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“I have had a bit,” she said, wobbling slightly. A break in her composure. Witnessing such a thing was a rarity. Tabitha was a study in control. She always had been. Even back all those years ago when she’d been nothing more than his PA.
“All you have to do is ask the servants and you can have alcohol sent to your own room.”
“My own room.” She laughed, an unsteady sound. “Sure. Next time I’ll do that. But I was actually waiting for you.”
“You could have called me.”
“Would you have answered the phone?”
The only honest answer to that question wasn’t a good one. The truth was, he often ignored phone calls from her when he was busy. They didn’t have personal conversations. She never called just to hear his voice, or anything like that. As a result, ignoring her didn’t seem all that personal. “I don’t know.”
She forced a small smile. “You probably wouldn’t have.”
“Well, I’m here now. What was so important that we had to deal with it near midnight?”
She thrust the papers out, in his direction. For the first time in months, he saw emotion burning from his wife’s eyes. “Legal documents.”
He looked down at the stack of papers she was holding out, then back at her, unable to process why the hell she would be handing him paper at midnight on New Year’s Eve. “Why?”
“Because. I want a divorce.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_cbfa342d-8649-577b-b9f1-d8a3b77d8ae2)
TABITHA FELT AS if she was speaking to Kairos from somewhere deep underwater. She imagined the alcohol had helped dull the sensation of the entire evening. From the moment she’d first walked into his empty office with papers in hand, everything had felt slightly surreal. After an hour of waiting for her husband to appear, she had opened a bottle of his favorite scotch and decided to help herself. That had continued as the hours passed.
Then, he had finally shown up, near midnight, an obvious lipstick stain on his collar.
In that moment, the alcohol had been necessary. Without it the impact of that particular blow might have been fatal. She wasn’t a fool. She was, after all, in her husband’s office, demanding a divorce. She knew their marriage was broken. Irrevocably. He had wanted one thing from her, one thing only, and she had failed to accomplish that task.
The farce was over. There was no point in continuing on.
But she had not expected this. Evidence that her ice block of a husband—dutiful, solicitous and never passionate—had been with someone else. Recreationally. For pleasure.
Do you honestly think he waits around when you refuse to admit him into your bed?
Her running inner monologue had teeth tonight. It was also right. She had thought that. She had imagined that he was as cold to everyone as he was to her. She had thought that he was—at the very least—a man of honor. She had been prepared to liberate him from her, to liberate them both. She hadn’t truly believed that he was off playing the part of a single man while still bonded to her by matrimony.
As if your marriage is anything like a real one. As if those vows apply.
“You want a divorce?” The sharpness in his tone penetrated the softness surrounding her and brought her sharply into the moment.
“You heard me the first time.”
“I do not understand,” he said, his jaw clenched tight, his dark eyes blazing with the kind of emotion she had never seen before.
“You’re not a stupid man, Kairos,” she said, alcohol making her bold. “I think you know exactly what the words I want a divorce mean.”
“I do not understand what they mean coming from your lips, Tabitha,” he said, his tone uncompromising. “You are my wife. You made promises to me. We have an agreement.”
“Yes,” she said, “we do. It is not to love, honor and cherish, but rather to present a united front for the country and to produce children. I have been unable to conceive a child, as you are well aware. Why continue on? We aren’t happy.”
“Since when does happiness come into it?”
Her heart squeezed tight, as though he had grabbed it in his large palm and wrapped his fingers around it. “Some people would say happiness has quite a bit to do with life.”
“Those people are not the king and queen of a country. You have no right to leave me,” he said, his teeth locked together, his dark eyes burning.
In that moment, it was as though the flame in his eyes met the alcohol in her system. And she exploded.
She reached down, grabbed the tumbler of scotch she’d been drinking from, picked it up and threw it as hard as she could. It missed Kairos neatly, smashing against the wall behind him and leaving a splatter of alcohol and glass behind.
