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The boy she had proceeded to snipe at and torture with flippant remarks every chance she got. Reminding him that he wasn’t really a St. James. Because she’d been nothing more than a little girl with a crush and she’d handled it like they were on the playground.
But though things had never been easy between Apollo and her, he’d been very close with her father. But as close as Apollo and her father had once been, they were just as distant now.
And she had been thrown into the middle of that divide. Tossed into a storm she could never hope to weather. Between two alpha males locking horns. One defending his turf, the other intent on destroying it.
So take control. Do this.
“Well, I’m not going to complain about a free vacation,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. She wasn’t going to show her hand. Not to him. Wasn’t going to let him see that this mattered to her. That she was going to use this—whatever it was to him—to gain a handle on things again.
To redeem herself.
“Oh, this isn’t going to be a vacation,” he said, rounding the desk and making his way toward the door. “We will go to Greece and work. Additionally, there is a charity event in Athens that we will attend together.”
“As business associates,” she said, “I assume.”
She couldn’t even imagine her father’s reaction. If he had any idea that she and Apollo— He would be furious. Disgusted.
The idea of disappointing him like that...of losing him altogether, was something she couldn’t fathom.
Her mother had left when she’d been a child. She could barely remember her. But she remembered the hole left behind, because it was still there.
She couldn’t go through that again.
Apollo gave her a dismissive glance. “What else would we be? The entire idea is to strengthen the brand. Should there be any suspicion that the two of us had—”
“There’s no need to keep bringing it up.”
“You’re the one who seems to persist in bringing it up.”
Elle crossed her arms, shaking her head, her ponytail swinging back and forth. His eyes followed the motion.
“You should wear your hair down,” he said.
She abruptly stopped shaking her head. “I didn’t ask you for fashion advice.”
“And yet, I’m giving it. Because you desperately need it.” He looked at her, his expression critical. “Yes, you need a slightly younger look. One that isn’t quite so...ironed.”
“Well, my clothes are ironed. Would you have them look rumpled?”
“I would have you look slightly less like a matron.”
She frowned. “I do not look matronly. I have a very classic sense of style. It’s chic.”
“You certainly know how to flatter your figure.” He didn’t bother to hide that he was looking. “But you need more than that to be the kind of brand that people remember.”
“I’m not a...brand,” she sputtered, “I’m a woman. Where are you going?” He had walked past her, heading for the door.
“I thought I might go and speak to some of the staff.”
“No,” she said, hurrying after him. “I do not wish to unleash you on them. I don’t want you talking about how their jobs may be in jeopardy when you make final decisions.”
“Their jobs may well not be in jeopardy if you don’t fight me every step of the way. People like a public face. You can provide that. You can be strongly associated with the brand, and in effect, become a brand yourself. A young, professional woman. Brilliant, fashionable. You can be that woman.”
She rolled her eyes. “That does not sound like—”
“It isn’t a negotiation. Either you comply with my plan, or you are subject to Plan B, which is making sweeping cuts and doing my best to lift profit margins that way.”
She made an exasperated sound, following him down the hall. “I wish you wouldn’t keep walking away from me.”
“I have places to be. I want to take a look at the different departments. Get a body count. So to speak.”
“We are talking.” She scampered after him. “Of course I will agree to go.”
He pushed the button for the elevator. “I’m glad to hear that. I get the feeling sometimes you’re just opposing me for the sake of it.”
“And I get the feeling that you’re an ass to me just because you enjoy it.”
He chuckled and she stepped in just as the doors began to close. “Well, you are possibly correct in that assessment. Anyway, you spent a great many years being an ass to me simply because you enjoyed it.”
She let out a harsh breath and watched the numbers on the elevator as it moved. Suddenly, she was very aware of the fact that she and Apollo were alone again. She looked at him, just a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. She tried to ignore the restless feeling between her thighs. Tried to ignore the restless feeling in her body.
After what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened again, and they were on the floor that housed the marketing department. He stepped out of the elevator and began to sweep his way through the space like a destructive wind. As he whipped by, heads turned, expressions went from relaxed to terrified.
“See that? Your mere presence lowers morale. I hope you’re happy.”
“I don’t care about morale.” He paused by one of the desks. “Hello,” he said, clearly attempting to be charming. “My name is Apollo Savas. I’m the owner of this company. What is it you do?”
The girl, a blonde who could barely be twenty-five, blinked rather owlishly. She seemed to be struck dumb by his presence. Either by the fact that he was the owner of the company, or by the fact that he was just so damn good-looking. Truly, it was a problem. Elle felt a moment of sympathy for her.
“I’m on the marketing team for the makeup line,” she said, looking a little bit thunderstruck.
“Have you been satisfied with the performance of those products?”
“Well,” she said, shuffling the papers on her desk around, “we have seen an increase in revenue this past quarter. And our relationships with vendors—”
“How do you plan to continue the increase? What do you think attracts consumers to this product? Why should they buy this instead of say...any other brand of lipstick? I am a man, I know, but I’m not certain why one sort of cosmetic might be more attractive than another.”
“I... I...”
“Enough,” Elle said. “You do not need to prod at my staff.”
He turned toward her, an amused expression on his face, and suddenly she felt like they were the only two people in the room. That little blonde might as well have evaporated into thin air.
There was no question, she was not remotely as immune to Apollo and she would like to be.
* * *
Apollo would question the purity of his motives if his motives were—in fact—ever pure. They weren’t, so he was certain there was something self-serving and wretched behind them now. Even if he didn’t know precisely what.
He had wanted to impress upon Elle the importance of her complying with his plan. When he had left her after... After the appalling lack of control that had occurred in his hotel room, he had formulated a plan to try to improve things for her company. A foolish thing, perhaps. He didn’t know why he should care about the fate of her magazine. Beyond the fact that it was a potential profit machine for him.
