CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
S TELLA CHOKED ON her bite of tomato. She reached for her wine and sipped to wash down the acidic taste, then gave a little cough.
“What…um…?” She had to clear her throat again. “What gave you the impression I want to have an affair with you?” She tried to look condescending.
“You don’t?” He angled to face her again, swinging his crooked knee outward so he subtly caged her. “Be careful, Stella. I have a very highly developed gauge for lies.”
She tried to hold his unblinking stare, but challenging him put tension in her stomach and a quiver in her chest. Her face went so hot, she was probably as red as one of the tomato halves left on her plate.
“You want the truth?” She picked up her mostly empty plate and walked it around to the sink. “I wish I didn’t hear offers like that as often as I do. I have friends who enjoy the perks of being someone’s holiday fling, but I’m not one of them. If that’s what you’re after, try one of the apps.” She held out her hand to take his plate.
Something was flashing in his gaze that she couldn’t interpret. Not anger, but something very male and aggressive.
He slowly handed across his plate, but hung on to it until she locked eyes with him.
“I also recognize when deflection is being used to avoid an outright lie. Speak clearly, Stella. You don’t have to say yes to an affair, but if it’s a no, a hard no , then say that. I’ll drop it from this discussion and never bring it up again.”
A million ants invaded her chest, scrambling around. She believed him. He was holding her gaze too steadily to be bluffing. He wasn’t touching her, but he was gripping her in a way that demanded she be honest to the point of nakedness.
They were both still holding the plate and it seemed to conduct energy from him into her. The current traveled up her arm and into her lungs. Her throat became too tight to release the tiny word he had demanded. Her lips refused to form it.
Because it would be a lie.
Yearning had haunted her for years. What-ifs. She had buried them under anger and scorn, but they’d always been there in wayward dreams and hidden moments of reliving the most exciting kiss of her life.
That painful truth rose to make her skin feel too small for her body. Heat suffused her. Culpable heat. A distressing desire that only seemed oriented to him. It pulled dampness into her eyes.
“All right, then,” he said quietly, and released the plate.
She set it in the sink with her own, clumsily, so the dishes clattered and jangled discordantly. Then she stood there, shaken.
“It’s going to be okay, Stella.”
“No, it won’t,” she choked. “This is going to ruin my life, isn’t it?”
That was hitting her along with the harder truth that she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t attracted to him. He had all the advantage and it frightened her.
“ You can go back to your life,” she accused. “You’re rich and untouchable. If people ask you uncomfortable questions, you can get in a helicopter and go somewhere else. I’m never going to have that luxury. I’m always going to be the woman in the photos, the one who broke up your relationship. That is unfair, Atlas. I shouldn’t be paying for one stupid kiss this many years later!”
She wasn’t just talking about a kiss and a photo, though. She was talking about this other thing. This connection. Was it an obsession? She didn’t know and she didn’t want to examine it for fear of giving it even more life.
“It’s deeply unfair,” he agreed, coming around to her side of the island. “That’s why I brought you with me. I’m going to protect you, Stella.”
“For the low, low cost of an affair?” Her voice hit a strident note.
“No. I want that. Don’t doubt it. But it’s not a condition for my helping you.”
“And how will you—” Her phone began to jingle in her bag. “That’s likely someone in my family, worried sick over the headlines.”
She leaped on the excuse to move away from him and catch her breath.
“Hoi, Beate.” She switched to German as she accepted the call. “I’m fine, but I had to leave Zermatt—”
“Pappa’s here,” Beate hissed.
“At the house? Why? Grettina let him in?”
“He wanted to have dinner with us. He says he lost his job and his apartment. He says he has to stay here.”
“ No . Tell him I’ll cover his rent.”
“He owed so much he was evicted.”
“He hasn’t been paying? Why didn’t he tell me?” She knew why. Because he hated that she wasn’t beholden to him. He hated that she had defied him and forged an independent life and that she couldn’t be manipulated the way the rest of the family could.
“He can’t stay, Beate. You know how that will go.” She started for the stairs, then turned back to collect her glass of wine, avoiding Atlas’s frown. “Have you called Elijah?”
“He came when I texted that Pappa was here. He’s trying to talk him into going to a hotel, but you know what Grettina’s like.” Their stepmother wouldn’t put him out. He was the father of her twins.
“Is he really evicted? Or just playing on her sympathy?” Stella closed herself into one of the bedrooms, barely taking in the faux rustic decor of iron bed frame and refinished washstand as a night table. She sat down on the fluffy white duvet.
“They locked up his tools until he pays his back rent, but told him not to come back. He has nowhere to go. Oh, here’s Elijah.”
Elijah was the next eldest and lived at the dorm of the university.
“What is going on with you?” Elijah demanded quietly as he came on the line. “Beate said there are photos of you with a man?”
“Don’t worry about me. What about Pappa?”
“I’m getting him a hotel, but I can only afford a few nights.” Elijah had a little more influence over their father because he was a son and that earned him a shred more respect than the women in the family, but Elijah only worked part-time because he was in an accelerated engineering program at the university. “I can’t keep him from coming back tomorrow when I’m in class.”
“I’ll book the hotel and put it on my card.” Stella got a discount because of her job. It only worked if the affiliated hotel had a vacancy, but it made it more affordable. “I’ll cover his rent if we can find a place for him. You and Beate search, too.” She didn’t bother mentioning it should be far enough away that Pappa would need to take a train or bus to get to Grettina. They all knew what was best.
“He’s talking like he did last time. Adamant he should stay with his wife and children. Sanctity of marriage and all that,” Elijah said grimly.
Grettina was too kindhearted to argue that “for better or worse” didn’t mean she had to put up with his worst.
