Page 26 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8
CHAPTER TEN
T HE BOOTS WERE her own but she was pretty sure that the jodhpurs, which clung in all the right places, had not been there when she left for breakfast. She suspected that one of the twins might have donated them but she decided not to question the appearance in case they had belonged to another personal female guest he had brought to the island.
She didn’t want to dwell on the idea, but it was too late. She had left the suite but she had to go back and change, exchanging the borrowed jodhpurs for a pair of jeans. They were less clingy in a sexy way than the discarded jodhpurs but she didn’t feel queasy wearing them.
Georgiou turned out to be an enthusiastic young man who was working the holidays before he started university.
He was a mine of personal information, and by the time she got to the stables—a quadrangle of purpose-built buildings housing some impressive-looking animals who watched her from their stalls—Lizzie knew all about Georgiou’s ambitions in life, and the life story of his sister, who was on a dance scholarship funded by the Aetos family and, according to her fond brother, a future prima ballerina.
The boy saw Adonis a little after Lizzie had spotted the tall, elegant figure who was wearing a white open-necked shirt, his long legs encased in snug-fitting jeans and the boots polished but well-worn.
The boy waved and left as Lizzie walked towards Adonis, who was holding two horses. The taller of the two, a black Arab, was pawing the ground, the smaller, a delicate mare with a blaze, seemed much more placid.
‘So you can ride? Not like donkeys-on-a-beach ride?’
‘I love donkeys.’
‘I thought you might,’ he said, silently adding dogs with missing limbs, anything ugly, animals that were blind, and literally anything rejected by anyone else. Lizzie Rose’s perception of the world was like learning another language.
It conflicted with any perception he had ever had, and yet at the same time was oddly attractive.
‘She is beautiful,’ Lizzie exclaimed, softening her voice as she stroked the soft muzzle and murmured approval to the little mare with the blaze. ‘Beautiful girl.’
He handed her a hard hat, which she fastened. ‘Want a leg-up?’
She nodded and found herself boosted into the saddle.
Beside her she could see Adonis control his horse gently with skill. He was totally in tune with the animal, in harmony rather than control. The two moved as one, and his attitude relaxed as the high-spirited animal caracoled.
Adonis’s last remaining concerns faded as he saw her in the saddle.
As he looked at her he felt the neat, emotionless boundaries that had always been in place with the women in his life dissolve.
His expression sobered as he recognised the danger.
The last thing in the world he wanted was a relationship with no boundaries, the sort of relationship that his parents shared.
His horse broke into a canter, and behind him he was aware of Lizzie catching up with him. She flashed him a smile that didn’t seem at all dangerous, a smile full of just the joy of the moment and utterly uncomplicated.
After an hour they had covered a lot of ground and a dozen terrains. She remarked on this to Adonis when they paused to stare at a particularly spectacular vista.
‘Yes, the island packs a lot into a small area.’
‘It’s very beautiful. I can see it must have been a marvellous place for a child to grow up.’
He touched the rim of the leather herder’s hat he wore, a hat that hid his eyes from her view.
‘In those days, a long way away from medical assistance when you break an arm, or a leg, or have a concussion.’
‘Sounds like you were reckless.’
‘Grandfather’s attitude was if it hurts you won’t do it again and if you do you get zero sympathy.’ Without a word he dismounted.
Lizzie followed suit and stood there, reins in hand.
‘The doctor tells me there is a clinical trial. A new drug or combination of them.’
‘A cure!’ she exclaimed.
‘No, not a cure, but for patients at stage four it can mean a significant extension of life.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Apparently, the old man doesn’t think so. The doctor has asked me to persuade him, but the thing is… Do I have that right? He has been through a lot of treatments and not all pleasant,’ he added with a sombre laugh. ‘A man should decide his own fate.’
Her heart ached for the moral dilemma that was clear on his face.
He swept the hat off his head and a lock of hair fell in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be asking you this. It’s not your problem, except of course it does affect you. If my grandfather lives longer you would stay married to me for longer.’
She flinched as though he had struck her. ‘When have I ever given you a reason to think I am that sort of person?’
He turned and tilted her face up to him.
‘Never. I know you are not that sort of person, but I am. I am selfish and I have to own that the idea of having you in my bed for longer makes it hard for me to stay objective about this.’ He unfastened her helmet and pulled it off. ‘It is good, isn’t it, the sex?’
She nodded, not understanding why the acknowledgement should make the emotional tears rise up in her throat.
Without a word he took the reins from her hand and tethered both horses loosely on a nearby branch.
Returning to her, he took her hand and led her to a spot where the moss was deep and springy.
Turning her to face him, he kissed her. She could feel him shaking with the strength of his restrained passion. Together they sank to the ground.
‘You must be sore…last night…’
She shook her head and wordlessly took his hand, fitting it to her breast.
It was slow and so tender that she cried when it was over, her head against his heart, hearing the sound of the life force in him and realising she had fallen in love with a man who did great sex but not love. His heart still belonged to Deb. Would it always?
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, levering himself into a sitting position as she paused in the act of gathering her clothes.
Lizzie froze and turned her head towards him.
When you make love to me…you don’t kind of close your eyes and think of Deb, do you?
For one horrific split second she thought she had said the words out loud.
‘What’s wrong?’ he repeated, his frown deepening.
Lizzie shook her head.
‘Nothing… I think something stung me,’ she prevaricated.
‘I didn’t hurt you.’
She paused in the act of fastening her bra. ‘No, of course not.’
His frown smoothed, relief sliding through him, though he searched her face, horrified at an almost visceral level at the idea of hurting her.
Lizzie was fully dressed by the time Adonis had retrieved his shirt. He continued to watch her as he fastened it.
‘You sure you are all right?’
She nodded as she clambered over a large rocky outcrop.
‘Be careful,’ he called out sharply. ‘There’s a drop.’
Lizzie had already taken several steps back. ‘So I see,’ she said as he joined her, his shirt still hanging loose.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she said, staring from a safer distance at the ocean stretched below, blue hitting the blue of the horizon.
The light touch on her shoulder broke her free of her transfixed contemplation of the dazzling seascape.
They retraced their steps and Adonis bent low to sweep up his discarded hat.
‘I love horses,’ she said, leaning low over her mount’s mane to pat her shoulder when they were both back in the saddle. ‘Honestly, if you had ever seen how much confidence it can give a kid who feels like an outsider.’
‘You?’
‘Gosh, no,’ she disclaimed immediately. ‘The stables I help out at work with children with disabilities. In a wheelchair people look down at them, in the saddle they are equal.’
‘You understand people who feel like outsiders?’
She flicked him a look from under her lashes, not liking his perception. ‘Should we be getting back?’
‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’ he asked, looking down into her face. ‘You were going to say something back there.’
‘You never talk about Deb, and I understand it must be hard, but I just wanted to say,’ she continued with a small, understanding smile of encouragement, ‘that I can listen. I mean, if you wanted to, talking helps sometimes, remembering the good bits.’
He stared down at her, his expression inscrutable. ‘I don’t want to talk about Deb.’
She immediately felt embarrassed. The sex was so intense it had created an illusion that they were much closer than they were. His closed-off expression was ample proof they were not.
‘No, of course not. I’m… Well, I’m here. Thanks.’