He pulled him aside to speak to him privately.
‘You have a motorbike, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Your Highness.’
‘Is it here at the palace?’
‘It’s in the staff courtyard.’
‘I need to borrow it.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘Do you know how to ride?’
‘You have the time it takes us to walk there to teach me. Let’s go.’
* * *
Amy stared out of the oval window with a heavy heart.
She was glad she’d come.
It had been a snap decision, driven by a sense of certainty that she had to go, to pay her respects to the man for whom she’d devoted almost six months of her life to creating an exhibition of his life.
Watching Helios and his brothers walking with military precision in front of the coffin, their gazes aimed forward, knowing how they must be bleeding inside...
The crowds had been so thick there had been no chance of Helios catching sight of her, but even so she hadn’t taken any chances, keeping a good distance from the barrier.
What good would it have done for him to see her? The Princess had been there for him, just as Amy had known she would be, travelling in an official car with Theseus’s and Talos’s fiancées.
A steward made his sweep down the aisle, checking everyone’s seat belts were fastened. The plane began to move. Over the speakers came the sombre voice of the captain, welcoming them all to this flight to London.
The ache in her chest told her she’d been wise to get a return flight home straight after the funeral. Any longer and the temptation to call Helios and seek him out would have become too great to resist. One night on Agon was as much as she’d been prepared to risk.
She’d taken her mother’s advice to heart, and God knew she was trying to get herself an orange.
She’d taken up her old job at the museum and enrolled in a postgraduate course on the Ancient Romans, which she would start in September. She figured she might as well expand her knowledge so that her life wasn’t all about Agon and its people, whether from history or the present. There was a big world out there to explore and learn about.
She’d kept herself busy, working by day and socialising by evening. It was the nights that were unbearable. Despite the mild heatwave sweeping through the UK, her nights were always cold.
Somehow she would find a way to forget him.
The plane had reached the place where it would turn around and face the runway.
The woman sitting beside her gripped the armrests, her knuckles turning white in anticipation of take-off.
But no sooner had the plane started its journey down the runway than it was brought to a stop.
It took a while before the passengers realised something was wrong, and then low murmurs began spreading throughout the plane.
The voice of a stewardesses came over the speaker. ‘Could passenger Miss Amy Green please make herself known to a member of the cabin crew?’
Amy barely heard, her attention caught by a motorcyclist, speeding over the tarmac, heading towards them. Behind him was a buggy, with two men in orange high-visibility jackets towing metal steps. There was something about the figure riding the motorbike...
‘Amy Green? Miss Amy Green—please make yourself known to a member of the cabin crew.’
With a jolt she realised it was her they were asking for. Tearing her gaze away from the window, she raised a hesitant hand.
A stewardess bustled over to her, looking harassed. ‘Amy Green?’
Amy nodded, bemused and not a little scared.
‘I need you to come with me.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve been asked to escort you off this flight.’
‘But why? Have I done something wrong?’
The stewardess shook her head. ‘I don’t know why.’
The couple she was sitting next to had to get out of their seats to let her pass, but it wasn’t long before she was trailing the stewardess to the exit, her face burning with mortification, her brain burning with confusion.
What the hell was going on...?
At the rear exit of the plane the crew were all staring at her unabashedly, no doubt wondering if she was some kind of fugitive.
Was she a fugitive? Had she unwittingly committed a crime that necessitated her being escorted off a plane and arrested?
And then the door opened, the metal stairs were hastily bolted on and she stood at the threshold, looking to see if a dozen police officers were waiting at the bottom to take her into custody.
The only person waiting for her was the motorcyclist she’d spotted. He sat astride the bike, his helmet resting under an arm...
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AMY’S HEART LEAPT so hard it almost jumped out of her mouth.
Behind her came a collective sigh from the crew. One of them squeezed her shoulder. ‘Go to him.’
But she couldn’t. Her legs had turned to jelly.
She covered her mouth, unable to believe her eyes.