He moved to the side, his expression fierce. “What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t know. She had never done anything like this in her life. She despised this kind of behavior. This emotional, passionate, ridiculous behavior. She prized control. That was one of the many reasons she had agreed to marry Kairos. To avoid things like this. She respected him, and—once upon a time—had even enjoyed his company. Their connection had been based on mutual respect, and yes, on his need to find a wife quickly. This kind of thing, shouting and throwing things, had never come into play.
But it was out of her control now. She was out of control.
“Oh,” she said, feigning surprise, “you noticed me.”
Before she could react, he closed the distance between them, wrapping his hand around her wrists and propelling them both backward until her butt connected with the edge of his desk. Rage radiated from him, his face, normally schooled into stone, telegraphing more emotion than she’d seen from him in the past five years.
“You have my attention. So, if that is the aim of this temper tantrum, consider it accomplished.”
“This is not a tantrum,” she said, her voice vibrating with anger. “This is the result of preparation, careful planning and no small amount of subterfuge. I went to a lawyer. These papers are real. These are not empty threats. This is my decision and it is made.”
He reached up, grabbing hold of her chin, holding her face steady and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I was not aware that you had the authority to make decisions concerning both of us.”
“That’s the beauty of divorce, Kairos. It is an uncoupling. That means I’m free to make independent decisions now.”
He reached behind her, gripping her hair, drawing her head back. “Forgive me, my queen, I was not aware that your position in this country superseded my own.”
He had never spoken to her this way, had never before touched her like this. She should be angry. Enraged. What she experienced was a different kind of heat altogether. In the very beginning, the promise of this kind of flame had shimmered between them, but over the years it had cooled. To the point that she had been convinced that it had died out. Whatever potential there was had been doused entirely by years of indifference and distance. She had been wrong.
“I was not aware that you had become a dictator.”
“Is it not my home? Are you not my wife?”
“Am I? In any meaningful way?” She reached up, grabbing hold of his shirt collar, her thumb resting against the red smudge that marred the white fabric. “This says differently.” She pulled hard, the action popping the top button on the shirt, loosening the knot on his gray tie.
His lip curled, his hold on her tightening. “Is that what you think of me? You think that I was with another woman?”
“The evidence suggests her lips touched your shirt. I would assume they touched other places on your body.”
“You think I am a man who would break his vows?” he asked, his voice a growl.
“How would I know? I don’t even know you.”
“You don’t know me?” His voice was soft, and all the deadlier for it. “I am your husband.”
“Are you? Forgive me. I thought you were simply my stud horse.”
He released his hold on her hair, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her tightly against his body. He was hot. Hard. Everywhere. The realization caused her heart rate to go into overdrive, her eyes flying wide as she searched his gaze. He was aroused by this. By her. Her circumspect husband who barely made a ripple in the bedspread when he made love to her was aroused by this.
“And how can that be, agape? When you have not let me near you in almost three months?”
“Was it I who didn’t let you near me, or was it you who didn’t bother to come to me?”
“A man gets tired of bedding a martyr.”
“A woman begins to feel the same,” she said, clinging to her anger, trying to ensure that it outstripped the desire that was wrapping itself around her throat, choking her, taking control of her.
He rolled his hips forward, pressing his hardened length against her hip. “Do I feel like a martyr to you?”
“I’ve always imagined it’s the bright future of Petras glowing in your mind’s eye that allows you to get it up when you’re with me.”
He curled the hand pressed onto her back into a fist, taking a handful of material into his grasp and tugging hard. She heard the fabric tear as cool air blew across her now bare back. “Yes,” he said, the word dripping with poison. “I am so put upon. Clearly, the sight of your naked body does nothing for me.” He pulled her dress down, baring her breasts, covered only by the thin, transparent lace of her bra. “Such a hardship.”
He leaned in, tilting his head, pressing a hot, openmouthed kiss to her neck, the contact so shocking, so unlike anything that had ever passed between them before, she couldn’t hold back the sharp cry of shock and pleasure.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing him away. “Who else have you done this with tonight? The woman with the red lipstick? Did you have her like this too? Am I benefiting from the education that she gave you?” He said nothing, he only looked at her, his dark eyes glittering. Her stomach twisted, pain, anger overtaking her. She grabbed hold of the knot on his tie, pulling hard until it came free. She tossed the scrap of silk onto the ground before grabbing hold of his shirt, wrenching it open, buttons scattering over the marble floor.
