Chapter Seven-Atlas
Little prince?
That stings.
Still, I’m impressed.
Cecilia leaves the room like a conqueror—head high, shoulders squared, hips moving to a private rhythm only she knows.
Every step is a punctuation mark, an argument in motion, and the way the light catches the ink at her hip makes my jaw go stupid for a second.
Fuck. Me.
Did I say impressed?
I’m floored.
She doesn’t look back.
Of course she doesn’t.
That’s the part that rips something open inside me. This woman doesn’t know what she does to me.
She walks out assuming she’s cleared the board, put her pieces in order, handled business the way she always does—sharp, brilliant, dangerous—and all I can think about is the way that snake coils and unfurls beneath her skirt.
The way her laugh lingers at the edge of my hearing like a dare.
The way she moves like she owns every room she steps into, and I want nothing more than to own the moment she gives me.
Obsession is a small word for what this is.
It’s an ache behind the ribs, a hunger that doesn’t go away with distance or time.
I should be a man of plans, of strategy—I am.
But the truth is filthy and simple. Something in me breaks softer around her.
I want to map every inch of that sexy as fuck inked and pierced skin.
I want to learn every secret she keeps for herself.
I want to be the reason she never needs to be protected.
I will not let her be collateral on someone else’s chessboard. No matter what her father thinks.
And she has no idea.
That ignorance—God, that ignorance is a kind of mercy I don’t think I deserve.
It gives me a sliver of time to get clever, to make promises in ink and build a cage she’ll never resent.
Because once I decide she’s mine, there’s no turning it back.
“You got that prenup like she said?” Nico Volkov asks, his voice all razor edges and steel.
Luc Batiste doesn’t answer right away.
He just clenches his jaw so tight the veins in his neck pulse with restrained fury. Finally, he gives a single, clipped nod.
That’s the second time tonight I’ve watched a man choke on his pride for his daughter.
Good.
“Good,” Angel Fury says. Then he turns those storm-blue eyes on me like a goddamn thunderbolt. “You do understand that if you hurt her, we will bury you, son?”
He means it.
They all do.
Luc. Nico. Angel. Adrik. The entire Volkov Batiste Fury war council.
It doesn’t matter that I’m a Stavros. A prince. A billionaire in my own right.
None of that means shit when it comes to her.
Cecilia.
They’re not posturing. These are the kind of men who will keep their promise, even if it means starting a war just to dig my grave.
I meet his glare head-on.
“I understand.”
What I don’t say is that I don’t care.
Because they don’t scare me.
She does.
The way she looks at me like she knows I’m lying—even when I’m telling the truth.
The way she moves like fire and fights like a queen.
The way she didn’t flinch when I threw her name at the target like a fucking dagger, even though I hate myself for doing it.
I should have asked her first.
Told her I wanted to marry her, and not for these reasons.
Fuck. I can’t afford to think those thoughts.
My heart is a jackhammer in my chest.
Not from fear.
From the simple truth that I am already hers.
And she has no idea.
Let them puff their chests and sign their papers. Let them throw contracts at my face.
I’ll sign whatever they give me.
It doesn’t matter if they bind me with clauses, penalties, or iron chains.
Because I have no intention of letting her go.
Not now.
I’m pretty sure not ever.
There’s something about the woman that commands me.
It brands me.
It calls to every base instinct I’ve spent years mastering and concealing.
Cecilia Batiste makes me feral.
She makes me violent with want.
She makes me wish I were the kind of man who knew what love felt like—so I could give it to her.
But I’m not. I can’t lie to myself about that.
Love? I don’t know it. Not really.
But worship? That I can do.
I will worship her like a goddess in my bed.
Protect her like a queen in my war.
And treat her like the only thing in my empire that has ever truly been mine.
Because that’s what she is now.
Mine.
Five minutes later, I’m signing the prenup Luc Batiste slams down on the table in front of me.
He doesn’t sit.
He doesn’t blink.
He watches every stroke of the pen like it might draw blood.
When I finish, I slide the document back toward him.
“I’ll send a copy to your lawyer,” he mutters, but I don’t miss the warning beneath the civility.
I nod once. No argument.
“When do you need to leave?” he asks.
“Tomorrow.” I stand and button my coat, ignoring the way Angel raises a brow.
Truth?
I could wait a week. Plan something civil. Give her a wedding that makes the papers.
But I’m not going to.
Because I don’t want pomp.
I want her wearing my ring, my name, my fucking scent like a brand.
And I want it now.
“Tomorrow?” Luc repeats, frowning. “That’s not enough time. I’ll need at least a day to get you into City Hall. The paperwork, the officiant—”
“I don’t need City Hall,” I interrupt. “We’ll get married after the plane lands in Greece. Aboard my yacht. The captain’s licensed. It’ll be legal.”
“And the optics?” Nico presses.
I smile faintly. “It’ll look like what it is. A honeymoon.”
Luc stares at me long enough that I wonder if he’s about to throw me through a window.
Instead, he just says, “You better keep her safe.”
I look him in the eye, and this time, I do let something slip.
The rawness. The vow. The obsession that lives under my skin like a second heartbeat.
“I will.”
Because that’s the one thing I know how to do.
I won’t let Cecilia Batiste fall.
Not to warlords.
Not to her enemies.
Not even to me.
I turn on my heel and leave them in that sterile room of marble and money.
It’s time to find my bride.