Chapter Three #2
He thought he knew everything but he didn’t.
Yes, she’d started as a cleaner for the escape rooms Elodie managed, but Elodie had caught her repairing one of the props and invited her to work on them.
She’d swiftly graduated from prop maintenance to creation.
When a theatre director who’d visited the escape rooms had asked Elodie where she got her props from, she’d introduced him to Bethan.
She’d then submitted samples for his next production and he’d contracted her for them and more.
Her name was becoming known in theatre circles for bespoke items.
But her most precious success had been with the multi-media pieces she made for her own creative expression and joy.
She had enough time, after all, to explore all the craft and trade skills she’d acquired and she’d studied more.
Last year Phoebe had encouraged her to enter one into an art auction and to her amazement it had sold.
Bethan had suspected that Phoebe and Elodie had clubbed together to buy it but they’d insisted that wasn’t the case.
According to the auctioneer a business had bought it to put in their reception area.
Bethan had been delighted and inspired to keep working on those one-off pieces.
People believed they were art and maybe one day she’d hold her own exhibition.
That one major success had instilled belief in her.
It was one dream that might actually be possible.
Ares didn’t answer or argue—he simply bypassed her, strolling to the corner of his office.
A moment later he turned back holding a platter that someone must have delivered in the few minutes before they’d arrived.
His staff were impeccably trained and basically invisible with it.
He set it on the low coffee table. Bethan recognised several of the meze dishes—each was associated with a memory she couldn’t cope with right now.
She told her mouth not to water, but the first time she’d eaten melitzanosalata was the afternoon they’d first kissed and he’d fed her stuffed cucumber cups in the beach hut when she’d needed cooling down after a particularly vigorous encounter.
Her heat rose, as did her heart rate. And with it, panic.
She couldn’t think about this. Couldn’t be alone with him any more.
‘Let’s take a moment and refuel,’ he broke into her thoughts gruffly. ‘Then we’ll talk this through rationally.’
‘There’s nothing to talk through.’ She didn’t need to be treated like a child and she couldn’t stand to be near him.
A muscle in his jaw ticced and he stepped towards her. ‘You need to eat something. You barely ate dinner last night, didn’t bother with breakfast and hardly touched lunch on the flight.’
Her skin tightened, stilling her. ‘How do you know I barely ate dinner?’
His gaze dropped from hers to the platter.
‘Were you there for that entire date?’ Aghast, she moved towards him. ‘Did you watch me all that time?’
She’d known he’d followed her but surely it hadn’t been for that long?
Ares didn’t meet her eyes but she knew guilt when she saw it. ‘Ares?’
‘It was hardly a fantastic date, was it?’ he snapped sarcastically.
‘You pushed food round the plate and escaped without a single touch. I needed to talk to you, seeing you are still my wife and all.’ He stepped towards her.
‘At least be grateful I didn’t interrupt that stilted conversation and embarrass you more. Had you told him about me?’
‘There was no need, given you’re not part of my life,’ she threw back. ‘And I can go on as many dates with as many men as I want.’
She saw his anger spark, but hers was already ablaze and she wasn’t about to back down. She was utterly humiliated that he’d seen how awkward that date was. It was none of his business and she was never telling him it had been her first date in for ever. ‘As if you’ve been single this whole time—’
‘Oh, but of course I have,’ he cut her off bitterly. ‘Unlike you, I’ve honoured the promises I made when we married.’
She gaped. He was lying. He had to be lying.
Ares Vasiliadis lied to make himself look good.
He had no compunction about it. He’d thrown that out just to make her feel bad.
Which she refused to do because she hadn’t been unfaithful.
She hadn’t kissed anyone and certainly not slept with anyone either before or since him.
But that was irrelevant, she was free to date because they were separated.
She hadn’t seen him for more than two years—not since the day he’d refused to tell her he loved her.
Because he didn’t. So she owed him nothing and he had no right whatsoever to judge her behaviour.
