Chapter 15
TAYLOR
If revenge is sweet, then payback is perfect… just not for long.
Two weeks, five days, and roughly twenty hours later, I’m no longer basking in its glow. I’m pacing in the dark.
Ghosted. Confused. Hurting in places I didn’t know he could reach – places anyone could reach.
Since stepping off the yacht, I’ve heard nothing. Not a peep. I don’t even know where he is. London. Australia. The States. Hell, he could be in Russia with the work he does, the people his firm protects…
Would I have known where he was before, when we were just friends?
Would it have even mattered to me then?
I shove the truth aside before it can land and glide through my Parisian club, wearing the polished, distant smile my clientele and staff expect.
Julien, my ma?tre d’, inclines his head as I pass, and my smile tugs a little wider.
He’s been a rare find: a fast friend and a man I trust to ensure this place delivers on the Royal HQ promise when I’m not around.
As the newest jewel in my empire, Paris sits at the apex of everything I’ve built: the loudest reminder of how far I’ve come.
That I’m no longer the kid lying awake in the dark, praying the heating won’t cut out with the lights, clutching a shivering Sadie to my chest while spinning tales of better lives…
manifesting a future beyond our wildest dreams.
And yeah, I know what you’re thinking: I’m no romantic, so why make Paris the pinnacle?
But this city gets under your skin.
The champagne-washed facades, the landmarks everyone knows, the world-class art, the vibrant cafés… it pulls you in before you realise it. Not just the romance, but the hum of possibility. A reminder that life is for living and making the most of every day.
As a kid, this place was an impossible fantasy; now it’s mine.
Perched on the edge of the Seine with the Eiffel Tower glittering across the way, the club is everything Royal HQ is known for: intimate, luxurious, unapologetically exclusive. Rich wood panelling and warm velvet booths, soft lighting and sultry jazz.
Of all my clubs, this place should soothe me the most.
But tonight, even it can’t dull the ache beneath my skin.
Before, it was the baby. Wanting one. Needing one.
Now I’m afraid it’s Axel. I miss him. I want him.
I dream of him by night and fantasise about him by day, and that’s not okay. Not on any level. Not when it goes beyond the boundaries of our arrangement.
What arrangement? my conscience mocks. There is none.
Not in writing at any rate.
He’s had the contract for a fortnight and I’ve heard nothing.
And I’m not pregnant; my recent period made that clear.
And I don’t even know how I feel about that. There was the smallest part of me that hoped it wouldn’t come. That a couple of rounds with Axel and hey presto! But then we’d have no need to continue down this road… a road I’m not even sure exists any more.
Given the way it became more about a battle for control, for dominance in the end…
Him forcing me to my knees, me sending him the same way.
All of it about power. None of it about making a baby.
The whole reason we were supposed to be crossing the line in the first place.
Could I blame him for having regrets? Questioning it? Fearing it, even?
And is that what he’s doing? Working out a way to turn me down now he’s had time and distance to think? Or is it just me spiralling in his absence? Questioning things way too much and worrying unnecessarily?
And then there’s the kiss.
My God, that kiss.
His line, his boundary… blown to smithereens.
But he kissed me.
And fuck, did he kiss me. I’ve relived it over and over. The fevered claiming of his mouth, his lips, his tongue…
Was that the line that broke us?
It all feels like a distant memory, one hell of a fever dream, even.
And I could have reached out to him, but I haven’t. I’m scared. Too scared that it’s over before it ever truly began.
I push into my office-turned-penthouse suite and don’t bother with the lights.
The Eiffel Tower’s already doing the work for me, its silver-gold glow spilling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, glinting off the crystal chandelier, the marble floor, the gilded glass tables and plush velvet seating.
I head straight for the drinks cart by the window and pour a whisky. The bottle clinks softly against the glass – far too loud in the quiet – and I take a deep breath.
‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s wrong to drink alone?’
I jump and spin, the bottle slamming back down. ‘Ax!’
I can’t see him properly. He’s sat in the shadows, a dark silhouette cut by the tower’s glow, but I know him. Every line of that frame. That voice… that fucking voice that spikes my pulse and makes my body sing.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hello to you too.’
‘Sorry, I’m just…’
Just what? Shocked. Relieved. Unable to believe it’s him. Here. Now.
After all this time, and nothing.
His head lifts. ‘You’re…?’
‘How did you know I was here?’
His mouth quirks, the hint of a smirk edging into the light. He’s growing his beard back, and the stupidest part of all? I’m ridiculously happy to see it.
