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“Have you not?” A strange look passed over his face.
“No. I haven’t. You’ve never invited me. Well, it’s not like we really hang out.” Anymore. “We just happen to make a wide circle around each other at many of the same gatherings, and kind of, pass close enough two or three times in an evening to say ‘lovely to see you, how about this shrimp cocktail? Delightful? Yes, delightful!’ But no, we don’t hang out.”
Not by accident. After her big Ajax-induced heartbreak she’d needed to push him away. Needed to give herself some time to erect stronger barriers.
“And I don’t have parties,” he said, his voice comically serious.
“So, that mystery’s solved. That’s why I’ve never been here.”
The car stopped and she scrambled out of it, not willing to wait for Ajax or his driver to open the door. The further away the wedding got, the weirder she felt in her dress. The edgier she felt in general.
Every time he’d kissed her, the fog of fantasy had closed in around them and it had seemed a dream. Now, standing in front of his glass-and-steel house, the sun’s harsh light bathing her skin in heat, the breeze coming up from the sea blowing the skirt of her wedding dress around her ankles, it all felt much too real.
“Can we go inside?” she asked. “I’m overheated.”
“As you would be in that dress.” He led the way to the house, and she followed, relief washing through her when they entered the cool stone foyer.
“Are you all right now?”
“Better, thank you.” She folded her hands and put them in front of her, the folds of her skirt hiding them.
“Hopefully your things will be here soon. I imagine that is quite uncomfortable.”
She looked down and took a breath at the same time, her breasts trying to escape the bodice. Again.
Her things. Because she was expected to live here. To drop everything for this. For him. Because he wanted it to look real.
“So,” she said, her voice tight, her next words escaping before she had the chance to think them through, fueled by her nerves, by her need to know what he was thinking. What he might ask of her. “Are we about to consummate this marriage?”
“What?”
“You said...you said you were so eager to consummate, and you’re having my things sent here. You want to get on that?”
“I think not,” he said, dark brows drawn together, his grasp of her sarcasm clearly loose at best. “Certainly not tonight.”
“What exactly is the marriage going to be? And if not tonight, do you see it happening in the future?”
“I wanted to present a certain front to the press. That’s all. Per the agreement we signed this afternoon, we have to stay married for five years before the deal is finalized, or ownership of the company defaults to...”
“It would go to Alex, wouldn’t it?”
“Considering your father’s health? And if he stays with your sister that long? Likely. That means whatever happens, this marriage is not going to be quick and easy. Even then...even then perhaps it would be best for us to consider making this arrangement permanent. However, you have just stepped in at the last minute—I’m hardly going to force you upstairs to ravish you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “That’s not what I...”
“You were the one who asked,” he said.
“Just making things clear. We did get married today, and you did make a comment about consummation,” she threw back.
“So you’re offering me your body, as well? Right now? How about here? I could dismiss my staff, or hell, they’re paid to look the other way, why bother dismissing them? Would you like me to tear your dress off and have you against the wall?”
His voice was rough, unsteady, like nothing she’d heard from him before.
She’d pushed him to a place she hadn’t intended, the conversation not seeming as absurd as she’d imagined when she’d first spoken the words. There was an edge of danger, reality to all of this. She’d never seen him like this. This close to losing grip on his control.
Being in the path of it was almost frightening. But she was close to the edge, too. She felt vulnerable and at a disadvantage, two things she hated. And pushing at his control made her feel like she had even more of it.
“I could, Leah. Some women like that. Or, if you prefer I could take you upstairs and make you my wife for real. But the thing is, I would be doing it because I’m angry. At her. I would think of her. She is the only woman I have ever loved, and she walked away from me on our wedding day to be with someone else. Someone I despise. If I were with you,” he continued, his voice rough, “it would be to get back at her. I’m a man—never forget that. I could think of anything and get it up while I parted your thighs. It would hardly make you special. Yes, I could have you. But the question is, right now, would you want me?”
His words shouldn’t hurt. But they were so cold, so hard, they cut through her defenses, straight to her heart.
But she wouldn’t let him see.
“You loved her?” she asked.
“I love her,” he said. “Years of loving someone isn’t erased by one act. As convenient as it might be.”
“I suppose not.”
The whole thing made her pride burn. How adamant he was about not wanting her. And at the same time, she looked into his dark eyes and realized his own pride was savaged. Realized how hard this was for him.
He’d lost the woman he loved. He had married someone else. Someone he had no feelings for. He was looking at her and seeing a broken dream. No matter how strong her armor, she felt the impact of that like a battering ram against the steel.
“I think I’ll go to my room then, since you’re not interested in a quick consummation,” she said, her tone tart, her expression as neutral as she could get it. “Good night.”
He nodded once. “Tomorrow, we’ll come up with a plan.”
“I look forward to it.”
Maybe a night of sleep would help her figure out what she was doing. Help her figure out what had happened to her.
And what they were going to do about it.
CHAPTER THREE
AJAX WOKE UP without a hangover. Because he hadn’t been able to bring himself to drink. As Leah had observed, he didn’t drink alcohol. He prized his control far too much. Vice was the downfall of man.
The need for a certain high, whether it be from alcohol, drugs or sex was responsible for much of the evil in the world. Something he’d lived at one point in time. Something he’d witnessed in horrific detail. And something he’d done his best to destroy, even if it was only one small piece of it.
He did not let vice own him. Not anymore. He didn’t even give it a foothold on his soul.
