Chapter Five #2
She opened for him. Let the tip of his tongue thrust its way inside. It filled her mouth. She caught it with her own. Played with it. Danced with it.
It was a dance her body fell into step with without need of prompting. Without a reminder. She didn’t have to learn his lips, because she knew every dip. And she traced them.
Their kiss hadn’t been like this their last time together.
Months after the funeral, that kiss had been a battle of unspoken words.
This kiss…
It was old, but it was new.
It was a rewrite of that last time.
He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, as if he was driving out the thoughts in her head and replacing them with nothing but sensation.
Her body yielded until her chest sought his. Her breasts pushed against him. The tightness holding her heart—her lungs—captive eased. It was a heat that trickled down her spine. And lower.
She ached. Everywhere.
Her breathing changed. No longer was it short husks of too shallow air, but it was deep and full. Air he breathed between her lips, and she accepted it. Her body responded to it. It eased her tight muscles.
‘Konstantinos,’ she breathed into his mouth again.
She couldn’t think. She could only feel. Him. The swipe of his tongue—the feel of his hand on the back of her neck holding her steady.
And then he was pulling away—abandoning her lips…
Her eyes opened. Her fingers clenched, tugging at his shirt—pulling him back.
Black eyes found hers.
She couldn’t look away.
Her heart pulsed. It hadn’t felt wrong to kiss him. It had felt like coming back to her own bed after too many nights away. And her body had unfurled, leaned into every dip of the mattress that knew her body.
It was like…coming home.
‘We are here,’ he said, the breathy edge to his words the only sign he’d kissed her.
Her fingers unclenched. Her head snapped towards the window. Lights flashed from a sea of camera lenses. They couldn’t see them behind the mirrored windows, but what had he been doing? Warming her up for the press?
He was not…home.
He was a bastard.
Tonight he’d done what he always had. She was honest—open—and he’d shut down any attempt to share in her vulnerability.
His inability to talk had got them here.
If he’d opened up to her about his feelings about the baby, shown his concern about the pregnancy not going well, if he’d shown her his own vulnerability, would she have hired the investigator?
It didn’t matter.
She had hired them.
He hadn’t been unfaithful to her with somebody else.
But he had been unfaithful in all the ways that mattered to her.
He hadn’t been the person he’d promised to be.
She hadn’t been able to rely on him. He’d provided medical care, yes, but not his own presence.
He’d left her alone to be treated by clinicians.
But they didn’t know what she’d lost. They couldn’t understand her pain. But he should have.
She’d asked him to help—help her prepare for the arrival of their son, and he’d paid someone else to help her. And after, the funeral, he’d arranged it all, but he’d stayed away from her. Pulled his hand from hers when she held on. When she’d needed him to stay with her.
He should have been by her side.
‘I hate you,’ she said, because it was her armour and she would keep it.
He smiled. ‘I know.’ His thumb pressed beneath her lower lip, and he swiped. ‘And we’ll use it to our advantage.’
Her shoulders heaved. ‘Advantage!’
‘The chemistry between us.’ His hand fell.
‘We’ll show them nothing but that.’ He held the evidence of their forbidden kiss between them: a red smudge covering the pad of his thumb.
He reached for a tissue from his inside pocket and removed the proof of their kiss from his fingers—his mouth. ‘This…connection.’
She wanted to deny it. Tell him whatever energy lingered in the air between them was all in his head.
It wasn’t.
She bit at the inside of her cheek to stem the rage churning her insides that she’d gone so easily into his arms.
But no longer did Poppy think of the press outside.
No longer did the images of the articles she’d scoured play in her mind.
It was just…
His lips.
Konstantinos’s gaze lingered on her mouth.
He may have wiped off the evidence of her mouth, but he could still taste the sweet tip of her tongue butting against his. The yield of her mouth as he pushed his tongue deeper. He knew, and so did she. The tight line of her mouth couldn’t hide it. She could taste him still. Feel his hands on her.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she said, but her words lacked bite. Her voice was thick. Breathless.
‘I am only looking.’
‘But they’re all going to be looking in a minute, I just… Aren’t they waiting for us?’
‘So eager to get out?’
She was eager, he recognised, and for that he was pleased. She needed her hate, her anger towards him to be vibrant—visceral—to get her out of the car and into the spotlight.
