CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER NINE
More stories came out day after day. And each one enraged Athan a little more. Especially since they’d started to focus on Lynna. Not just the pregnancy rumors, but a gross exaggeration of the loan Athan had paid off for her and what that transaction might mean about their relationship.
Yes, Constantine had found his Achilles’ heel, because Athan did not feel quite so calculated and careful when the stories made Lynna out to look bad.
He’d phoned Ophelia so many times she’d stopped answering his calls. She’d managed to plant a few stories in the press about Constantine, but none had taken off with the fervor that stories about Lynna did.
Their first public outing would be this weekend, but they had to make it through tonight’s private dinner first.
Henry and Bethan Davies were their guests. They were the first dinner he’d scheduled because they were the easiest targets. Henry had been Aled’s childhood friend who Aled had brought into the fold of AC International before Athan had been born.
Henry’s loyalty would lie with Lynna over Constantine, Athan was certain. Even with Constantine’s threats and Athan as a go-between.
Lynna had suggested that instead of going out, Athan host the Davies in his home and allow her to make the meal.
He’d had reservations about it looking like his wife was staff , but in the end, she’d won him over. It would feel like family. Like a home-cooked meal. Appealing to the sentimental, which was the whole point of marrying Aled Carew’s daughter.
Still, he was having a hard time shaking his foul mood when he returned home. Until he hunted Lynna down. She was in the dining room. Everything was set up for a fine dinner, and she was clearly going over the entire tablescape to make sure it was perfect.
She wore black slacks that somehow appeared both elegant and comfortable. She wore a short-sleeved sweater the color of eggplant. Her hair was swept up in a more elaborate twist than he was used to seeing from her. A delicate gold chain hung around her neck, and little diamonds winked at her ears.
He did not know how she could make him feel like he’d been electrocuted in an outfit so simple, so casual. But he wanted to trace the line of that necklace, feel the soft warmth of her skin, more than he wanted to deal with Henry Davies.
“The hors d’oeuvres are ready and set out,” she said, as if ticking points off on some internal list of hers. “Petros will serve the rest of the meal. I added some Welsh touches to the menu. It will offer an easy way to segue into talking about my father that doesn’t feel calculated.”
He thought of what she’d said about being his partner . He knew she wanted revenge against his father, but he hadn’t expected… this . Her actually working with him. Because all of this was…
“You are brilliant.”
She stopped a little short, straightened her shoulders. “Of course I am.”
She had an unshakable confidence. He’d seen that in her, year in and year out. The way she took his jobs, the way she acted unaffected—for the most part—by who and what he was every time he brought her into his home to be his staff.
But there was something about the way she reacted when he complimented her that hinted at some tiny…vulnerability, and it made him even more furious that his father had turned her into his preferred tabloid target.
But he had to set aside all those frustrations and put on a smile when the Davieses were announced. He had to play the role of gracious host. It was a role he’d always been good at, but Lynna added a special touch. Where he would have been tempted to play on the memory of her father, she always drew the conversation back away from Aled. So that even the most cynical person could not have accused them of a mercenary dinner in an effort to gain support.
But there was enough of Aled’s ghost haunting the dinner that Henry no doubt felt it. With the right moves, Henry would associate Athan with Aled instead of Constantine, and once he promised to bring Rhys Carew on?
Athan was certain he would have a steady ally in Henry Davies.
When they said their goodbyes, Henry took Lynna’s hand in both of his. He squeezed. “It was so good to see you doing so well, Lynna.” His smile wavered, emotion in his eyes. “I miss your father very much, but you brought a piece of him back to me tonight.”
Lynna blinked, a bit like she’d been struck. Then she managed a smile, but it was not warm.
“It was good to see you, Henry,” she said, not engaging in the topic of her father at all. She pulled her hand from Henry quickly. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Then she strode away quickly. To smooth over her abrupt exit, Athan walked Henry and his wife to their car, speaking effusively of Lynna’s culinary talents and inviting them to come back another time.
But he was a bit confused by Lynna’s odd exit, so he went to find her once the Davieses were seen off.
When Athan returned to the dining room, she was collecting dishes. Clearing the table. Which they had an entire staff ready and waiting to do. She must have stopped them.
“Well, I think that was a success,” she said brightly. Overly brightly. Too brisk with it too. She was moving in quick, efficient movements, but there was something underneath it. A shake. That vulnerability she always seemed so desperate to hide.
