Ancient Greek Getaway (Patreon)

1

I never thought the sight of a bright yellow orb slowly sinking toward the sea would one day leave me literally breathless.

Though perhaps it wasn’t the sunset at all.

Six months ago, I would have blamed the body. The hormones. The goddamn pregnancy. For a long time, it had been convenient to blame almost everything on that: the sudden mood swings, the strange sensitivity to smells, the urge to burst into tears over some stupid little thing, even the fact that I could stand on this very terrace for ten minutes straight and watch the sunlight gradually turn to gold.

That explanation didn’t work quite as well anymore.

I lowered my eyes and absently ran a palm over my belly. Beneath the thin white fabric, it looked especially large, though the midwife had assured me that very morning that everything was progressing as it should and that I still had plenty of time before the birth.

A year ago, I had been an officer, and I’d considered the portal just another object the scientists were making far too much fuss over. Now I stood barefoot on marble warmed by the day’s sun, wearing a long dress belted beneath my breasts, while the baby inside me gave irritated little kicks whenever I stayed on my feet too long.

If anyone back then had told me exactly how that short order—“Go inside and take a look around”—would end, I would have assumed they were fucking with me.

“Beautiful.”

I turned toward Leander’s voice—my husband’s voice—and still occasionally stumbled over that word in my own head.

He had stepped onto the terrace so quietly that I hadn’t heard him approach. His dark red cloak was draped carelessly over one shoulder, and after the heat of the day he hadn’t even bothered tying back his long hair. Against the city awash in golden light, Leander looked exactly as a man from this world probably ought to look. Over the past year, I had nearly grown used to tunics, sandals, swords at men’s belts, and people seriously discussing the will of the gods. Yet sometimes I still caught myself thinking, with utter stupidity, that everything around me looked like an obscenely expensive historical film set.

2

“Oh… yes. Just an ordinary sunset,” I replied evenly, my eyes drifting involuntarily to his crotch before I jerked them away. Fucking body.

Leander noticed, of course. He noticed everything. There was a reason he had been appointed the archon’s strategos—essentially the commander of the city’s entire infantry. At first, I had even enjoyed seeing how quickly he picked up on things the other officers missed. He was a good soldier: experienced, disciplined, and able to keep his men firmly under control. I couldn’t help respecting him for that. Sometimes I even caught myself feeling a perfectly natural pride in my… husband.

That was usually the point where the thought began to sound very different.

Especially when that same fine soldier was standing in front of me and, instead of looking for insignia that didn’t even exist here, I once again found myself staring at the broad shoulders exposed by the open neck of his tunic.

I felt my cheeks growing warm and turned irritably toward the sea.

“I meant you, Philomela, my dearest. Your beauty outshines the sunset.”

My dearest.

God. What the fuck. I was never going to get used to this. It was as if I had fallen into some ancient love poem, except I was playing the woman who was supposed to swoon over words like that.

And the stupidest part was that I really did like it.

“You’re exaggerating.”

I turned even farther away, unwilling to let my cheeks—burning for reasons that had nothing to do with the sun—give me away completely. I pretended to be intensely interested in the ships in the harbor. Charles, what the hell have you become? You’re a combat officer who served in Afghanistan and Syria. And now you’re standing here draped in pearls, your pregnant belly jutting out in front of you, blushing because your husband—no, because some man—called you beautiful.

Just putting it that way made me want to swear aloud.

“I’ll miss you,” Leander said, coming up behind me so quietly that I hadn’t noticed and resting his hands on my shoulders.

Out of habit, I gripped them as though I meant to throw them off, but I never did. His palms were warm and heavy, and their weight on my shoulders filled me with a strange sense of calm that I did not like one bit.

3

In two days, those hands would be holding the reins somewhere on the northern road instead of holding me.

Good.

For almost a year, I had dreamed of being rid of Leander for at least a little while—of escaping his habit of deciding for both of us where we would go, whom we would receive in the evening, and why I apparently had no reason whatsoever to visit the market alone when the servants could handle it perfectly well. A few weeks without him should have felt almost like a vacation.

And yet, at the thought of it, my hand automatically settled over my belly.

“You won’t have time to miss me in just a couple of weeks,” I replied with a smirk.

“A month. Three at least.”

“Three?!”