He’d done what needed to be done for them both. He’d kissed her—made her angry—so when she stepped out of this car her anger would give her strength.
She straightened her spine. ‘I want to get this over with.’
She wanted to escape him.
His jaw locked.
His mind shifted him back to twelve months ago. Returning to Sotiría, carrying the weight of his father’s death on his shoulders, and finding it empty. There had been no trace of her leaving. Her things. Clothes. Her passport. Everything was where she’d left it.
It was as if she’d just vanished.
If he hadn’t been there to see his mother disappear into the sea, to the world she would have just vanished too. But Poppy, she had escaped. Escaped him. And…
Is that what his mother had tried to do? Escape his father?
He swallowed.
He’d done everything right. He hadn’t locked her away and forgotten about her as his father had with his mother. He’d helped her. And still she’d run from him.
‘Indeed,’ he said, and turned his gaze away from her to the door.
He opened it to a flurry of activity. Lights flickered too brightly in his face. He turned away from them all. He didn’t need to stop for questions. They only needed to see her alive to dispel the rumours. They only needed to know he hadn’t failed her as he had his mother.
Poppy lived.
He walked to her door and opened it.
She stole his breath.
She was a vision in red silk.
He offered his hand. ‘Shall we?’
Slowly, she slid her hand into his. He enclosed it.
The sweep of her eyes beneath diamond-dusted lashes rose from his hand to his face.
And he knew the anticipation feathering her flesh, making her skin hum in his hand, was not fear of what was behind him.
Not the press documenting their walk along the red carpet to the main entrance of the Palais Garnier.
She wasn’t afraid of the dozens of black-suited security detail guarding the roads that were closed off for the night and blocked to the public. It was not the police on motorcycles barricading the steps to the metro.
It was the man holding her hand.
And she was right to be scared. Not of the press or their vindictiveness. But of him.
He pulled her to her feet. His hand slid to the naked dip of her spine. Her flesh shivered beneath his fingertips. He brought his head down low—brushing his lower lip against the lobe of her ear. ‘Smile, agape.’
Each of her perfectly square white teeth appeared.
He moved the flat of his hand to her waist and ushered her body into the curve of his. He pulled her into step beside him, and she matched his slow ascent along the red carpet.
Eyes forward, they made their way to the entrance.
The green copper dome shimmered. Illuminated facades showcased the elaborate Beaux-Arts architecture, the ornate details of each statue, every twisted column standing tall…
The Palais Garnier, lit up against the night sky, was a beacon of beauty.
And there, at the central arcade, beside the two-winged sculptures keeping guard, Konstantinos stopped.
There, with everyone watching them, he turned her to face him.
Behind her was all of Paris, the buzz of questions shouted from paparazzi, and the roll of tyres as other selected invitees arrived. But her eyes only watched him, and he only looked at her.
Triumph, it teased at his lips.
She would do all he’d asked of her. She could have her contract in return.
Everything she’d demanded last night he’d had outlined by his lawyer in detail.
She could have Léon. She could have her divorce.
The papers were already being prepared. There was to be no sex between them, but she’d skimmed over the sex part this morning with blushed cheeks.
Now it was written in black and white. She’d signed it with the slope of her elegant scrawl. As had he.
There was to be no penetrative sex, but that clause was to protect him. The protection they’d used was ninety-nine per cent effective, and it had failed them.
He wouldn’t take that risk again.
He had no intention of her accidentally conceiving another child.
There would be no more accidents.
He’d abide by her every rule. He’d give her everything she’d asked for. More. Because his plan had grown legs—arms. And he understood the game afoot. He understood now how he’d get under her skin, how he’d remove her from under his, and claim back his control.
Konstantinos would seduce his wife.
He’d use the contract against her. Every rule she hadn’t written. And when she craved him as she craved air—when she needed him—he’d send her away.
He lifted her hand, dipped his head, brought her fingers to his mouth, and feathered his lips across her knuckles.
He’d let her go.
He wouldn’t look back.
He’d walk away.
Just as she had.
And what will you become without her? Will you fall back into your pit of despair?
His gut seized. The press had been right. Without her, searching for her, his world had been nothing but darkness.
He’d found her now.
He knew she was safe.
He’d restore order to his world.
There would be light without her.