The Greek God

Chapter 15

Alex wandered restlessly around the rooms trying to get herself under control. What had she agreed to?

She looked around the palatial suite of rooms. This was no bedroom. What you would call the "bedroom" was a room two stories high and windows the same height. Everything from the bedding, rugs, couches, end tables and curtains were white or off-white. The actual wall where the enormous round bed sat was curved to accommodate the bed.

But it didn't stop there. As you walked deeper into the room, you entered yet another room, but this was a two-story closet. Alex must have stood there and gaped for twenty full minutes after Kris left. And even when she walked away, she was drawn back to stare. It was an actual two-story closet. Again, everything white, as the wrought-iron stairs led to a second row of closets. Most of the actual closets had mirrored fronts but there were open shelves as well. The first floor of the closet sported an island with drawers and cupboards. And the chandeliers, she had lost track of how many chandeliers there were in just these suites alone.

But then, as you went deeper into the cavernous room, there was an ensuite bathroom. That bathroom was bigger than her and Kris's whole apartment. It looked like something out of a Greek tragedy. The entire room was white marble, everything. In the center of the room there were four enormous Grecian columns surrounding a tub that could fit ten people with an elaborate chandelier hanging above it. One wall was the shower. The furthest wall held drawers and cupboards in the vanity that stretched the entire length of the bathroom. What could a person possibly fill all those drawers with?

She paced back to the bedroom again. What was she doing here? She wanted to run screaming from this place. Not because it made her disgusted by its grandeur but because every single second she stayed there, she was falling in love with it. Already, when she left this place she would leave a piece of herself behind.

She should just be thankful that she had even had the opportunity to witness such a grand home. And she was thankful. Her, a nobody foster kid from Maine, was standing in a palace in Greece after earning her Harvard degree. The tears that she was so good at holding back, began to slide down her face.

For all the unbelievable beauty of the home, there was a coziness to the surroundings. It just felt like the space had been created and tended with love. Maybe it had something or everything to do with these very suites that had been his mother's private space. Kris had said Apollo never went into these rooms. His father and mother's bedroom was across the hall but when Apollo's mother had needed her space, this was where she went. It was what Apollo's father had created it for.

Even as she felt the love of these rooms, she knew she didn't belong here. All her old fears and insecurities were back with a vengeance.

There was a knock on the door that blessedly interrupted her inner dialogue. Alex opened the door to find Anna, the house manager that Kris had introduced her to, standing there with a tray with coffee, tea and sweet cakes.

She opened the door wide to let Anna in.

Anna smiled and set the tray down on the coffee table. She started to speak but looked like she was searching for words.

Alex told her in Greek that she spoke the language and was very comfortable conversing in such.

Anna smiled and told her that she had put her clothes away in the closet and that dinner was at seven.

Instantly Alex felt anxious and told Anna that she was tired and would just stay in her room and go to bed early. She asked Anna to relay the message to Apollo.

She was the worst coward but how long could she continue to hide the fact that she was a hot mess whenever he was around. The last thing Apollo Stavros wanted was another woman vying for his attention. He would probably make a date tonight once he was told he didn't have to babysit his houseguest.