“How often do you fight?”
“Before moving to Grenville, I hadn’t for a few months, not since before I signed the book contract. Then…well.” He stands and goes back to the kitchen. “When I go back to work, I need to use my camera, but I also have to feel indestructible. Even if I’m not.”
Though everything inside me rebels at the idea of him plunging back into a war zone, I choke down my protest. I know better than anyone how horrible it is when someone tells you not to do what you want. To stifle what’s inside you.
I block another image of the savage, bloody Darius Hawke I hadn’t known existed until just a few hours ago.
“Did it work?” I ask. “I mean, did the fighting help with the PTSD?”
“In some ways, yeah. It stopped the nightmares at least. Put me back in control.”
Control. Just one of the reasons he’d been driven into war photography.
“Did you ever want to do anything besides be a photographer?” I set the book aside.
“When I was a kid, I guess.” He shrugs. “But the minute I looked through a camera lens, I felt changed. I could see things in a new way. And people treated me differently when I was behind a camera. Like I was holding a magic portal that could make them different too.”
“Was that when you decided you didn’t want to go to college?”
“Yeah. My father was against it, of course. We had huge fights, threats, the whole thing. Not that that was anything new. I left anyway.”
I almost ask him about his father, but Conrad Hawke is insignificant compared to Darius’s confessions.
“That was when you went to Los Angeles,” I say.
He nods. “I lived with a couple of other guys who were also starting out and as broke as I was. I hustled for work, took photos of anything that caught my eye, banged on doors of photo and news agencies. My big break was that series I did on LA graffiti artists. Got me signed with an agency, and eventually an assignment to cover an uprising in Uruguay. That was the start.”
I sit back to study him. “And for twenty years, you haven’t gotten tired of it or thought about doing something else? Living a quieter life?”
He shakes his head, but a flicker in his eyes betrays the movement. A long moment passes before he speaks.
“When I was twenty-nine, I took an assignment covering a civil war in South Sudan. I was there for three months before I was injured and ended up in the hospital. When I got out, I didn’t want to go back to the States. Couldn’t stand the idea of fast food and department stores. A friend had a room available in Greece, so that’s where I went. I figured I’d stay there until I got another assignment or made enough money to move on. Turned out the room wasn’t in Athens, but in the village of Arkenos. I told you about it.”
“Your favorite place in the world.”
“It’s right at the end of the Peloponnesian peninsula. Kind of a hidden place, off the tourist track but along the coast and protected by a rocky breakwater. Not like Volkov Bay at all. Everything in Arkenos was blue and green. I was there for a couple of months. People were friendly, but no one expected anything from me. I didn’t take any pictures. Just wandered, hiked, ate, and drank.
“There was a tavern at the end of the main street. Stone walls, wooden tables, Greek music blaring from speakers. Amazing food, beer, drinks. Local folks would show up and stay for hours—talking, playing cards, dancing. I went there every night.
“The owner was this guy who’d grown up in the village, married a girl he’d known since childhood, had four kids. Nikos. He was so damned content, you know? Always had everything he’d ever needed right there by the sea. He knew the history of the whole peninsula, went fishing every day, had a ton of friends. Everyone liked him, and his tavern was this great gathering place for the villagers to come and…be happy, I guess.”
He pauses, almost as if he doesn’t have the right words for it.
“One night I was sitting at the bar, having a beer and listening to Nikos exchanging stories and laughing with all the other guys.” He squints out the darkened window. “And I thought if I ever want to stop moving so fast, jumping on the next plane, running into conflict…if there ever comes a day when I want to slow down and breathe, I couldn’t imagine a better life than owning a little tavern in a Greek fishing village.”
Something unfastens inside me, like a rusty lock turning. I edge across the sofa, closing the distance between us. He doesn’t move away.
Tentatively, I slip my arm around his abdomen and rest my head on his chest. Everything about his body is so strong and alive—the heavy thump of his heart, the breath rushing through his lungs, his coiled muscles—it’s impossible to believe he could ever be helpless.
He folds his arm around me and presses a kiss to the top of my head. We sit together for a long time. He shifts us both until we’re lying on the sofa.
With his large frame, there’s not much room, but I’m tucked into a cozy cocoon between the sofa cushions and his powerful body. A place where nothing bad can touch me. I fall asleep to the rhythm of his breathing, like a lullaby.
CHAPTER 31
Nell
Darius once told me he woke in captivity when the sky turned the color of the Mediterranean. Though the sky above Volkov Bay is black-gray rather than blue, it mirrors the ever-changing surface of the ocean.
A thin strip of blue sweeps over the horizon like a paint stroke under the fog. I imagine it might be the color of the Mediterranean. The granite cliffs, hiding their mysterious caves and tunnels, rise like guardians on either side of the bay.
I gaze out the window for a long time. Based on the degree of lightness, it’s almost dawn. I’d shifted in sleep to half-sprawl over Darius, and his chest moves under my cheek.
When I lift my head to look at him, I find him watching me. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his expression unreadable. He’s like one of those secret, medieval manuscripts, edged with gold illuminations and coded messages.
“Remember that little chamber inside the caves?” I indicate the cliffs. “We had to walk down a narrow tunnel from the main chamber to reach it. There were all these stalactites dripping from the ceiling like melted candles, and a flat rock that I called ‘the table.’ It led to another tunnel and the outlet on the western side of the beach.”
“I remember. It was your secret hideout.”
I smile. “I loved it there. My father always talked about how dangerous those caves were with the rogue waves and riptides, but I felt like they were a haven. Like they’d protect us. I used to think I wouldn’t mind staying there forever. The way I wouldn’t mind staying here.”
He flexes his hand on my lower back. I’m worried I might have gone too far—of course, we can’t stay here forever—but I’ve always told him the truth. I’ve always known my most fervent wishes, no matter how outlandish or beyond reach, would be safe with him.
I rest my cheek on his chest again. My bare legs are tangled with his, my knee tucked between his thighs. Our bodies are so different, and yet we seem to fit. He’s hard and unyielding, with no give anywhere, but every part of me softens and fuses against him.