She stopped, looking at him, her breath coming in short, hard bursts. He was beautiful. He always had been. She’d been struck by his sheer masculine perfection from the moment she’d first seen him. So young, so foolish. Nineteen years old, away from home for the first time, and utterly taken with her new boss.
Of course, she had never imagined that a young American girl who had come to Petras on a study-abroad program would have a chance with the king of the nation.
Oddly, he was almost more compelling now, in this moment, than he’d been at the first. She had slept with this man for five years. Had seen him naked countless times. The mystery should have been gone. She knew they didn’t light the sheets on fire, they never had. It was her, at least she imagined it was. He was her only lover, so she had no one else to compare it with.
Apparently, he went out and found women with red lipstick, and things were different. He was different.
Rage mingled with the sexual heat rioting through her.
She ran her hands over his chest, the heat of his muscle and skin burning her palms. She should be disgusted by him. She shouldn’t want to touch him. Instead, she was insatiable for him. If he had been with another woman, then she would wipe her from his mind. Would erase her touch from his body with her own. She would do what she had not managed to do over the course of five years of marriage. She would make him crave her. Make him desire her.
And then she would leave him.
She leaned forward, parting her lips, scraping her teeth over his chin. He growled, pressing her up against the desk again, pushing her dress the rest of the way down her hips, allowing it to pool on the floor. She didn’t recognize him in this moment, didn’t recognize herself.
“Did you have someone else?” She asked the question through clenched teeth, as she worked the buckle on his belt, then set about to opening the closure on his dress pants.
He leaned in, claiming her mouth with his, the kiss violent, hard. Bruising. He forced her lips apart, his tongue sliding against hers as he claimed her, deep and uncompromising. She let the rage of the unanswered question simmer between them, stoking the flame of her desire.
He took hold of the front of her bra, pulling it down, revealing her breasts. He bent his head, taking one tightened bud into his mouth and sucking hard. She gasped, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly against her. She wanted to punish him, for tonight, for the past five years. She didn’t know what else to do but to punish him with her desire. Desire she had kept long hidden. Until tonight, they had never so much as yelled at one another. This was more passion than either of them had ever shown.
Perhaps it was the same for him. An outlet for his anger. A punishment. But it was one she would gladly allow herself to be subjected to. Because for all that she knew she would walk away from this damaged, destroyed, she knew that he would not walk away from it unscathed either.
He shifted, blazing a path between her breasts with the flat of his tongue, his teeth grazing her neck, her jaw, before he finally claimed her mouth again. He reached between them, freeing his erection, so hot and hard against her skin.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing them beneath the fabric of his shirt, scraping her fingernails along his flesh, relishing the harsh sound that he made in response. He tightened his hold on her, setting her up on the surface of his desk, moving to stand between her spread thighs. He pressed his arousal against her slick, sensitive skin, still covered by her flimsy panties, rolling his hips, sending a shock wave of pleasure through her body.
“Answer me,” she said, digging her fingernails more deeply into his shoulders.
He shifted, sliding his hands down beneath the fabric of her underwear, his fingertips grazing the sensitized bundle of nerves there. “You want to know if I did this to another woman?” His words were rough, jagged. He hooked his finger around the edge of her panties, drawing them to the side, pressing the head of his shaft to the entrance of her body. “You want to know if I did this with another woman?”
“Just answer the question,” she hissed.
“I think you would have me either way.”
Her face heated, humiliation pouring through her. He was right. In this moment, she would be hard-pressed to deny him or her body anything. “Is that why you won’t tell me? For fear I’ll turn you away?”
“I’m used to you turning me away, Tabitha. Why should I waste a moment of regret over it now?”
She slid her hands down his well-muscled back, cupping his ass. “You would regret this.” She rolled her hips forward, taking him deeper inside her body, just another inch. “You would regret not finishing this.”
