Page 220 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

She turned slowly, smiling, unaware of the way the silver light of the moon caught her face and made it shimmer, the way her eyes sparkled, and her hair seemed to glow. ‘Tell me something,’ she prompted, linking her hands behind his back.

‘Anything.’

Her heart trembled with a rush of power. ‘Anything? Hmm. Perhaps I’ll change my question, then.’

His gaze roamed her face in a way that pulled at her stomach. ‘What would you like to know,agapiméni?’

‘Your name,’ she said. ‘It’s kind of unique.’

He grinned. ‘You don’t think it suits me?’

‘On the contrary, there is something kind of godlike about you,’ she murmured, then laughed at his raised brows. ‘You have this kind of…all-powerful vibe going on.’

‘Do I?’

She nodded.

‘In what way?’

‘Fishing for compliments?’

‘Curious as to how you see me.’

‘Well, like the fact you’re happy to let me call the shots with what happens between us, erm, physically.’ She glanced over his shoulder, cheeks flushing with warmth. ‘I think a lot of guys would have egos that were too fragile for that.’

‘Maybe you haven’t been involved with the right kind of men before,’ he said gently, though, so her heart trembled. The boat glided out of the marina fully and into the bay. She leaned back against the railing, eyes hooked to Zeus’s face.

‘Well, that’s definitely true.’

‘Including the man who hurt you?’ he prompted, his tone light, but she felt the push of his enquiry, his desire to know and understand her.

‘Definitely him,’ she murmured.

‘And since him?’

She shook her head a little. ‘No one serious.’

His eyes bore into hers like beams. ‘Why not?’

She stilled. The feeling of freedom wavered a little. Her throat tightened. She blinked away from Zeus, but he squeezed her waist. ‘He can’t hurt you anymore.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’

‘You don’t want to talk about it?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to think about him,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘He’s ruined enough of my life. I’m not going to let him ruin this, too.’

‘Jane…’ His hand moved over her hip gently. ‘What did he do to you?’

She opened her mouth to tell him shereallywanted to talk about something else, but then her eyes found his and something strange happened. Something powerful and altering. She looked at him and felt that bubble of freedom again, or rather, a bridge to freedom.

Maybe talking about it would help? Maybe talking about it was what she needed? Lottie was the only person she’d spoken to about it in the past, and even then she’d found it hard to give more than a cursory explanation as to what had happened. She’d lived with a sense of all-consuming shame and grief, rather than admit how awful it had all been.

‘We were dating,’ she said with a rise of her shoulders. A breeze lifted off the ocean, so her hair shifted around her face, and she smelled the salt of the sea and the sweetness of her conditioner. Zeus caught the blond hairs and tamed them behind one of her ears, his hand remaining at her shoulder. Warm, silently encouraging her to continue. ‘I met him through a mutual friend, and I liked him straight away. I was seventeen, he was older, so naturally, I thought he was way, way cooler than me,’ she said with a hint of self-deprecating humour, even though it wasn’t remotely funny. ‘A lot of my friends had started seeing guys, hooking up at parties. I kind of felt weird that I wasn’t into hooking up or whatever.’

‘You were only seventeen,’ he pointed out.

She pulled a face. ‘I somehow suspect you’d already notched up some experience by that age.’