulled out slowly, feeling her tight muscles massage his length, and then...back in.

Sasha’s body was moving with his in ways that were totally instinctive. She had no control. She was his. Body and soul. It was as if they’d been made to fit exactly.

Apollo came down over her body, twining his fingers with hers and lifting one hand over her head. His other arm was around her back, lifting her into him, deepening his thrusts even more.

A tight coil of need was building inside Sasha, a need for this tension to end, to explode. Apollo’s rhythm was remorseless. He had the precision of a master magician or a torturer. Bringing her to the edge, keeping her there, stoking the fire but never letting it burn itself out...

Sasha cried out brokenly, her body dewed with sweat, her mind incoherent with need. ‘Please... I...’

‘Look at me, Sasha, look at me.’

Something inside Sasha went very still. She forced her eyes to focus on Apollo’s face. That flicker was there again, but more than a flicker... Her name. It was wrong.

Apollo was saying, ‘What do you need, little flame?’ He moved and sent fresh tremors through her body.

Her thoughts scattered, flickers forgotten. She couldn’t think, she could only feel. ‘You...’ she said brokenly. Apollo’s powerful body moved over her, into her. Stealing her breath and her sanity.

She remembered this.

Being with him like this.

The next moment Apollo touched Sasha so deep and hard that she cried out as ecstasy tore her apart. Seconds later, Apollo convulsed with pleasure and his broken cry of ‘Sasha...’ echoed around the room.

She went very still deep inside, even as the powerful waves of ecstasy held her in their grip. Something cataclysmic had just happened. Shockwaves slowly obliterated the effects of the intense orgasm as the knowledge sank in.

At that moment of peak union, every cell in her body had rejected his calling her by another woman’s name.

Because she wasn’t Sasha at all. She was someone else entirely.

She remembered now.

She remembered everything.

Apollo was barely conscious when he felt Sasha wriggle out from underneath him, every touch of her body against his sending fresh flutters of need into his blood. Again. Theos.

He flipped onto his back just as he saw a sliver of pale curve of skin disappear into the bathroom and out of sight.

He was stupefied in the aftermath of one of the most erotic encounters of his life. The fact that the other most erotic encounter had been with the same woman made an uneasiness prickle over his skin.

But then his whole body went still when he heard the sounds of retching coming from the bathroom. He sprang out of bed and went to the doorway. The toilet was discreetly tucked away behind a wall and something held him back from intruding. ‘Sasha? Are you okay?’

Nothing. Then a weak-sounding ‘I’m okay, I’ll be out in a minute.’

Apollo’s mind raced. Had he been so consumed with his own insatiable need that he’d assumed Sasha had been with him all the way? He went cold—had he? But no. He could remember her nails digging into his hands as she’d begged him to keep going.

‘Don’t stop.’

He pulled a pair of sweats out of a drawer and put them on. He went back over to the bathroom door. Now he could hear the shower running—also hidden from view by a glazed glass wall. He paced back and forth for what seemed like ages, and then the water finally stopped.

He gave her a few minutes to get out, dry herself. He heard nothing. Impatience and something that felt like a tendril of fear made him say, ‘Sasha? Are you sure you’re—?’

But then suddenly she appeared, enveloped in a white towelling robe, and Apollo sucked in a breath. She looked like a ghost. Ashen.

Her hair hung in wet tendrils over her shoulders and the red looked dark against the white robe covering her body. He stepped back so she could come into the bedroom. She scooted past him, her eyes huge. Haunted.

Apollo’s hands fell to his sides. ‘What is going on, Sasha?’

She’d backed away into a corner, looking at him but not really seeing him. It was eerie. And then her gaze focused on him and her saw her throat move. She said in a broken-sounding voice, ‘That’s just it. I’m not Sasha.’

Apollo shook his head as if that might help him understand what she was saying. ‘I’m sorry, what are you talking about?’

He noticed that she was trembling violently now. He cursed and went towards her, catching her hands. They were icy. Her teeth were chattering.

He drew her down to sit in a chair and knelt before her. Concern punched him in the gut. ‘Should I get a doctor?’

She shook her head. ‘N-no. I don’t... I think it’s just sh-shock. I can remember ev-everything. My memory. It’s back.’

Apollo went very still. He’d actually forgotten for a moment. A cold finger traced down his spine. He’d become so used to this Sasha. He forced himself to focus. ‘Are you in pain? Is your head hurting?’

She shook her head, more hair slipping over her shoulder. She looked very young. She looked scared.

He stood up. ‘If I leave you for a minute, will you be okay?’

She nodded jerkily. ‘I think so.’

She watched Apollo leave the room. She felt numb. She didn’t even feel herself trembling but she could hear her teeth. She clamped her mouth shut and tried to wrap her head around what had just happened.

It had been the way Apollo had said, ‘Sasha, look at me.’

At that moment in her head, a very clear voice had said, But I’m not Sasha.

And then, when he’d said Sasha again, everything in her had rejected it, even as a powerful climax had torn her apart.

As if she’d known all along but had just blocked it out—she now knew everything. All the pieces of the puzzle were sliding back into horrific place.

She heard a noise and looked up to see Apollo return. He was holding a bottle and two glasses.