Yes, she was worked up, and weak and unable to resist and she couldn’t resist clarifying—giving him the chance to come clean—because she desperately still wanted to know whether there was any spark of truth in that statement.
‘You’re saying you’ve been celibate since I left.’ She swallowed, her throat tight and sore.
She was prepared for silence. He didn’t like to answer personal questions.
His stormy gaze didn’t leave hers. ‘Yes.’
The world fell away from her feet. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He walked slowly towards her. ‘When did I ever lie to you, Bethan?’
Anger coloured everything red. She welcomed it—better that than any other emotion that surged in his presence. ‘I told you, I’m not the na?ve fool I was back then.’
‘When did I lie?’ he repeated harshly—a breath away from her now.
In those exact vows he’d just referred to—when he’d promised to love her! A word he’d refused to use before or after the damned wedding ceremony they’d had on the beach barely two weeks after they’d met.
But now he stood toe-to-toe with her.
‘You lied to me,’ he said softly. ‘You didn’t trust me. You left me. Not the other way round, Bethan.’
She tensed. She had left—and with good reason.
Because omission could also be a lie. But if that was the narrative he needed to get through this, so be it.
She would let him have some moral high ground.
She was too angry to care. What she really needed was to get the hell away from him because she wasn’t going to lose herself in lust—in wanting him more than her next breath—again.
Yet her body rebelled—total traitor to her reason—defying her mental will and following basic instinct.
Her body knew this man gave pleasure. It was imprinted on every cell and it had been so long that she was almost quaking with need.
But he could never know that. This time at least she would keep some boundaries. Some dignity.
‘Just give me the damned divorce, Ares.’ She choked out. ‘I don’t need—’
‘Anything else from me,’ he finished for her in a rough growl. ‘I’ve got that.’ He moved closer, emotion streaming from him. ‘But what about want?’
He was an inch from her and she knew that look in his eyes and her treacherous body revelled in its power. Ares was unleashed—all emotion and the only emotion he knew was lust. She named it, because this she knew he couldn’t deny—not even wordlessly. She wouldn’t let him. Not now. ‘You want me.’
His eyes—more grey than blue—burned through her. He’d reverted to that serious, grumpy, intense man she’d met that hot morning in Greece. ‘Always. Because I am damned.’
Fierce pleasure exploded within her at his husky admission—more when he swept her close.
Honesty at last. But all that mattered was that his mouth was on hers again.
She strained up—kissing him back—and his arms tightened, lifting her off her feet.
She shivered, a violent ripple of yearning and relief. This she needed. This she’d missed.
He lowered her back to the floor and bent closer—big and ravenous.
Pressing kisses down her neck, he shoved her blazer from her shoulders.
She shook it free and tunnelled her fingers through his hair—holding him to her.
Their lips locked again, tongues swept and delved.
Damned? It had been so damned long and it was so damned good.
He pushed her tee up her body, exposing her bra to his burning gaze.
His hands cupped her, thumbs trailing up the crest of her bra to where her breasts spilled over the lacy edge.
His growl was pure animal and he took her taut nipple into his hot mouth.
Heat shot from her breasts to her lower belly and her hips swirled, pressing against the hardness of his.
His hands moved faster, heavy and sure. He slid fingers beneath her waistband, straight into her panties.
She quivered as he boldly stroked between her legs.
‘Damn, Bethan.’ He raised his head and stared right into her eyes, adding a muffled mutter of something hot and filthy.
‘Touch me,’ she growled. Not just willing and wanton. Demanding.
She wasn’t the innocent who’d let him do anything any more, she was the woman who would push for what she needed from him.
Next moment he’d swept her trousers and panties to her ankles and perched her on the edge of the sofa.
And then he was there. On his knees, his hands holding her firmly so he could kiss her—hot and intimate.
With every lush nibble, stroke and lick she arched—closer and closer.
She moaned, bucking beneath the tormenting erotic touches.
He reached up and pressed a hand across her mouth—half silencing her moans—but she took the chance to tease the centre of his palm with her tongue. She needed part of him to kiss.