Perhaps it was the fact that she had become collateral damage in a war he’d never intended to bring her into. But David had placed her in direct line of the firing squad.
Apollo wasn’t a kind man. At least, no one ever accused him of being so. And he had never made it a goal to be seen that way. He had cared about very few people growing up, and it had turned out those he had cared about most had betrayed him long ago.
And so he had stolen his stepfather’s empire, started dismantling it. But he had left Elle at Matte. God knew why. He’d known in the end he would destroy it, destroy her.
Perhaps it was because he knew what it was to be caught in the consequences of the sins of the father. Hers and his. Perhaps because he knew that—whether or not Elle had been kind to him when they were younger—she was innocent here.
But now...now it was as though a veil had been stripped away from his eyes. He would have to use her. There was no other choice. There was no preserving her. That much had been made clear when he’d taken her against the wall.
It had been symbolic in many ways of that protection being destroyed. That desire to keep her safe from himself being completely and utterly ripped away.
He could no longer ignore Elle. Could no longer dance around the fact that he would have to destroy her along with her father.
He would use her. And he would discard her.
It had nothing to do with his desire to strip her naked again. To watch her pale skin flush with pleasure once more. It had nothing at all to do with that, because he was not going to allow himself the indulgence.
Indulgence was unacceptable. But revenge? That was sweet.
“Perhaps you would like to give me a tour of the rest of the department, Elle?” he asked, ruthlessly cutting off his train of thought.
“Of course.”
They moved away from where they had been standing, and she continued on down the role of desks. “Just don’t talk to anyone,” she said, her voice hushed.
“Why is it that you think you can tell me what to do when I am in my own company?”
“Because I am the boss,” she said, her tone sounding slightly petulant. “That has to count for something somewhere.”
“Sadly for you, I am your boss. Being boss of a lot of other people doesn’t give you extra clout. I am the final word. So let it be written, et cetera.”
She swept through the little space quickly. “There you have it. And now, I expect you want to be going.”
“No,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’ll head back up to your office floor and set up for a few hours, get a few things done. I do like to familiarize myself with my acquisitions.”
Elle looked livid. Her jaw set, her lips in a flat line. “Can’t you do that in your hotel room?”
The mention of his hotel room brought back illicit memories. “I could. But I want to get a greater sense for how things are running here. It is in your best interest to keep me around. I might grow attached. I might yet see the importance of this team you keep talking about.”
She said nothing, but her expression took on a rather long-suffering edge. They walked back through the office space and toward the elevators again. She pushed the button, then pushed it again when the elevator didn’t immediately appear.
“If I didn’t know better I would say you were in a hurry to escape my presence.”
“I am,” she said, flashing a smile. One he very much wanted to kiss right off her pretty face. But he was still calculating. When. Where. What. He wouldn’t touch her until he made those decisions.
If he touched her at all.
“I do admire your honesty,” he said, instead of kissing her.
“What is taking so long?” She scowled, hitting the button again. Then suddenly, the doors slid open.
“Tenth time’s the charm,” he said, stepping inside.
She gave him a withering glance before moving inside after him.
The doors slid shut and he had the impression that all the air had been sucked out of the space.
The tension between them was unlike anything he had ever known before. Likely because she was the only woman he had ever bothered to resist. He could remember well the first time he had noticed her as a woman, rather than a girl. Sometime after her seventeenth birthday, when all of her snubs and cutting comments had begun to arouse even as they enraged.
When they’d given way to fantasies of him showing her how base and beneath her he truly was.
His attraction, swift, sudden and abhorrent to him, had hit him low and fast in the gut, so quickly he had not had the chance to guard against it. He had not expected to have to guard against an attraction to his chilly younger stepsister.
He had nearly acted on it back then.
He could well remember the time he’d come home from university to see her getting out of the pool. Sleek curves barely concealed by a hot pink bikini that should have clashed terribly with her red hair, but rather was all the more enticing for how incongruous it was.
And he’d gone over to her, and she’d said something snotty, as she usually did. Then he’d grabbed hold of her arm, and pulled her to him. Her green eyes had gone wide, those pink lips parting gently. Begging to be kissed.
But he hadn’t. He’d watched the water drops roll over her bare skin, over her breasts, had imagined lowering his head and slicking up the slow-rolling water. But he hadn’t done that, either.
He’d waited. Waited until her eyes had darkened with desire. Until he’d seen her breath speed up, the pulse in her neck beating at a rapid rate. He had held her arm until he’d been sure he’d turned her on. Until he’d been sure the little ice princess was hot all over.
Then he’d let her go, and turned away, hard as iron and fantasizing about what he might have had.
And now... Well, now he’d had her, hadn’t he? He had answered the question he’d never meant to ask.
He looked at her now, at the sleek ponytail that begged for him to grab hold of it, to wrap it around his hand. Her long, elegant neck. The soft curve of her pale lips. His stomach tightened. Clearly, his lust for her was not so easily dealt with via one quick screw up against the wall.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said, pressing the button that would take them to the floor that housed her office.
“Do what?”
“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me.”
“I’m trying to unlock the mysteries of your mind,” he said. “Or rather, I’m attempting to remember what you look like underneath your clothes.” He knew that taunting her was the wrong decision. Knew that it would only push them back to the place he was so desperate to stay away from.
You don’t want to stay away. You want her naked and panting in your arms again.
“Stop it,” she said.
“You’re so desperate to forget what happened between us.”
“Nobody likes to remember rock bottom, Apollo. I consider having sex with you my own personal walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
“I’m honored, I’m sure.”
