"Christ, Mills, I don't know what to do with that," he admitted, eyes wide. "I, ah, you know what, I'll send him out," he decided, rushing away, doing what bosses did best—delegating.
I turned away from the windows, looking off the deck, the stunning landscape blurry through the water in my eyes.
I felt Christopher before I heard him. His body moving in behind me, close, but not touching.
"You're going," Christopher said, his voice small, impossible to interpret.
The sound of his voice managed to rip away the control I'd been holding on to, made the floodgates fail, made the tears flow, bringing with them this awful, choked whimpering noise I had never heard myself make before.
At that, his hands sank into my hips, turning me, wrapping me up, crushing me to his chest.
"I know," he murmured into my hair, lips pressing there. "I know," he repeated, one hand running up and down my spine as my soul purged the uncertainty, the fear, the potential loss about to shake my world.
A long time later, so long that I am embarrassed even to consider how much time had passed, the tears stopped, leaving me brittle inside.
Christopher's arms released me, his feet taking a solid two steps backward, removing the temptation of contact, his dark eyes shuttered, closed down, impossible to read.
But they held mine as his face fell into grim lines.
"It was always going to end."
With that, ripping out a piece of my heart I hadn't known had started to belong to him, and walking away with it, leaving me bleeding on the deck, hand pressed over my chest, unable to convince myself that the pain was just in my head.
It was something like twenty minutes later when Quin reappeared, suitcases that didn't really belong to me in his hands.
"Come on, Mills," he said, giving me a tight smile. "Let's go get you back home."
And with no other option yet again, I followed a man toward an uncertain future I wasn't sure I wanted.
FIFTEEN
Christopher
It was always going to end.
Regardless of the truth in them, I regretted saying those words. If not as they were coming out of my mouth, then the second I saw the impact they had on the woman who had come to mean a so much to me.
She looked... wrecked.
And that was after she'd already cried into my chest, soaking my shirt through.
There was no reason my words needed to add more hurt to an already painful situation.
I had no excuse.
Except that I was suffering too.
It was a shitty explanation, if you could call it one. Being in pain didn't excuse inflicting it on others.
All I can say in my defense was... this was uncharted territory for me. It was foreign soil in a treacherous land. And I was without a map or compass or a north star to guide me.
I fumbled around like the unskilled pioneer I was.
I didn't even say goodbye to her.
I'd gone inside, went into her room, put the suitcases on the bed, and slowly set to filling them.
It wasn't long before her boss—a man by the name of Quinton Baird— moved into the room with me.
"Allow me to give you one piece of advice, Mr. Adamos," he said, moving over toward the bed, hastily zipping the suitcases, hauling them off the bed. "If you ever lead that woman around by the neck like that again, I don't give a flying fuck who you are, what allies you think you have, I will make you suffer for it."
With that, he walked out, collected Melody off the back deck, and brought her with him toward his waiting car.
I didn't even say goodbye to her.
This woman who meant more to me in a few weeks than anyone ever had in my life.
"You just let her go?" Alexander snapped a while later when he came home to find her gone.
"Was I supposed to chain her to the bed, Alexander?" I asked, not caring what time of day it was, making a beeline for the liquor cabinet.
"Maybe fight for her?" he suggested, outraged at my lack of action.
"And what would be my argument?" I asked, pouring a drink, throwing it back. "Come live with me, give up your career, leave your friends behind, forget about your homeland, and come make me dinner, and warm my bed. Because I am selfish and want you to do that for me?"
"You could have at least told her you wanted her to stay."
"Accomplishing what, exactly?" I asked, pouring another drink. "Making her feel guilty for having to leave?"
"Maybe she wouldn't have left at all." His voice was getting higher, borderline squeaky like it often did when he was upset.
"Fairy tales are nice, Alexander, but real life isn't one. Real life makes love hard." Yes, love. There was no use even trying to deny it. I didn't have the energy to even if I wanted to. "It is never convenient and easy. And it doesn't trump everything else."
"Maybe it should," he suggested, face falling.
"Maybe," I agreed, nodding. "But it doesn't. I couldn't expect Melody to give up things that I am not willing to give up. That's not fair. So I wasn't going to make her choose."
"So, that's it? It's over? You're never going to see her again?"
"Her work might bring her to Santorini some day. Never say never. But, no, I am not going to seek her out," I told him, making my way toward him to go to the door.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not a fucking masochist," I told him, storming down the hall, dropping down into the bed we'd been sharing, smelling her on the sheets.
I couldn't seek her out.
See her again.
Then lose her all over again.
Because this pain I felt spreading across my chest, snaking outward until it reached every inch of me, sinking inward until I felt the ache in my marrow?
I wasn't sure I could live through it a second time.
Three days later, we packed up and went back to Santorini.
Holden—or as Melody referred to him, The Inquisitor—had finished with my men, finding one more plant, disposing of him without my approval because, apparently, he had very little control in fits of unexpected rage that likely had nothing to do with the present moment, and everything to do with a dark past.
Things were safe.
And if I wanted to find Chernev, I needed to be back in my life, around my men, my resources. There was only so much that could be done over the phone, over email. Sometimes you needed to be present to handle business.
So we packed up; we headed home. Me, my curious men, and a sulking Alexander.
There was a stab of guilt at realizing I had done to him what I hated having done to me as a boy. I had given him a maternal figure, allowed him to get used to her, and then I let her go—ripped her out of his life.
It was my fault for thinking he was old enough to be beyond all that.
The situation with him didn't improve as the days passed. At least in Zagori, he'd been able to go out and explore. Back in Santorini, he was in lockdown once again. And he was taking his pissy mood out on me.
As if I didn't have my hands full with my own.
I managed to drown mine. In punishing physical activity, in relentless research into Atanas Chernev; his associates, his known whereabouts.
It wasn't perfect, but it managed to keep my mind focused during most of the daylight hours.