Page 224 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘I feel ready,’ she disputed.

He hesitated, because wasn’t that sort of the point? That this was up to Jane, to call the shots? He didn’t want to disregard her wishes, but he needed to be sure. She’d said she trusted him; he wasn’t going to abuse that trust.

‘And you’ll still feel ready tomorrow,’ he promised. He kissed her lips and pulled her against his side, her naked body so utterly perfect and tempting that he honestly thought he deserved some kind of medal for holding back. Again.

‘Tell me a story,’ she murmured, head resting on his chest.

He thought about that for a moment. ‘What would you like to hear?’

‘Tell me about you,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it was like growing up as Zeus Papandreo.’ She stifled a yawn as he began to slowly stroke her back, drawing lines along the edge of her spine.

‘One of my earliest memories,’ he began, ‘was out on the water.’

Another yawn.

‘Myyayawas from an old fishing village, and when she married my grandfather, she stepped into a world of unimaginable wealth and comfort. Though theirs was, I have to say, a very traditional arranged marriage.’

‘Arranged?’ She shifted slightly so she could look up at him.

He made a noise of agreement. ‘Our family business is bound up in a conservative clause that requires whoever is at the helm to have married before taking ownership. It’s been that way for hundreds of years.’

Jane’s skin paled slightly and he half laughed.

‘Don’t worry, Jane. I’m not building up to a proposal.’ She glanced away quickly, her eyes impossible to read when they were focused anywhere but him.

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Nor did I,’ he assured her. ‘Anyway, my grandfather proposed when he was twenty years old, and myyayawas only eighteen,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘She went from living a modest life in a salty old village to suddenly being at the front and centre of Greek’s elite.’

‘That must have been a huge adjustment,’ Jane murmured, though there was something in her voice that still spoke of hesitation.

‘She took it in her stride, apparently,’ Zeus said. ‘But she never forgot her roots, and my grandfather didn’t want her to. They came out onto the bay often. Not in a boat like this—yayawould turn over in her grave,’ he admitted with a throaty laugh. ‘This is not her idea of a boat. For her, you had to be able to feel the movements, touch the sea, to know that the ocean is a living beast, requiring respect and fear, awe.’

Jane sighed. ‘That sounds so romantic.’

‘It might sound romantic. In reality, I spent a lot of the time that first year hanging over the edge, losing my lunch to seasickness.’

She laughed at that. ‘Less romantic.’

‘A lot less.’ He flashed her a grin. ‘But she was determined to turn me into a fisherman, of sorts.’

‘What about your father?’

‘It was never his thing.’

‘And you?’

‘I loved it. After I got over the shock of the open waters in a boat not much bigger than a car,’ he laughed. ‘I swear she did it just to throw me in at the deep end. But it worked. There was something so thrilling about being out there with them, feeling the turn and churn of the waves, knowing that I had to keep my wits about me and rely on the people I was with.’ His voice took on a slightly harder edge then, because he’d often reflected on how false the message had been that his grandparents had taught him.

To rely on your shipmates, and everything would be fine.

Even when it simply wasn’t possible to give such a guarantee in this life.

Zeus’s expression tightened but he quickly dispelled the thought, because Jane’s breathing was growing slow and rhythmic, her head heavy against his chest. He reached down beside him to a basket that held several rolled-up blankets and unfurled one over her. Anything to keep her just like this.

‘What else?’ she murmured groggily, so he resumed the gentle rubbing of her back, even as her eyes drifted shut.

He began to speak then of the time their boat had almost capsized, but he kept his voice soft and low, and after a few minutes she was fast asleep, and he was glad. He rested his head back into the pillows and tried not to think about his childhood anymore. Not about those halcyon days, when the sun had shone, and the water had been cool and reassuring and everything had seemed impossibly perfect. Not about the way his mother’s diagnosis had dislodged every bit of his certainty and overpowered him with anger and doubt. Not about the way her death had changed him, permanently. He tried to focus purely on the here and now, on how good Jane felt pressed to his side, and as he drifted off to sleep, whilst his brain was occupying that liminal space between waking and not, he let himself imagine that she was the woman he proposed to, after all, and that rather than a cold, practical marriage of convenience, he ended up with someone warm and perfect, in all the ways he’d long ago learned to mistrust…