“Your father was a good man who made an impression on many people.”
She stopped what she was doing. Her eyes were hot as she pinned him with a glare. “I see no point in discussing that with you .”
“Or with Henry, apparently.”
“We could sit here and tell old stories, reminisce about how wonderful he was,” Lynna said. Her words were clipped, her movements back to efficient but a little jerky as she pulled a stack of plates high. “But the truth and reality is he’s dead. Grief is a wasted emotion.”
He was shocked to hear her say so, if only because it reminded him a bit of his father. Who had never had any patience for feelings . Things must be done regardless of them, or so he’d always intoned at Athan.
Usually when they had to deal with the topic of Athan’s mother. Athan’s feelings about her. Elena’s feelings about the custody agreement.
And Athan to this day felt regret for the way he’d dealt with his mother before he’d realized his father was the enemy. He’d tried to rectify the relationship with his mother, but it remained tenuous at best.
Hardly the topic at hand.
“Lynna.” He crossed the room. He had never once been gentle with his mother, and he’d regretted it these past few years of trying to rebuild himself into a decent enough man. So he tried to be gentle now, with Lynna. “There is nothing…wasted about feeling grief for your father.”
He stopped her movements by softly putting a hand at her elbow. There wasn’t so much as even a tremor in her voice or her arm as she pulled away from him and met his gaze with those blue eyes.
She kept everything so…locked away. Carefully hidden behind that cool distance she employed so well. He had believed this was a sign of strength, of confidence, but now…he wondered.
Because he had seen her at the funeral. Devastated. Undone. She had feelings.
Grief is a wasted emotion.
Did she think all emotions were? Except maybe hate.
“There is no one in here to pretend for,” she told him, as if him offering comfort had to do with pretend.
“I was not pretending . I was offering comfort, as you seem upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m fine. Or I would be if you’d leave me alone and let me clean up.”
He almost believed her. She had a talent for taking all the emotion out of her voice. For seeming so perfectly fine you never worried about her.
Which was probably the point. It was no hidden mystery that she was the thing that had kept her family together. She’d taken out the loan to pay for her brother’s education. She’d dealt with everything.
He found he liked knowing he’d released her of some of those burdens. He’d gotten what he wanted out of it—her married to him, so he knew he shouldn’t feel like he’d done something for her. It had been for him.
Because he wasn’t selfless.
Case in point, he found himself thinking about the moment he had gotten underneath all those walls she held up against him. A moment she’d surrendered .
When he’d kissed her on their wedding day. Wedding. Because she was his wife. And maybe she hated him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want him.
All these years, he’d only seen the cool, calm outside. But he’d never seen that flicker of emotion underneath.
But it had been there. This whole time. Which meant her grief was there, just as her anger and frustration were.
As her desire might be.
He moved closer to her, lured by the idea. Desire. That kiss on their wedding night. What might lurk underneath her carefully curated surface?
“Did I mention that you look beautiful tonight? Ethereal.” And she did. He’d found himself losing the thread of conversation more than once when he’d caught sight of her smiling at Henry or taking a delicate bite of the food she’d made herself. The sound of her gentle laugh had knocked into him like a blow on more than one occasion.
It all suited their purposes. Made him look in love with her. Which was all that mattered. At least, when they were around people connected with AC.
Now they were alone. And nothing mattered except what he wanted to matter.
He moved closer still. “I could hardly focus on the task at hand.”
“Stop that,” she snapped.
“What?”
“We are husband and wife in name only. It’s fine enough to pretend for an audience, but I don’t want to hear… I don’t need your compliments, Athan.”
He liked the way she said his name all clipped, reproachful. “Need? Of course not. But you don’t want to hear that I think you’re beautiful? That I spent just as much time considering the angles of how to win Henry over to our side as I did the precise spot on your neck I’d like to put my mouth.”
Her eyes widened for a moment—and perhaps it was arrogance, but he liked to think it was a moment of anticipation—before her eyes narrowed.
“I am not going to be your plaything.”
“Oh, it isn’t play , omorfiá mou , I assure you.”
She shook her head, made a fed-up kind of noise, then hefted a stack of dishes and tried to sail past him. But he knew her well enough or was getting there. He knew just what to say to stop her in her tracks.
“Why are you running, Lynna?”
She didn’t take another step. She stopped abruptly, shoulders straightening. “I am not running. I have dishes to do.”
“Lynna. Come now. Surely you can come up with a better excuse than that.”