Rachel leaving wasn’t reason enough to give that up. But, Theos, it burned his pride. He hadn’t imagined pride had such a place in his life, but apparently it did.
He stalked down the stairs, wearing nothing but a pair of black pants, not bothering to get dressed. He was not in the mood to deal with much of anything or anyone.
He stalked through the house and into the dining room, where the one thing he couldn’t avoid dealing with was sitting, perched on the edge of a chair, a cup of coffee in her hands, her whiskey-colored eyes round. She looked very like a lost child. And he had no patience to deal with it. Any of it.
“I trust you slept well?” he asked, attempting civility because regardless of his feelings it was the appropriate way to treat one’s wife. Or so he imagined.
“Not in the least,” she returned, her voice crisp.
Her dark, curly hair was tied up, a little puffball on top of her head, and she was wearing a baggy sweater, the sort that made generous breasts blend into a woman’s waist, concealing any nice attributes her figure might possess.
Not that he cared. Her figure was the least of his concerns.
“If the mattress is a problem for you, a new one can be ordered.”
“I don’t think it was the mattress so much as the unexpected acquisition of a husband, but I could be wrong. Maybe the sleep surface was too firm.”
“You seem a bit off this morning.”
Her fingers flexed around the cup, giving the impression of claws. “Do I?”
He found he wanted to push her. He was spoiling for a fight and he couldn’t say why. He’d never tried to pick a fight for no reason in his life. He’d grown up in such a volatile environment, and he’d learned early on that the quickest way to an early death, or at the very least a world of pain, was to cause trouble.
Keeping his head down, doing as he was told, all while planning, planning and strategizing, finding a way out—that was the way to survive.
Today, he didn’t just want to survive. He wanted to fight. It seemed a perfect substitute for getting drunk.
“Hardly the blushing bride,” he said. “You look like hell, to be honest.”
“Are you always such an ass?”
Good. She was getting angry. That was what he wanted. What he craved right now.
“Perhaps you’ve never had the chance to really get to know me before now, though, in the interest of full disclosure, I am in a bloody bad mood this morning.”
“I’m glad to know this at least qualifies as a bad mood. Why are you taking it out on me?”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know why his control was fraying. Why he wasn’t being self-contained. Why he was suddenly incapable of maintaining an iron grip on emotion. “Because you’re here, agape mou. The lucky replacement bride.”
“Would my sister be on the receiving end of this treatment? If so, I can certainly see why she ran out on the wedding.”
“If your sister were here, I daresay we might still be in bed. And I would certainly be in a better mood.”
Something flashed in her amber eyes that he didn’t like. Pain? He had gone a step too far in venting his anger. Saying things he wasn’t even certain he felt just to simply let the anger continue. Indulging emotion for once rather than sublimating it.
He didn’t know how sleeping with Rachel would make him feel. The idea of it...it had made him tense. But that was to be expected, considering the nature of their relationship, and everything else.
But sex with his wife was half the appeal of marriage to him. Everything in life had a place. A fire burning in the fireplace was all well and good. But when the fire spread outside of it, that became a problem.
Yes, things had their place. And he had been looking forward to having everything where it was meant to be.
But now the plan was upended. And he wasn’t certain of his next move. For a man who liked to plan ahead, it was disconcerting at best.
“I am sorry,” he bit out. “That was crass of me. I’m frustrated, and it has very little to do with you personally.” Except, somehow, the frustration, or rather, his inability to manage it, did seem tied to her.
She blinked, and he could see some of the tension release from her body. “Of course not. Of course. None of this really has anything to do with me personally, does it?”
“I’m glad you have such a good grasp on the situation.”
“I don’t, Ajax, not even close. What, if you’ll excuse me, in hell do you want from me? Do you want me to just hang out for the next five years, living in your house, and then go on my merry way like none of this ever happened?”
“Clearly that cannot happen,” he said.
“Clearly?”
“I would not disrespect you that way.”
“Oh, honey, after all the crap you said to me last night, you’re saying you don’t want to disrespect me?”
“I was angry.”
“Great. So was I. So am I.”
“I apologized.”
“An apology isn’t a magic healing potion, it’s just a bandage. It covered up some of my pique nicely, but it’s hardly healed.”
“Well,” he said, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet, “perhaps we can set it aside in the interest of figuring out what it is we need to do?”
“All right,” she said.
“We’re married, and we really had no other choice, all things considered.”
“Yes.”
“And we have to stay married for at least five years.”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“And I planned on marrying into your family. On keeping Holt in your family. I want to be married. I would like to have children. A real marriage suits me.”
“Oh, indeed?”
“Yes. I wanted a wife. A wife was always my end goal.”
“Except she was tall, blond, a size four and named Rachel?”
“Yes,” he said, teeth gritted. “But in the end, what difference does it make?”
“Is that really how you feel? Do I matter that little... Does she?”
“It isn’t you, Leah. I have had a plan for my life from the moment I left my father’s house. I planned to work my way up, and I did. To make a new start for myself with nothing but hard work, honesty. To never, ever set foot back on the path I was born to walk. And I have done that. I met your family, and your father and mother made me feel welcomed. Like a son. And then there was Rachel. Everything fit. It all seemed perfect. I knew the first time I saw her she was my end goal. That she would be my wife. She is the first part of my plan that has dared not to fall into place.”
“Yes, well, that’s because she’s a woman and not a business venture.”
“But we would have been perfect,” he said.