I spun around too quickly and immediately winced as my belly pulled painfully downward. I had to support it with both hands. Leander’s gaze dropped at once.

“Philomela…”

“I’m fine,” I lied, straightening and cautiously taking my hands away from my belly. “I just didn’t expect you to be stuck there for that long.”

“I told you yesterday.”

“You said ‘military exercises.’ I thought you meant a couple of weeks, not three months.”

Leander watched me in silence for several seconds, which was beginning to irritate me. I knew that look far too well: he had already noticed something, and now he was waiting for me to admit it myself.

“I’m glad you’re worried about me.”

I swallowed. My cheeks turned pink again.

Worried?! Me?! About this man whose bed I had been forced to share simply because I had ended up in the body of this… Philomela?

Never!

It was just… damn it. If something happened to him, I would be left here alone with a baby. That was all. A perfectly rational reason not to want someone going somewhere he might get a spear shoved through him.

Especially given the customs of this place.

I knew this world well enough by now to understand that a rich young widow with a child would not remain a widow for long. The archon, Leander’s relatives, Philomela’s own family—someone would inevitably decide that I needed a man capable of managing the household and representing my interests. Then the husband I had at least grown accustomed to would be replaced by some other one.

The thought was so unpleasant that I frowned.

There. That was the reason.

4

Not because Leander was leaving.

Not because for three months I wouldn’t hear his footsteps in the mornings, wouldn’t grumble when he put his hand on my waist again as though he had every right to, and wouldn’t see that smug grin whenever he made me blush.

And certainly not because I wanted to turn around right now and tell him not to go.

“I’m not worried,” I said at last.

“Of course not.”

I glared at him from beneath my brows. Leander was smiling, and it made me want to hit him and… I hastily cut that thought short.

He chuckled softly. I turned back toward the sea, feeling the baby shift slowly inside me, and instinctively laid a hand on my belly.

“Besides,” I added more calmly, “you don’t need to personally go charging into places where you might get killed. You’re a strategos. Command your men from a distance. As far as I remember, that’s the entire point of being in command.”

“As far as you remember?”

Shit.

I froze for only an instant, but Leander noticed. Of course he noticed.

“As far as I understand,” I corrected myself with an irritated sigh. “Don’t pick apart every word.”

He said nothing for several seconds. Then his hand came down over mine.

Right on my belly.

I wanted to pull away.

I really did.

But at that very moment, the baby kicked directly beneath his palm. Leander immediately dropped to one knee in front of me and placed his other hand beside the first.

“See?” he said quietly, lifting his eyes to mine. “Even she thinks you’re worried.”

“Why do you keep insisting so stubbornly that it’s a girl?” I grumbled as usual, looking down—and instantly regretting it.

From this angle, my situation looked particularly absurd. Leander knelt before me on one knee, his dark red cloak spilling in folds across the marble, both large hands gently cradling my rounded belly. The white fabric stretched taut over it; a narrow golden belt ran just beneath my breasts, and several strands of pearls hanging from my shoulder swayed softly when I inhaled.

Once, I had looked down at my subordinates.

5

Now I was looking down at my own husband as he listened to what was happening inside me—and then my gaze caught on my nipples, hardened for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold and clearly visible through the thin white fabric.

I immediately raised my chin, but my eyes remained fixed on his face. His eyes. His lips… SHIT!

“It’s a boy,” I repeated stubbornly, forcing myself to look Leander directly in the eyes and discovering that, for some reason, this was even worse. “And I don’t understand why you ever decided otherwise.”

“Because I can feel it.”

“How sensitive of you,” I snorted. “It’s remarkable that your magnificent intuition didn’t tell you a pregnant wife might prefer some advance notice before her husband disappears for three months.”

“I gave you notice.”

“You said, ‘not for long.’”

“Three months is not long for a campaign.”

“Leander, damn you, how can one man be so unbearable?”

“I couldn’t say, my dearest,” he replied with perfect calm.

There it was again.

I rolled my eyes.

“Get up already.”

Instead, he tightened his hands around my belly and, ignoring me completely, leaned toward it as though I had ceased to be involved in the proceedings altogether.

“Don’t listen to your mother,” he murmured. “She’s angry today.”

I slowly lowered my gaze to him.

“I can hear you.”

“I know.”

“And I’m not her mother.”

