Chapter Two
Zoe Hargreaves did not look satisfied in the least. She looked extremely pissed off, which he supposed she had reason to be.
Clearly, Banks hadn’t told her who she was marrying either, and given the expression on her face as she’d entered the church, she wasn’t happy about it.
Good. That made two of them.
He’d hidden his shock at her appearance the way he hid every single emotion he’d ever had—under an expressionless mask.
In fact, he’d been hiding his emotions for so long that by now it was instinctive to do so.
Sometimes he’d even forget he had them, so it came as quite a surprise to find that he still had the capability to be shocked at all.
Nevertheless, he had been. He hadn’t thought of her for years, at least not since she’d turned down his offer of a position in his company, a position he’d created especially for her since he’d heard she was still working for Banks, and thought she might need a way out.
He was a little surprised that she’d flatly turned him down, but he hadn’t let it bother him. He’d simply got on with his business, pushing both her and the reason she might have said no to him to the back of his mind.
Yet now here she was, standing in front of him, and the sweet, affectionate and loyal little girl he remembered had vanished.
In her place was a delicate--looking woman with glossy black hair, a heart-shaped face, a perfect bow of a mouth and grey eyes like a winter storm.
And most definitely a woman, that was immediately clear.
She wore jeans, a black T-shirt, a worn-looking black leather jacket and had a capacious leather satchel slung over her shoulder.
Not clothes that were inherently sexy or otherwise, but the T-shirt clung to generous breasts and highlighted a neat waist, while her jeans drew attention to the gentle swell of her hips and thighs.
She was beautiful, there was no disputing that. Very beautiful. Not that he’d ever been a man who had his head turned by mere beauty. No, he could get beauty anywhere and very often did, since he had his pick of sexual partners.
He wasn’t thinking of Zoe in that way, though.
His plan for this marriage was simply to get the ceremony over and done with, then he would ship his bride off to whichever of his many houses she wanted to stay in, and that would be ‘living together’.
As to the baby, fertility doctors could handle that.
They didn’t even have to see each other if they didn’t want to.
And it was plain that Zoe didn’t want to.
There was an unexpected and unwanted ache inside him at that thought, but that was just another emotion to dismiss and ignore.
He had more important things to think about, such as Zoe arguing with him and prolonging this whole farce unreasonably.
Well, she could try, but he wasn’t going to let her.
If she wanted a bloody gown, then he’d get her a bloody gown. Flowers, too.
‘Are you insane?’ The anger glittering in her eyes made them glow silver.
He remembered her temper that blew through like a cyclone before vanishing just as quickly as it came. Remembered those sparks that would glitter just like the ones in her eyes now. He used to call her ‘Star’ because of that glitter, and because once she’d been his North Star.
‘Not last time I checked,’ he said, unable to help but notice that the flush of temper in her cheeks made the sparks in her eyes even more apparent.
‘You have no idea what size I am, and as for wearing a dress you ordered like you’d order a meal, I’m not—’
‘Stop arguing, Zoe,’ Archimedes interrupted, his patience rapidly fraying, not that he had much to begin with. ‘The quicker we do this, the quicker we can go about our day.’
Tension vibrated in every line of her small figure and her mouth was a hard line, and he found himself staring at her yet again, looking at the changes time had wrought.
There was a brittleness to her, a hardness that he was sure were new, not to mention a certain wariness.
As if she viewed everything as a threat.
He recognised that wariness. He’d seen it in the eyes of people he’d worked for in his years of the black hat hacking that he’d done for the Russian mob. The wariness of people who have been hurt and now distrusted everyone they met.
Still, that was what happened when you grew up the way they had both grown up. You learned about the cruelty of the world, about the cruelty of people, and that was something no one could prepare you for. You just had to deal with it.
He definitely wasn’t curious as to where the little girl he remembered had gone, not at all.
He’d left her behind the day he’d escaped that house and Banks, and it was a good thing he’d left her behind.
Not that he’d had any choice in the matter since Banks had given him an ultimatum—he could leave, but he couldn’t take Zoe with him.
She had to stay. And since he had no idea how he was going to take care of himself let alone a fifteen-year-old, he’d let Banks keep her.
