Chapter Seven
‘You are so perfect.’ She could only put it down to the sheer thickness of the sexual fog he’d created that it took her so long to process that compliment. To hear it and dismiss it. To hear it and be reminded of the lie that it was.
She was not perfect.
She was some woman he’d slept with on a dare, and then because—because why? Why had they slept together four months ago? Why had passion ignited like that? The first time had been one thing, but the second? And for neither to have thought of a condom?
But she couldn’t let his praise stand unchallenged.
And she sure as hell couldn’t let this happen again, no matter how much she wanted it.
And she did. She wanted with a heat and need that was almost drugging.
She wanted with every fibre of her being.
She wanted him to take her, just like he had before, hard and fast, showing her that his body was not only the master of hers, but also completely enslaved to her.
Showing her that he was as lost to this desperate heat as she was.
At what cost, though?
It wasn’t as though they could sleep together and retreat to their separate corners of the globe, her disappearing on some dig and him going back to his take-no-prisoners approach to running his empire.
They were having a baby, and today they’d announced their engagement to Glen and Marina.
Sleeping together was the worst idea imaginable.
Say nothing of the fact that this man was someone she hated.
‘No—’ She wrenched her mouth free from his neck, where she’d been passionately kissing and tasting him, losing herself to the headiness of this moment. He pulled away instantly, looking at her with an expression that showed shock, and disbelief.
But he stopped at the first rejection from her, his body instantly stilling, with a willpower she recognised. Because the fog they were being swallowed by was intensely powerful.
‘No,’ she said again, as the certainty grew that she could never let this happen. It was for their baby, but it was also for her. ‘I don’t want this.’
He stood where he was, rigid and strong, arms crossed over his chest—which was moving hard with the rapid rise and fall of each breath—eyes boring into hers.
His cheeks were slashed with dark colour, and she could see the wheels turning in his brain as he tried to get to grips with what was happening.
‘Don’t you?’ he said finally, dropping his gaze to her breasts, pink from his ministrations, and positively aching for him to resume his attention.
She couldn’t fathom if his mouth or hands were more skilled, then decided it was the combination.
The way he went from one to the other, stirring her effortlessly to a fever-pitch. Just like he always had.
She was so inexperienced, so quick to fall under his spell. It was mortifying. She reached down and scooped up her shirt, pulling it on, ignoring the fact she didn’t fasten her bra in place, wishing she could ignore the way the fabric exacerbated the tingling of her nipples.
‘You don’t need to say that stuff,’ she said, wishing her voice had emerged defiant instead of husky.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That I’m perfect, and beautiful.’
To his credit, he did an excellent job of looking genuinely confused.
‘Okay. But why not?’
She compressed her lips as past hurt burst through her. Somehow, it was so much worse now, because of the situation they were in.
Back then, she’d taken the high road. She’d decided not to confront him, not to tell anyone about the dare.
It had been easier to get on with her life, knowing she’d spent six years crushing on a guy who really wasn’t worth the mud off her boots.
Avoiding him was no longer an option, and suddenly, it made sense to just tell him what she thought of him, and why.
At least then he’d get a clearer picture of why she hated him so much.
‘Because I know why you slept with me, Aristotle.’ The words slammed out of her mouth, angry and judgemental, loaded with the protective instincts she still felt for the twenty-year-old she’d once been.
His brows drew together.
‘I heard your friends.’
Now his expression changed, briefly showing shock, before he wrestled it under control.
‘What did you hear?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Spoken like someone with a guilty conscience. You want me to reveal what I heard before you admit how bad it was?’
‘No, it was bad,’ he surprised her by saying, eyes scanning her face.
‘It was a dare,’ she spat. ‘You were dared to sleep with the chauffeur’s daughter by your rich, snobby, awful friends. Even though I was so not your type. In fact, I was and am the polar opposite of your usual type. I guess you just hate to lose, and always did.’
He made a gruff, guttural sound then took a step towards her. She flinched, unable to bear the thought of him touching her.
‘Why didn’t you confront me about this then?’
‘Why would I?’
‘So I could damn well explain.’