Leander looked up, but he didn’t argue. Over the past year, he had somehow learned to let that particular sentence pass without comment, as if he considered it merely another one of my peculiarities that was easier to wait out.

“And you, little beauty,” he continued, addressing my belly again, “behave yourself while I’m away. Don’t make her walk too much, don’t wake her at night, and try not to arrive before I return.”

“Are you seriously talking to my belly?”

“To my daughter.”

“Your son.”

“My daughter,” Leander repeated serenely, stroking my belly with his thumb. Then he leaned closer. “And if I’m delayed and you come without me, don’t torment your mother for too long,” he continued softly, pressing his cheek to my belly. “And make sure you look like her.”

“Hey.”

“Just take your temperament from me.”

“Hey!”

6

Leander smirked without lifting his head.

“Because if you inherit her temperament, I’m afraid this house won’t survive the two of you.”

“I’m going to hit you.”

“Do you hear that?” he confided to his daughter. “She’s threatening me.”

“That’s enough!” I stepped backward.

My heel caught the hem of my dress, my body pitched back, and instinctively I grabbed the first thing in front of me.

Leander, naturally.

He rose faster than I had time to be frightened, wrapping one arm around my waist and catching me beneath the elbow with the other. A moment later I was standing with my belly literally pressed against his side.

“Careful.”

“I’m fine.”

“I can see that.”

“Don’t start.”

I tried to pull away, but Leander didn’t release me immediately—and for some reason, that irritated me far less than it should have. If anything, I was far too aware of his hand at my waist, the warmth of his body through the thin fabric, and how easily he had caught and held me when I had nearly sprawled across the marble because of my own dress.

A year ago, that imbalance of strength would have infuriated me.

Now my first thought was something else entirely: convenient.

I frowned at myself and finally slipped free.

“Call off the campaign,” I said, turning and locking eyes with him. Only several seconds later did I realize that I was sincerely trying to persuade my husband to stay home.

My husband.

To stay with me.

The realization embarrassed me so badly that I wanted to take the words back immediately—preferably along with the last five minutes of our conversation.

“I mean…” I looked away and automatically adjusted the golden belt beneath my breasts, though it was already perfectly straight. “If something happens to you, then…” I trailed off, suddenly discovering that I had no ending prepared.

Leander waited patiently.

What a bastard. He could at least have helped me out.

“I love you too,” he said calmly at last.

The words hit me like an electric shock.

“What?”

For a second, I even stopped breathing. Leander stood very close, looking at me with such composure that one might have thought he had merely stated the obvious.

7

“I said I love you too.”

“I never said I loved you.”

He stepped even closer, forcing me to tilt my head back slightly to keep looking into his eyes.

“You don’t have to,” Leander added.

“What do you mean, I don’t have to? I was just about to explain that you misunderstood everything. I asked you to stay for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with—”

He didn’t let me finish.

Leander simply bent down and kissed me.

I froze, spending another second pointlessly trying to hold on to the rest of my sentence. Then his palm settled against the back of my head, his fingers tangled in my hair, and the brief kiss deepened into the kind that made any further explanations considerably more difficult.

Fuck.

The worst part was that I didn’t even try to stop him.

Instead, I leaned closer as far as my belly allowed, gripped the edge of his tunic, and kissed him back with such urgency that within seconds I could no longer tell which one of us was kissing the other. Leander pulled me tighter against him, carefully, one palm supporting my back. I could feel his warmth and smell skin, wine, and something herbal—a scent so familiar that it only made everything worse.

Because I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

When he finally drew away, I remained there for several moments with my eyes closed, breathing hard. Then I opened them and found his smug face directly in front of mine.

“Don’t even start,” I warned him, feeling my cheeks burn.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“That exact look on your face is what I mean.”

Leander’s smile broadened. He briefly brushed his thumb across my cheek and stepped back.

“I’ll return before our daughter is born.”

“Son,” I corrected automatically.

“Of course.”

“And if you get yourself killed out there, I’ll kill you myself.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, my dearest.”

He turned and walked back into the house.

“And I still never said I loved you!” I called after him.

Leander didn’t even turn around.

“I know.”

A few seconds later, his footsteps faded.

I remained alone in the middle of the terrace, still clutching the fabric of my dress near my belly, and only then did I realize that I was smiling.

The smile vanished at once.

“Bastard,” I muttered under my breath, and turned back toward the sunset.