Chapter Nine #2
Was that transactional? Manipulative? Perhaps.
But throughout his life he’d been taught that he could get what he wanted if he provided what others needed, whether that was food, labor, technical skill or other resources.
That was how he’d climbed the ladder at Vorstoben.
He’d met Otto’s need for a leader with business acumen and management skills.
In return, he’d gained the secure, comfortable lifestyle he wanted.
When his desire had shifted to wanting autonomy, Otto had appeared to offer that as well, while needing Axel to marry his daughter.
Axel was a transactional person, but woe betide the person who tried to cheat him once they’d agreed on a price. He would get Vorstoben or an equivalent repayment of the time he’d put into it. That was nonnegotiable.
Not that marrying Joy felt like a high price right now.
He sent a look of consternation across to her angelic face, relaxed in sleep.
No, he knew what was really bothering him. She had accused him of being hot and cold, and he was. He preferred his walls and autonomy, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard. He couldn’t completely shut down on her after she’d given herself so generously to him.
This was why he’d been okay with marrying Mira—he didn’t like bumpy emotions or the ability to bruise someone’s feelings. He didn’t like that hurting Joy was now a conduit to harming himself. She had become as much a liability as asset.
He needed distance from those barbed thoughts and her.
He left the bed. As he snapped his briefs into place, she drew in a sharp breath and blinked, brushing her hair off her face.
“What time is it?” she asked with soft urgency, picking up her head.
“Six thirty.”
“I need to call Dad.” She dropped her head back onto the pillow, eyes fluttering shut again while her brow flexed. “I texted when we landed in Berlin and told him I’d call once he was up. He must be worried.”
“Do you want me to find your phone?”
“No. I’ll, um—” She sat up, pulling the sheet up under her arms as she did. “Is there a robe in the closet?”
“Really? I’ve seen everything you have under there.” And had run his hands or lips over every square centimeter, in case she’d forgotten.
“I decide how much skin I reveal and to whom,” she said with a clash of her gaze into his.
She was putting her own defenses into place.
His logical, civilized brain said, Fair, but the possessive animal in him bristled and said, Actually, that’s mine. No one else will ever see that much of you again.
What a hypocritical reaction.
Dismayed with himself, he moved to the closet, then held plush robe ready for her, rolling his eyes to the ceiling with great sarcasm. “Should I order room service? Or would you rather go out?”
She tsked at the way he held the robe and stood to shrug into it, yanking it from his grip as she closed it across her front and tied the belt. “Whatever you prefer.”
“What I prefer…” He caught his fingers under the cinch of her belt. “Is to eat in, drink wine in the tub, then climb back into that bed for another round or three. Lights off, if you prefer not to show me what you have.”
“I’m allowed to have boundaries.” Her chin came up in shaky dignity. “Don’t make fun of me for it.”
“I wasn’t joking about any of that.”
She sniffed, but some of her tension dissipated when she said, “Fine.” Her brows gave a haughty little jump. “To all of it. But the lights can stay on. Wear a blindfold.” She started to brush past him.
He snagged his arm around her waist, amused and, yes, titillated. “Really?”
“I don’t know!” she said with exasperation. “Maybe it will give me the upper hand for once.”
As if she needed it.
Tightening his arm, he brought her hip into the twitching flesh at his groin and clasped a fistful of her hair with his other hand, slowly dragging her head back so her hands clutched at his arm and her lips parted on a startled inhale.
He kissed those soft lips, taking his time with it, savoring the way she softened and leaned into him.
When she danced the tip of her tongue against his, when she was breathless and her lashes seemed too heavy for her eyelids to lift and her lowered gaze was hazy with desire, he drew back and released her.
“Say hello to your dad for me.” Before outrage could take hold in her eyes, he added, “I need to order dinner. And a scarf.”
* * *
“Springtime in Paris!” her sister-in-law had exclaimed, very taken with their honeymoon location.
Joy promised to send photos but suspected the city was overhyped. That is, until she and Axel were actually walking through the streets where trees and flowers were coming into bloom.
“I feel like I’m in a movie,” she said, stopping on one of the pedestrian bridges over the Seine to snap photos of the river, swollen and glugging slowly beneath them.