‘I didn’t need an explanation. I heard it all. Including what you all thought of me. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, was definitely not perfect, and not beautiful.’
‘What did you hear me say?’ he demanded, hands thrust on his hips as he glared at her face.
Her heart slammed into her ribs as she remembered his silence.
She remembered digging her fingernails into her palms, desperately hoping he’d say something to defend her, to dispute the awful, vile ways in which they were referring to her.
‘You just stood there, listening, while they laughed about me, asked if I was any good, said fat girls often were because they had to compensate for their looks with skills.’
He swore then, the colour draining from his face as he moved forward and wrapped his hands around her upper arms.
‘You didn’t defend me,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I mean, I don’t know why that surprised me. I don’t know why that hurt me. I guess I just loved your mother so much, I saw the best in you, even when you didn’t deserve it. Still, I never expected—’
‘I did defend you,’ he disputed with quiet strength.
‘In fact, that conversation, that night, was the last time I saw any of those people. I told them to leave the house and never return. Whatever else you were, you became family that night—at least, to my mother. I was not about to let them disrespect you in those terms.’
She blinked away the sting of tears before ripping out of his hands. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Listen to me.’
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to give him any room to wiggle back into something like her good books. Hating him was safe. Being angry with him important.
‘Listen to me,’ he said again. Deeper, darker, with more urgency, and she made the mistake of glancing in his direction and seeing the raw, obvious desperation in his features. She sucked in an uneven breath, pressing her teeth into her lower lip to stem the threat of tears.
‘I did not sleep with you because of a dare.’
‘I heard—’
‘I don’t know what you heard,’ he interrupted, slashing a hand through the air. ‘It was not a dare, but a game.’
The world seemed to tilt cruelly off-balance. She reached around for something to support her, finding nothing. And then, Aristotle was there, his hands on her hips ballasting her against the storm that was to follow.
‘A game?’ she whispered, eyes sweeping shut.
‘It started that night, after the wedding. God, but you were beautiful, Rosemary. So real and womanly, all curves and creamy skin, so luscious…’
‘Luscious?’ she said with a roll of her eyes, inwardly disputing his description.
‘They noticed. But you’re right, they were snobs. It became a running joke, that you were the chauffeur’s daughter, that the chauffeur was my new father. It was insensitive and cruel on every level.’
A tear slid down her cheek. She angled her face to hide it from him, lips wobbling.
‘They put money down on who could sleep with you that night. When I came to you, it was to warn you to stay away from them. I planned to go from you to them, to tell them to get the hell out. I don’t know what happened.
The next minute, we were kissing, and then making love.
I was completely unprepared for it. I didn’t come to you planning to sleep with you, Rosemary. It was…out of my control.’
Her eyes swept shut then on a wave of feeling. She was so confused. On the one hand, everything he was saying seemed plausible. It certainly fitted the idea she had of his character far more than the thought of him having sex with her on a dare.
‘Someone said something about money,’ she murmured.
He made a groaning noise. ‘There was a prize pool.’
She swore then, under her breath, feeling dirty all over. ‘Disgusting men.’
‘Yes.’
She looked up at him then, frowning. ‘Did you really kick them out?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I heard them, and you were there. I stood there for a full minute, listening to the way they spoke about me, the things they said, and you were silent.’
‘I was silent because it was taking absolutely every ounce of my self-control not to punch each and every one of them in the smug face. I abhor that sort of sexist, degrading treatment of women. Those friendships were formed out of time and place, but they were never men I particularly respected. Until that night, though, I had not realised what they were capable of.’
He lifted his hands then, cupping her cheeks. ‘I am mortified to think you have carried this opinion for four years. To know that you believed me capable of that, Rosemary.’ He ran the pad of his thumb over her cheek, the soft flesh there, catching a tear and smudging it into oblivion.
‘It was the logical assumption.’
He nodded once, but she could see the hint of betrayal in his eyes. She’d really surprised him with the accusation.
‘You’d never looked at me before.’
‘You came to the wedding a woman,’ he said simply. ‘From the moment you walked in and I saw you, I wanted you. I think there probably wasn’t a single man in that room who didn’t feel as I did.’