He said, ‘Brandy.’ He poured her a shot and handed her a glass. When her hand shook too much he put his hand around hers and lifted it to her mouth. She drank and winced as the fiery liquid burnt down her throat into her stomach. It worked almost instantly, sending out comforting tendrils. Creating a warmth between her and the numbness that had taken hold.

The shudders started to subside slowly.

Apollo poured himself some brandy and slugged it back. He held up the bottle. ‘More?’

‘A tiny bit.’ She didn’t want to become insensible, not when her mind was actually functioning again. She took another small sip and the warmth extended from her stomach out, creating a calming effect.

Apollo sat on the edge of the bed. After a minute he said, ‘So, do you want to tell me what’s come back exactly? How much of your memory?’

She forced herself to look at him. What they’d just shared... She knew that would be the last time he’d ever allow intimacy between them once she had finished telling him what she had to.

‘All of it. Everything.’

‘Why are you saying you’re not Sasha?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Because I’m not. I’m Sophy. Sophy Jones. Sasha is...was...my twin sister.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

SOPHY COULD SEE Apollo try to absorb this. Eventually he said, ‘Twins.’

She nodded. She felt sick. Again.

He stood up. ‘What the hell is this...some kind of joke? Now you’re trying to convince me you’re someone else? Did you ever have amnesia?’

Sophy stood up, even though her legs felt like jelly. ‘The accident...happened. It was real. Sasha was driving, she’d picked me up from the airport.’

‘Well, if you’re a twin, and she was driving, where is she now?’

She was driving manically up a winding road, speaking so fast that Sophy couldn’t understand half of what she was saying. And then she turned to Sophy.

‘You have to seduce him, Soph,’ she said. ‘He wants you, not me. Isn’t that ironic? He wouldn’t sleep with me—he knows the baby doesn’t exist now. But if you sleep with him you can get pregnant. Then there will be a baby.’

Sophy looked at her sister, her insides caught in a vice of anxiety and confusion. ‘Sash, what are you on about?’

And that was when Sasha took a bend too fast.

Sophy could see that they were too close to the unprotected edge and she called out. Sasha slammed on the brakes but it was too late.

They stopped right on the edge, the front of the car tipping over. Sophy felt nothing but blood-draining terror as the ravine appeared below them, narrow, deep and dark.

She said, ‘Sasha, don’t move.’

She pushed through the gut-churning terror to open her door carefully and undid her seat belt. If she could inch out of the car then the weight would be redistributed...

Sasha was crying. ‘Soph, I’m so sorry... I should never have done this to you. I’ve ruined everything.’

Sophy looked over and saw blood trickling down Sasha’s forehead. She must have hit her head on the wheel.

She said, in as calm a voice as she could muster, ‘Sash, don’t think about that now. Just look at me, and keep looking at me—not down. I’ll get you out.’

Sophy put her leg out of the car and felt for the ground. Then she eased her body so that she was perching on the seat, her feet on the edge of the cliff.

She looked back at her sister. ‘Keep looking at me, Sash.’

Sophy kept her eyes on Sasha while she reached out to try and get hold of something that might anchor her if she jumped free of the car.

But at that moment a strange expression crossed her sister’s face and Sasha said, ‘I’m sorry, Soph, but I won’t take you down with me.’

And then, before Sophy could stop her, Sasha was reaching across and pushing Sophy out of the car.

Sophy fell into space, her breath strangled in her throat, and then she landed on a hard surface, the breath knocked out of her body.

The only thing she heard before blackness consumed her was the faint sound of metal crashing far below her...

Sophy looked at Apollo.

Sasha was gone.

She tried to answer Apollo’s question but her voice sounded very far away.

‘She’s in the car... I couldn’t get her out. She’s dead.’

And then, like when she’d landed on that ledge, far above the bottom of the ravine, darkness came over her again like a comforting cloak.

The next few hours passed in a blur. Sophy was aware of coming round and a concerned doctor asking her some questions. Olympia had helped her to dress and then they’d been flying over the sea with Apollo’s voice in her ear.

‘Are you okay? We’re nearly there.’

When they reached the bright hospital in Athens where a team of doctors and nurses was waiting for them, Sophy knew that, as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t hide from the painful reality waiting to be unearthed from the depths of her newly returned memory.

‘It would appear that the trauma of the crash, of seeing the car disappear with her sister in it, along with the bump to her head, caused a classic case of trauma-induced amnesia. And, because her sister was in the accident, she blocked out everything about her sister, which was her whole life. Effectively.’

Apollo was silent. Taking this in. He was standing outside the private suite at the hospital with the same doctor who had treated Sasha—Sophy—after the accident.

Theos. Even now it was hard to get his head around it. No wonder he’d always thought of her as so pale. She’d been a different woman. He realised now that all those little anomalies he’d noticed since the accident hadn’t been anomalies.

He didn’t think he’d ever be able to excise the image from his mind of Sophy crumpling before him like a ragdoll and the terror he’d felt as he’d waited for the island doctor to arrive.

She’d come round at the villa but she’d retreated to some numb place Apollo couldn’t reach. Even if the doctor hadn’t recommended it, Apollo would have returned to Athens as soon as possible to seek further treatment.

Through the window he could see a detective talking to Sophy now. She was still deathly pale. Any lingering doubt he might have had about whether or not she’d been lying about the amnesia was well and truly gone.

It was too huge to absorb and try and figure how he felt about this, and the fact that Sasha—his wife, however inconvenient she’d been—was now dead.