“No,” he said, and for a moment, her heart sank. For a moment, she thought he meant he would not regret losing out on this moment between them. For a moment, she thought that yet again, she was alone in what she was experiencing. “I was not with anyone else. I did not touch another woman. She propositioned me. She whispered in my ear. I said no.”
Then he kissed her before driving deep into her body. She gasped, and he took advantage, tasting her deeply as he flexed his hips again, withdrawing slightly before seating himself fully inside her again.
A rough groan escaped her lips, white-hot pleasure streaking through her. She clung more tightly to him, wrapping her legs around his back, urging him on. Urging him to take it harder, faster. She had no patience. Had no more desire in her to cultivate an effort to take things slow, to practice restraint. There was nothing but him, nothing but this. Nothing but years of anger, frustration, being uncovered as their inhibitions were stripped away layer by layer, with each thrust of his body into hers.
A shudder wracked his large frame, pleasure stealing his control. She relished that. Took pride in it. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to give him pleasure, she absolutely did. Wanted him to think of this later, to regret all of the years when they didn’t have this. To look back on this one moment and ache forever. For the rest of his days, no matter whom he married down the road. Whoever came after her, whether she bore children for him or not, Tabitha wanted him to always think of her.
But pleasure wasn’t enough. She wanted to punish him too. She dug her fingernails deep into his skin and he growled, angling his head and biting her neck, the action not gentle at all, painful. He flexed his hips, his body making contact with that sensitive bundle of nerves, and she knew that he was trying to do the same to her that she was doing to him. As if she deserved his wrath. As if she deserved his belated, angry gift of pleasure. He was the one who had done this to them. This was his fault.
She tightened her grip on him, met his every thrust with a push from her own body, met his each and every growl with one of her own. She had been passive for too long. The perfect wife who could never be perfect enough. So why bother? Why not just break it all?
She closed her eyes tightly, fusing her lips to his, kissing him with all of the rage, desire and regret that she had inside of her, the action pushing them both over the edge. It had been so long. So very long. Not just since she had been with him, but since she had found pleasure in his arms. So many months of coming together when she was at the optimum place in her cycle, perfunctory couplings that meant nothing and felt like less than nothing.
This was different than anything that had come before it. He’d given her orgasms before, but nothing like this. Nothing this all-consuming. Nothing this altering. This devastating. This was like a completely different experience. She was falling in the dark with no way of knowing when she would hit the bottom. All she knew was that she would. And when she did, it would be painful beyond anything she had ever known before. But for now, she was simply falling, with him.
The last time. The last moment they would ever be together.
She wanted to weep. With the devastation of it. With the triumph of it. This was it for them. The final nail in the coffin of their marriage. How she desperately needed it. How she resented it. She wanted to transport herself somewhere in the future. Years from now, maybe. To a time when she’d already healed from the wounds that would be left behind after they separated. A moment in time when she would have already learned to be Just Tabitha again, and not Tabitha, Queen of Petras, wife of Kairos. But Tabitha, on her own.
At the same time, she wanted to stay in this moment. Forever. She wanted to hold on to him forever and never let go.
Which was why she needed to let go. She so badly needed to let go.
The pleasure stretched on, an onslaught of waves that never ceased and she couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t think beyond what he made her feel. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Why was this happening now? She had always believed this was there between them, that it could be unlocked, somehow, but they had never found it. Not until this moment. This very last moment.
Finally the storm subsided, leaving her spent, exhausted. Smashed against the rock. She was wrung out. She had nothing left in her to give. No more rage. No more desire. Nothing but an endless sadness for what her life had become. She looked at the man still holding her tightly. The man still inside her body. The man she had made vows to.
A man who was a stranger, half a decade after she’d first made love to him.
“I hate you,” she said, the words a hoarse whisper that shocked even herself. A tear slid down her cheek and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. “For every one of the past five years you have wasted, I hate you. For being my husband but never really being my husband. I hate you for that too. For not giving me a baby. For making me want you even when I hate you.”
He pushed away from her, his gaze dark. “Let me guess, you hate me for that too.”
“I do. But the good thing is, that after today, we won’t have to see each other.”