She whirled to face him, temper flaring, the stack of plates wobbling dangerously in her arms. “I have held up my end of the bargain this evening. I did an impeccable job.”
“You did.”
“So. There is no need, there is no…place for this…whatever game you’re trying to play.”
“It couldn’t be as simple as finding you attractive, being married to you, and wanting to taste you again. It has to be a game?”
The plates clattered, but she firmed her grip. “I don’t know what would ever give you the impression that I’d want you to touch me—”
“Perhaps our wedding when you kissed me back.” He smiled at her. “You liked it when I kissed you.”
Temper was heightening her color. Maybe he would have liked to find a different emotion to coax out of her, but at least anger was something . She didn’t cut that one off abruptly, and he wanted more.
Because he wasn’t a selfless man, and in this moment, he didn’t even want to be.
“We all have temporary bouts of insanity now and then,” she said acidly.
But it did nothing to dim his smile. Her barbs were always so well-placed, so funny , even if she wasn’t trying to be. “Insanity or no, that is not saying you didn’t like it.”
“Perhaps I’d like kissing a frog,” she returned archly.
It made him want to laugh. It made him want to put his mouth on her. To undo the twist of her hair. To see what she was hiding under all those layers.
“Well, as long as you’d enjoy it. You know, you don’t have to like a person to have sex with them. Good sex, at that.”
She lifted her chin and immediately shot back. “I’d hardly share my body for the first time with someone I hate.” Then something in her expression shuttered.
She hadn’t meant to let that slip.
First time.
She whirled away from him, marched from the dining room to the kitchen, the plates rattling against each other as she moved.
Maybe he should have let that be that, but… She was so self-possessed. So beautiful. He couldn’t fathom that she would… Why wouldn’t she have shared her body before?
He followed her into the kitchen. “Why have you been hiding?”
“Hiding?” She made a scoffing sound as she set the stack of dishes into the sink. “I have no interest in putting up with a man simply because he might, and I feel might is the operative word here, offer a bit of physical pleasure. I have had much more important things on my plate. Sex is for people with lots of time and freedom from consequences.”
It was meant to be a dig at him, but it didn’t bother him that she might consider him part of that. “Indeed, indeed. But see, you have already decided to put up with me for other reasons, so why not get pleasure out of the deal?”
She opened her mouth, but no sharp rejoinder came out of it. He watched as she scrambled for one.
And came up empty.
The want was like a drug now. A potent, yearning, tangling thing deep inside. All the more irresistible because he saw something in her reaction.
Oh, he was under no illusions she would ever like him, but that didn’t mean the elemental chemistry that sparked between them couldn’t be explored. And he was becoming more and more convinced she wanted to explore it, if she could ever get past her own stubborn nature.
“You know, Lynna,” he said, moving slowly closer. Watching as her breathing got more shallow, but she did not retreat. She did not hold him off. She watched him with an expression full of curiosity warring with a wariness. “I could make you feel things you’ve never imagined.”
She made another scoffing sound, but she did not rebut the statement. Didn’t push him away.
“With a touch, a taste. You have no idea what I could show you. You only have to say the word.”
She let out a shaky breath, but her gaze was steady on his when she responded. “Don’t hold your breath.”
He smiled at her. Stayed in this space just a whisper away from her while seconds ticked on. While he watched the effect of his proximity wash over her. While he felt his own body tighten, yearn.
It was a dance. Or maybe fencing match was more appropriate. Lunge, parry, retreat. Build up to the final moment of surrender.
She would surrender.
“Enjoy washing dishes, omorfiá mou ,” he offered on a sultry murmur. Then turned and walked away. More than pleased at the little outraged sound she made at his retreat.
* * *
She washed the dishes. Cleaned the kitchen and dining room from top to bottom even though the staff tried to help, but she shooed them away. She worked herself into a state of exhaustion, or tried.
But even after she’d showered and crawled into bed, late into the night, she could not stop thinking about those words.
You know, you don’t have to like a person to have sex with them. Good sex, at that.
It was terrible, though better than thinking about the sharp lance of pain she’d felt at Henry bringing up her father. The man he’d been. Before.
She didn’t want to think about before Constantine had betrayed her father any more than she wanted to hear Athan’s words echoing in her mind, feeling like a caress against her skin.
In her mind , she knew she had no desire to encounter any of what Athan described. Not with him . The confections she made for herself were all the physical pleasure she needed. Always had been, always would be.