It was flanked by buildings freshly washed by last night’s rain.
Everything smelled fresh and gleamed in the morning sun, inciting a sense of possibility in her while breaking her eyes at how pretty it all was.
“Including the Hollywood makeover,” she added when she turned the camera for a selfie and was freshly startled by her polished appearance.
Axel had booked her into the hotel salon first thing, then bought her a new outfit from its posh boutique before they left. She wore a pair of wide-legged designer jeans with a snug crop top and a black satin jacket.
“Do you want a trophy wife or something?” she asked him now.
“I have one,” he said laconically as he leaned his forearms on the rail.
She captured his possessive look in the frame as she clicked.
“I knew we’d be photographed once the news got out.” He straightened to draw her into his arms, pulling her hips into a light collision with his own, one that sent delicious sensations sloshing through her belly.
The press release had been very brief, stating only that Axel Severin had married American Joy Youngston on the heels of his broken engagement to Mira Braun.
“Won’t people assume I’m the reason you two broke up?” she asked, trying and failing to be as casually unaffected by their closeness as he seemed.
“Probably.” He brushed at the bangs she’d had trimmed into her hair after the color was adjusted to a more natural honey and molasses tone. “That’s why we must appear smitten.”
This was all an act for him, but it was nearly impossible for her to think when he touched her.
“What if, um, they find out that Otto is my father?” She dropped her voice to a near whisper. “Isn’t it PR 101 to stay ahead of something like that?”
“The only way they’d learn it is a leak from Otto or Mira.
Otto isn’t likely to acknowledge you until he has to.
He would have to admit to having an affair while his wife was pregnant.
It then opens the question of whether you have any rights to his fortune.
I don’t think Mira will say anything, either.
She hasn’t made public yet that she’s not Otto’s daughter, probably because she’s exploring her own legal options.
We’re at an impasse. Which suits me. It allows you and I to establish ourselves as a couple before Otto takes any shots at us. ”
“Is that why you’re kissing me right now? Are you paying to have us photographed?” She tipped her head back and narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
“No. But I might have if I’d thought to do it. My mind has been on other things.” He was obscenely handsome when one corner of his mouth kicked up that way.
He’d relaxed significantly from the first time she’d seen him.
She didn’t have to wonder why. After getting a little drunk over dinner last night, they’d bathed together, spending a lot of time tenderly washing their dirtiest parts.
Afterward, they made love again, slept hard, then barely got through breakfast before they were at it again.
If he had suggested going back to the hotel right now, she would have gone. She was smitten. Or infatuated, at least. Sexually.
And disconcerted because, as much as he seemed beguiled by their sexual connection, she didn’t think he was anywhere close to as enthralled with her as she was with him.
“Didn’t you say I had an appointment?” she reminded him, trying to gather some of those brain cells he said they ought to keep hold of.
“You do.” He finished walking her over the bridge to a designer’s showroom.
The next few days were spent browsing exclusive boutiques, picking up everything from dance shoes to sunglasses. Everything. The lingerie purchase alone would have bought her a new car. A nice one.
Between shopping excursions, Axel wined and dined her at street cafés and high-end restaurants. They went out in the evening to art galleries and visited a nightclub and watched a musical production.
He seduced her constantly. He set his hand on her leg while they watched models parade their fashions.
He kissed her nape when he seated her in a restaurant.
There’d been a particularly erotic and clandestine grope in a darkened alcove when they were walking back to their hotel one evening, one that he ended while she was still tense and whimpering with need.
“If you can’t be quiet, I have to stop,” he scolded in a way that suggested he was denying her on purpose. “Otherwise, we’ll be arrested.”
She had thought Todd’s manipulation of her emotions had been bad. She was completely at the mercy of Axel’s whims. Even when she was anointing him with her mouth, trying to make him break, he was fully in charge of their play.
He cradled her jaw and the back of her head, thrusting with slow, hypnotic precision, saying, “Touch yourself while you do this. I want to come together. I’ll tell you when.”
She did. And it was so hot, she nearly crumpled to the floor afterward.
This was exactly what a honeymoon should be, she supposed, but on their last night, she pointed out, “I thought this was supposed to be a time when spouses got to know each other, but I don’t know much more about you than when I met you.”