What was he doing here?
His handsome face immobile, he got off his bike, placed the helmet on the seat and climbed the stairs with heavy treads.
It was only when he was at eye level with her and she was able to gaze into the liquid dark brown eyes she loved so much that Amy dared to breathe.
‘Helios,’ she whispered, raising a hand to brush it against his cheek, to feel for herself that he truly was there and that this wasn’t some dream she’d fallen into.
But no. No dream.
His cheek was warm and smooth, his jawline rough, at the stage where stubble was just starting to poke through the skin. His warm, familiar scent played under her nose.
‘Sneaking away again?’ he asked, in a voice that was meant to be humorous but that cracked on the last syllable.
‘What...? What are you doing here?’
His eyes bored into her, emotion seeping out of them. ‘I’m taking you home.’ Then he took the final step up and lifted her into his arms. ‘I’m taking you home,’ he repeated.
Another collective ‘Ooh...’ sounded from behind her, and as Helios carried her down the steps a round of applause broke out. One of the men in high-visibility jackets, who was waiting by the buggy, wolf-whistled.
Amy heard it all, but none of it penetrated. All her senses were focused so intensely on her lover that everything else had become a blur.
At the bottom of the steps Helios placed her carefully on her feet.
Suddenly the biggest, widest grin spread over his face. ‘Would Despinis Green like a ride on my bike?’
Laughter bubbled up in her throat and broke through her daze. She flung her arms around him. ‘Yes. Please. Take me anywhere.’
* * *
Amy kept a tight hold on Helios as he drove them through the streets of Resina. She didn’t have to hold him tightly—the dense throng of partying people meant he had to ride at a snail’s pace—but she needed to. Keeping her cheek pressed into the solidity of his back and her arms around his waist grounded her, helped her accept the reality of what had just happened.
Soon they had passed through the capital and were out in the verdant countryside, with Agon’s mountains looming before them. Helios found a road that took them up Mount Ares, the rockiest of Agon’s mountains, past goats casually chewing grass by sheer drops, taking them higher and higher until they arrived at a clearing.
He turned the engine off and clicked the stand down to keep the bike upright before helping her off.
She looked at him, laughing as she properly noticed for the first time that he’d ridden with her up a mountain in a pair of handmade black trousers, black brogues, now covered in dust, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up that had probably been as crisp as freshly baked pie earlier but was now crumpled and stained.
‘Your clothes are ruined.’
He shrugged, his eyes sparkling. ‘I couldn’t care less.’
Taking her hand, he led her to a flat grassy area and sat down, enfolding her in his arms so her back rested against his chest and her head was tucked beneath his chin.
‘When I was a child my brothers and I would race to the top of this mountain. When we’d all reached the summit we would come down to this clearing and eat our picnic. This spot has the best view of the sunset on the whole of Agon.’
The sun was already making its descent, causing a darkly colourful hue to settle over the island.
‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked eventually.
‘Your museum told me you’d gone to a funeral. I guessed.’
‘But how did you know what plane I was on?’
‘Do you really need me to answer that?’ he said with bemusement.
She smiled to herself, tightening her hold on his hands, which were still wrapped around her waist. And then she remembered why she had come to Agon today.
‘I’m so sorry about your grandfather,’ she said softly.
He kissed her head. ‘He was ready to go.’
‘I wanted to call you.’
‘I know you did. And you were right not to.’
She sighed. Now that she had come to her senses, reality was poking at her painfully.
‘How did you manage to sneak out without your bodyguards?’
‘Simple. I didn’t tell them what I was doing. The palace was so busy with the wake it was easy. Talia will have told them by now.’
‘She knows you came for me?’
‘Yes. So does Pedro.’
‘How long do we have? Here, I mean?’
‘As long as we want.’
‘But you’ll be missed,’ she said with another sigh, thinking that, however wonderful it was to be sat in his arms again, she would be dragged away from him again soon.