Her body seemed to be on a different planet of understanding. One that kept reminding her she didn’t have to like him to have sex with him. He was her husband. And what was this if not the opportunity she told herself she’d never have?
A period of time where her responsibilities were minimal. A sexual encounter with him required no emotional investment. No potential for conflict or complication, because they didn’t like each other and they would divorce after they took AC back. After Rhys was instated.
An opportunity.
She shook her head, there against her pillow. That line of thinking was absolute insanity. A sexual encounter with the devil? That would leave marks. Scars. He’d be the first man she was with forever .
I bet he’s really good at it.
She rolled onto her stomach and groaned into her pillow. Where did thoughts like that come from? She didn’t want to think that way. But just like her body reacting to him—his presence, his words, his gaze, him —her brain seemed to have a will of its own.
Lying here, feeling her own body, was a recipe for disaster. And the only way she knew how to fix it was to feed it.
It was how she’d dealt with her grief, her anxiety, her stress—a bunch of pointless emotions that accomplished nothing. Feed the feeling, and it went away. The perfect solution.
Maybe she’d ended up in the kitchen every single night of being here, making herself a sweet treat and pretending it was a decadence and not a distraction. Maybe there was no pretending tonight, but if she lay in this bed, she might be tempted to take care of the desperate ache inside of her herself.
Which would be fine, if it wouldn’t be him she pictured or imagined while she did it. And if she allowed herself that, how would she ever face him again?
How was she going to weather this feeling, this yearning she didn’t want to have but was there all the same for a full year ?
No. Food was the answer. Pretty much always.
She got out of bed and wrapped the robe around herself. Pretending it was the chill and not the buzzing layer of lust making her skin prickle.
She crept her way downstairs in the dark like she’d done more often than she should. She could move around the kitchen without turning any lights on—the outdoor lights of the patio enough to illuminate her way.
She moved into the pantry. She didn’t need ice cream or the whole rigmarole of a sundae. This wasn’t that dire. She was fine . She’d just grab a cookie or two—she’d made her own now, so they weren’t pathetic store-bought ones. She just needed some sugar to cap off the night, and then she could and would go to sleep—no thoughts of Athan anywhere to be found.
Never mind that she’d had a very large slice of apple cake with dinner. That didn’t count.
Once she was in the pantry, she pulled her phone from her robe pocket and turned on the flashlight. She quickly located the cookies she’d made yesterday and packed away in a jar. She procured two—only two—then replaced the jar’s lid and turned off her flashlight.
She would go back upstairs, crawl into bed, eat her cookies, and then she would be able to settle and—
The room flooded with light. She jumped at the surprise, made a little screeching noise, then squinted against the brightness.
It didn’t take a psychic to know who would be behind her when she turned. She closed her eyes for one second. You are not giving in to whatever this is, Lynna. Not now. Not ever. She would be strong. She could be strong.
Then she turned.
He’d changed his clothes. Was this what he wore to bed? A soft T-shirt that outlined the impressive muscles of his body, and sweats that rode low on his hips. His feet were bare. His hair was even a little mussed, as if someone had been running their fingers through it.
She tightened her grip on her cookies and her phone and tried to ignore the errant thought that she’d like to do just that.
“What are you doing in here? It is the middle of the night,” she hissed at him. Even though it was his house, and his right.
“I know what goes on in my house, Lynna darling,” he returned, all but lounging there against the pantry doorframe. “And every time you struggle to sleep, here you are.” He smiled, the smile of a devil—handsome and tempting .
And she knew better than to succumb to temptation.
Except…
She still hadn’t come up with any good reasons to resist the temptation. Except the whole “hating him for ruining her father’s life” thing. It was easy when Constantine was the topic of conversation to focus on the fact Constantine had been the mastermind of all that, but she needed to remember Athan was no innocent party.
No matter how handsome he looked.
“Did you come looking for dessert, omorfiá mou ?” he asked, like a sultry promise.
He had to stop calling her that. He had to stop speaking Greek in that low, delicious rasp of a voice. He had to stop this .
Because if he didn’t, she might be forced to reckon with the fact that part of her had…hoped for this when she’d come downstairs.
Part of her had wanted exactly this. Fantasized this .
Him finding her. Pursuing her. Not letting her refusals stand. Because she couldn’t allow herself to give in, but if he…
He moved toward her and she was…trapped, essentially. In the pantry. Any retreat would require pushing past him.