Zoe opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it with a snap. But the sparks of temper in her eyes didn’t glitter any less. ‘Not until I get my dress,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t want you to have arrogantly ordered one and then for it to go to waste.’
Archimedes gritted his teeth. He couldn’t force her into this and he couldn’t make it go any faster, not now she’d dug her heels in. Another thing he remembered about her. She was stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery, and now she was doing it just to spite him, he was certain of it.
‘What would you like to do while we wait then?’ he asked sarcastically, trying, and failing, to shove his annoyance away. ‘Chat about house prices? The traffic? The weather?’
‘Or we could talk about why you left,’ she said, her jaw at a belligerent angle.
Fuck. That was the one conversation he didn’t want to have. Because he suspected that she wasn’t interested so much in why he’d left, but why he’d left without telling her, and he couldn’t explain that with Banks standing right there.
‘You still remember that?’ he asked instead. ‘It was years ago, Zoe.’
Her jaw was tight, the expression on her lovely face very, very fixed. It was clear to him that yes, she still remembered.
‘Oh, I don’t,’ she said airily. ‘I was only curious.’
He didn’t think it was only curiosity, but he didn’t argue. These few minutes with her would soon be over, and then they could both get on with living their own lives again, so what was the point in carrying on about things that had happened so long ago?
‘I mean…’ She put her hands in the pockets of her jeans. ‘We could also talk about how you got all the money you needed to start your company.’
Yes, and that was another topic he didn’t want to talk about, not with her. Not with anyone. He’d been very careful to erase ten years of his past, the years before Ares, erasing all the things he’d done and all the things he’d seen, all the things he’d once been a part of and never would be again.
He was never going to revisit them. Never.
‘Or,’ he said, ‘you could talk about why you’re still working for Banks when all you wanted was to get out.’
An expression he couldn’t read flickered briefly over her face.
‘Little thing called loyalty,’ she said tartly. ‘Something you wouldn’t understand.’
Another dig at him leaving, no doubt. Well, he couldn’t change that.
He’d left because all he’d wanted was to escape Banks, escape being told what to do all the damn time, to have some agency in his own goddamned life, that was why.
He’d been tired of being used. Tired of being manipulated and threatened.
Tired of all his work going to benefit Banks while he himself got nothing.
He wasn’t going to apologise for it, and if Zoe was still angry after fifteen years, then that was her issue to deal with, not his.
At that moment the door to the church opened again and one of his staff entered carrying a garment bag and a bouquet of flowers. Pink peonies, as ordered.
Archimedes strode over to the man and took both the garment bag and the flowers then turned and brandished them at Zoe.
‘Your gown and flowers,’ he said shortly. ‘Get dressed and let’s get this pointless ritual finished.’
‘Very nice,’ Banks said approvingly. ‘What a kind gesture.’
Zoe meanwhile said nothing, her jaw tight. ‘Thanks, but I’ve changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I’ll stick to my jeans and T-shirt.’
Again, she was doing it to spite him, he had no doubt. If so, it was a mistake, especially with his patience already being so thin on the ground.
‘Put the fucking gown on,’ he ordered through gritted teeth. ‘Because if you don’t, I will invoice you for it and also for the flowers, and considering both were astronomically expensive, I’m sure you don’t want me to do that.’
Zoe’s silver gaze flamed, meeting his head-on, her strong, stubborn will pushing against his.
But he didn’t look away, because she wasn’t the only one with a strong, stubborn will, and his had been honed through years of dealing with the worst and most dangerous of humanity. One small woman was nothing.
Except, for some reason, he could feel tension starting to gather between them, a very distinct tension.
A familiar tension even. Her cheeks had become a little pink and he was suddenly aware that her bottom lip was very lush-looking and very soft.
That the sparks in her eyes were hot, and that it might not be anger this time but something else, something more intense.
You should look away.
Yes, he should. Because if he held her gaze any longer it was going to turn into something it shouldn’t. Yet…there was challenge in her eyes, as if she was goading him, needling him, wanting him to be the first to look away, and he could never do that. Backing down wasn’t something he ever did.
‘Please,’ Banks murmured. ‘We haven’t got all day.’