Home to Hellas (The Challenge Series) Read Online Free

say…floater, so you can relax.”
    He pointed to a fancy box filled with neon-colored noodles, very out of place in the upscale environment. She floated on her back. “I think I’ll relax a while. You go ahead and swim. I bet you could use it.”
    “You have no idea,” he murmured, but before she could press for details, he pushed off the wall.
    Maybe she wasn’t the only one with a lot dogging her. Dorian discussing money, even in the abstract, didn’t happen. He kept business separate from his personal matters, and for him to share meant it had infiltrated life…a life he wanted her to know a bit more about. She dipped her head under the water enough to cover her ears. Her jaw ached from how hard she’d clenched at his touch, and she worked it to ease the ache.
    So many nurses, doctors, and technicians had examined her body in the last two months. She’d gone in for a routine Pap smear, an unpleasant enough task, and they’d found a few odd cells. So she’d had a second. And a third. At first she’d tried to use humor to defray the invasive procedures. She’d never been open with her sexual side and had allowed access to her body to a select few. Even though they were doctors, the point came when she began hating them for being near her. She began hating her cervix and vagina for causing problems.
    At one point, they’d scheduled tests for more invasive testing. She’d spent a week researching the procedures, psyching herself up to make it through the planned day, losing sleep and coming to terms with what a cancer confirmation would mean. The apologetic call from the lab technician who mixed up the files should have made all well, but hadn’t.
    She stood in the gentle waves and winced when her leg wobbled. As soon as she’d gotten around to accepting she didn’t have a horrible cancer, the ligaments in her knee gave out. More tests, more procedures, more…more.
    “I have never seen you so still.” Dorian leaned on the side of the pool. “I am accustomed to you always busy, always moving.”
    She winced, but remained as she was. The last year had taught her to sit still, something she couldn’t completely regret.
     
    Dorian’s heart had stuck on Jenn the first time he saw her so many years earlier. She hadn’t been the fastest, tallest, or best on the court, but the joy she wore when she played—the pure mischief in her expression—hit him deep. Madelyn had once held such a playful spirit. He’d vowed to refrain from real intimacy and new love until he found someone who shared her zest for life. Jenn did. He’d held back in respect to her youth, wanting her to live without regret.
    Seeing her in his pool, wearing the suit he’d had brought in at the last minute to replace the miniscule bikini he’d first bought, reaffirmed his desires. Yet, she was different. After each visit, he’d initiated more contact between summers. This time he’d emailed her several times and tried to call at work, finding basketball-related excuses. When his attempts went unreturned, he’d worried. Her aloof and sometimes fearful behavior now showed he’d been right to worry.
    “Tell me the rest of your events this year.”
    He maintained his distance but hated it. Her loveliness humbled him. Unlike many Americans who either lent themselves entirely to food or starved themselves thin, she curved and dipped, showing a strong beauty he respected and craved.
    He stored his secrets within, had for years. In the last few months, he’d faced them and considered himself better for it.
    She showed darkness on the surface, and he longed to reverse the pain. If she’d been hurt…his heart froze. If someone hurt her, he would find them and do as his ancestors did when someone wronged their family.
    “Well, my mother died. I lost my job because I had to take so much time off, so that sucked. I lost my apartment—”
    “You’re kidding.” He hadn’t imagined such extreme conditions. “I wish you had called