‘I always know where you are, Tay.’
A hot shiver skates down my spine, goosebumps rising. Always?
He can’t be serious.
You reckon?
I’d laugh it off if I wasn’t so tightly coiled. Even my custom-made dress feels two sizes too small, my skin stretched thin.
‘I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve visited me in my clubs abroad,’ I manage to say.
‘This couldn’t wait.’
‘This?’ I ask, fingers caressing the skin behind my ear as I summon up the confidence his absence stole.
He gestures to a leather folder on the small table beside him. ‘You want to come and get it?’
My throat goes dry as I stare at the official-looking docket. Why does it feel like he’s daring me to do just that?
‘What’s the matter, Tay? Nervous?’
I laugh – too quick, too high – and it only proves him right.
‘Should I be?’
‘You tell me, Baby Girl.’
Baby Girl?
Surely, that means…
A blush creeps up my chest and into my cheeks. I hate that he makes me feel this way. Ill at ease. Out of control. Hungry. Desperate. Hate it but love it too. Just like Paris, he makes me feel alive in a way no one else has ever done.
I step towards him, the soft fabric of my dress scratching against my sensitised skin, pulse hammering in my throat…
He shifts in the chair, inching out of the shadows, dark eyes raking over me, stripping me bare.
‘Good girl.’
My pulse skitters, my stomach quivers. Good girl. Baby Girl. They light me up every time, and I can’t get enough.
I reach the table, breaths shallow, fingers trembling as they skim the edge of the leather and flip it open.
Oh my God. ‘This is…’
‘Your contract,’ he finishes for me. ‘Signed. Sealed. Delivered.’
My heart pounds so violently, I’m sure he can hear it. Relief, joy, want: they crash through me in one breathless wave.
‘We could’ve… we could’ve done this electronically,’ I say, clinging to the safest words I can find. The ones that hide the truth: that I was terrified he’d changed his mind. That his silence broke me. That I spent two weeks, five days, and twenty hours wanting not this… but him.
He leans back in the chair, resting his elbows on the arms, his thumb propping up his chin as he watches me. Legs spread. Whole body at ease, but his eyes… barely caged.
‘I prefer the old-fashioned way.’
My clit pulses.
‘But then… you already knew that.’
I take a useless breath, lips hanging open, knees weaker than I’ll ever admit.
He lets the silence stretch, index finger tracing his bottom lip, his gaze never leaving me.
And I don’t think he’s ever looked so hot, or so menacing.
The short sleeves of his black henley strain around his biceps, his worn jeans tight around his thighs, the hard line of his zipper… Yeah, he missed me.
I wet my lips without thinking.
‘See something you want?’ he drawls, throwing my own words back at me.
Always, I fear.
And he doesn’t need me to say it; the satisfaction’s there in his eyes.
‘I’m here to call in your debt, Tay.’
My breath stutters. ‘My… debt?’
He smooths his palm down his inner thigh and taps. ‘Time to deliver, Baby Girl.’
Everything in me pulls towards him at once: heat, need, longing.
I close the distance and drop between his knees.
Everything I haven’t said, everything I’ve been denying, rising up within me…
‘I’m yours, Ax.’
Axel
Her words slam into me: a shock, a pull, a claim I feel right down to the bone.
She’s kneeling for me, hands folded before her, head held high, those eyes that have hounded my every waking moment surrendering to me.
God, how I’ve missed her. Missed this. More than I can ever admit out loud.
‘Too right, you are,’ I murmur, rough with everything I’m holding back.
I sweep her hair over one shoulder, then the other, letting my fingers linger behind her ear as I drink in every exposed inch. Her throat, the gentle curve of her collarbone, the way her dress parts to reveal the soft swell of her breasts.
She makes a small sound, turning her cheek into my palm, nuzzling like a cat into its owner’s hand.
‘That’s my girl.’ Pleasure hums through my chest. ‘Show me how much you missed me.’
Her body stiffens. Her eyes flare into mine. Fear threading through the desire. She hates being called out on it – well, join the club, Baby Girl. I hate it too.
But I’ve lived it. For almost three fucking weeks, I’ve walked that hell.
It was supposed to be an exercise in restraint. A test to prove I could do it. Deliver what she needs and walk away… stay away, survive… before I signed.
And I did.
I don’t dwell on the fact that it almost broke me in the process.
Now I’m here, ready to give her what she wants, my name on the dotted line, and take what I’m owed. Her. Her mouth. Her body. And I want it all before the night is out.
‘You look good on your knees.’
‘So do you,’ she hits back.