“I find sleep difficult when I have…other things on my mind as well,” he said, too close now. So she could feel the heat radiating off of him. So they were both in this pantry room. “What were you thinking about, Lynna?”
He reached out, touched a strand of her hair, then tucked it behind her ear, tracing the shell of it. A shudder of feeling went through her. How could that be such a jolt, such a pleasure? It was simple. Her ear ?
And what if he touched you other places?
She tried to shake her head, but it wouldn’t move. She was transfixed. By the shadows on his face in this dim room. By the sound of his breathing—not quite controlled. By the way his scent—something piney and luxurious—seemed to overtake any food smells in here.
She had not come down here hoping for this. She had come here for…
His hand cupped her jaw. His body was against hers now.
She could push him away, for a second she wondered if that’s what he was waiting for, in this moment where he simply stood there and held her face. Then his head bowed.
“Let me taste you,” he whispered, his breath dancing across her mouth.
She shouldn’t let this happen. She certainly shouldn’t lean toward him like she was eager and willing and—
And then his mouth touched hers. How easy it was to forget one’s entire moral compass when lips like his were involved. Sure and in control, as though she didn’t have to worry about anything except melting into him.
When she always had to worry about something .
But her mind simply…emptied. The heat of it all was incomprehensible. How she could be at the center of such a range of things and still be whole? Herself?
She wasn’t cognizant of dropping the cookies or her phone, didn’t even mourn the loss. Her fingers were too busy finding purchase in the soft cotton of his shirt as his tongue swept into her mouth.
It was wild and maybe desperate. A lack of control from both of them. Like the wedding, but more. Because this had been building. He’d made it build over the past week and she’d tried to put it off, but all she’d done was give more kindling to the fire, so it erupted bigger and hotter and more devastating. A wildfire burning through her.
Dimly, she was aware he unknotted the tie in her robe, that it was tugged off her arms. That losing her grip on his shirt meant she needed a grip on something , and maybe that should be his face. The rough prickle of a day’s growth under her palms. A sensory overload, here in his pantry .
His mouth slid down her neck. His hands were huge and gripped her waist. His mouth a sensual assault against the sensitive crook of her neck. She was shivering, panting, desperate for something she knew she should not want. Not with him. Never with him.
Then she felt the warmth of his hands under the soft, thin material of her pajama shirt. His fingers splayed wide, he slid those large palms up her sides, eliciting sparks and an unfurling of need so potent she didn’t know how anyone survived this.
His fingers stopped just under her breasts. Her skin tingled everywhere, and she didn’t know how to move, how to get him to touch her. Everywhere. Anywhere. More.
Except, she should push him away. Stop this madness. His mouth was on her shoulder, and she could almost… almost think.
“Is this what you want, Lynna?”
She did and she didn’t. It was too much and not enough. How would she live with herself if she went through with this?
How would she live if he did not push her across this delicate edge? His thumbs brushed against the underside of her breasts and she did not recognize the sound that escaped her, so close to surrender and freedom—two things she could not allow herself.
Ever.
“If it’s not, tell me to stop, Lynna,” he said, a low, luring rumble against her skin. But then he pulled away, looked her right in the eye. His mouth was amused, arrogant.
She wanted to punch him.
Kiss him. Forever.
“If you don’t want it, simply say the word. Stop. ”
It felt like a dare. It felt like a lifeline. Stop felt like the only choice between this or an oblivion that would take her over, take her under. When she had to be strong and herself.
Who would she be if she lost control? If she let someone else handle everything there was to handle? What tragedies would befall her this time?
“S-s-stop,” she managed.
And he did. Immediately. He pulled his hands back and held them up like surrender. He took a step away from her, and then another. His gaze never left hers, and there was nothing but a grim kind of amusement in his expression.
“You know where to find me when you change your mind, omorfiá mou .”
Some strange part of her wanted to stop him. As he turned and moved out of the pantry. Demand he stay and finish this.
But he walked away. Like it was easy. Like nothing was rioting around in his body like it was in hers.
She had felt his erection against her body. Maybe she wasn’t well-versed in the male body, but she knew enough to know that.
Why would he just…walk away?
Because you told him to.
So it was wrong she felt disappointed. It was ridiculous she felt disappointed. But that was what settled inside of her. Frustrated, thwarted desire. Huge, yawning disappointment.
And the bastard probably knew it.