“I’d come to help but… That’s the other thing. Paparazzi might turn up asking about me. If Pappa talks to them…”
“He won’t. I’ll get him to the hotel tonight,” Elijah promised. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No. I’ll book the hotel right now and send you the details. Give everyone my love.” She ended the call and hissed out her breath. Then she took a big gulp of wine and tapped to book the room.
She had her own rent to worry about, but she didn’t let those worries creep in. She sent the confirmation to her brother and told him to let her know when their father was at the hotel.
With heavy steps, she carried her phone and empty wineglass back to the kitchen. It was spotless. Maybe Atlas had washed a dish or two in his life.
He stood in the corner, hips leaned on the heavy desk. He set aside his phone when she appeared.
“What happened? That sounded like a family emergency.”
“A small one,” she downplayed. “I’ve dealt with it, but I should warn you. My father isn’t online so he won’t know anything about this…” She set her wineglass on the island and waved at the ceiling. “I doubt any reporters could find him since he’s going to a hotel, but if they did approach him…” She shook her head. “He has strong opinions.”
“How do I manage him?”
“The minute I figure that out, I will let you know,” she grumbled, and hugged herself, already hearing her father’s berating tone. Tramp. Sinner .
Aside from one moment of poor judgment, she had lived like a nun most of her life, yet her father took every chance to look down on her. A brazen, selfish girl. A disobedient runaway. A thief.
She was starting to think she might as well live the life he accused her of living, since he would never believe how chaste she really was.
Maybe that was a rationalization for something she longed for, though. She swallowed, but the sting of culpability remained in her throat.
“He’s the reason you ran away,” Atlas surmised.
“I don’t want to talk about that. Tell me how you think you can protect me. Because I need my job.” If he brought up an affair again…
His cheeks hollowed as he regarded her, then he reached for the drink he’d refilled and left on the desk.
“The most obvious way would be to find you an apartment with better security. It only took me two tries to walk into your building. You would need a detail of bodyguards, too.”
She released a humorless laugh. “You’re prepared to pay for that? And this bodyguard sits in the lobby while I go about my workday? The hotel will love that. I will.” She gestured at herself facetiously. “That sounds very normal. Sign me up.”
“I can find you a better place to work and live. What’s your end game?”
“Career-wise? To earn my way up to managing my own hotel, not achieve it through nepotism.”
“It’s only nepotism if you’re bad at it.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m good or bad! Having you support me does not convey to people that we only kissed once. I’m really angry with you, Atlas.” There. Her conflict resolution classes were good for more than bolstering her CV. “You have put me in the impossible position of having to rely on you when my independence is very important to me. Very .”
“Understood. I’m angry with you, too.”
“For what?” she cried.
“For sticking in my head as unfinished business.” He set aside his drink and let his hands rest on the edge of the desk beside his hips. “And you, Miss My Independence Is Very Important to Me, wouldn’t have come here with me if it wasn’t the same for you. We both feel this need to see where things could go. Let’s acknowledge that and talk about a more realistic approach.” His voice was a steady rumble in his chest that she felt like a vibration through her skin and into her bones. “One where I can protect you very easily because you’re with me.”
“You’re serious. You want to have an affair.” Her insides swooped and swirled as though she was strapped into a roller coaster. “We don’t even know each other. We don’t like each other.” What if she was bad at it?
“The animosity between us is sexual tension. Aren’t you curious to see what happens when we release it?” He uncrossed his ankles, but stayed leaning on the desk.
She stiffened, bracing herself for whatever move he might make.
“I’m not going to chase you,” he chided softly. “Consent and all that. But let’s at least talk about it.”
Her nostrils burned as she sucked in a breath, ready to deny it, but she held her breath until her lungs were filled with fire. She couldn’t make herself lie to him. How infuriating.
“Fine. I’m attracted to you,” she gusted out. “Obviously.” Now she was going to combust with sheer embarrassment.
She looked toward the windows, hoping he couldn’t see how extravagant her dreams about him had been over the years because she didn’t need her degree in hospitality to know he was only in the market for temporary entertainment, most likely because he was stuck with her right now.
Thus, the real question became: Did she want a fling with him? One that lasted only long enough for this publicity storm to die down?
“What’s going on behind those beautiful blue eyes?” He still hadn’t moved, but he somehow loomed larger. More impactful as he leaned on the desk, relaxed and watchful.
Her gaze slid down to his throat where his top button was open, then to the wide shoulders straining his shirt. His hands rested on the edge of the desk, but she remembered how they’d felt roaming her back and the sensual glide of his touch under her shirt.
Her nipples stung in reaction. With anticipation.
For all these years, she had longed to know what might have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted.
“I am curious.” It hurt to make that admission. She cleared her throat, writhing inside with self-consciousness. She wondered why she only reacted to him and she wondered what sex would be like. With him. “That doesn’t mean I want to have sex, though. There’s a big difference between thinking about it and doing it.” She had thought about it many times. She’d never had the nerve to do it.
Because she’d never wanted sex in the same way that Atlas made her want it.
“A kiss then. I’ve wondered all this time whether it would be the same.” He lifted his hand, inviting her to come to him.
It was a few steps and a journey across a desert and an ocean and a continent. A galaxy.
Then his strong hand was closing over hers, drawing her to stand between his feet. She thought she might be shaking. Dreaming.
Perhaps he noticed because he cupped the side of her neck and just looked at her, expression very somber. His narrowed gaze left pinpricks of sensation each place it touched—cheek and brow and lips. Shoulders. Throat. Breasts.
Time stretched out with excruciating tension. She couldn’t have felt more exposed if she’d been naked. She closed her eyes, but that only made her more aware of the way her body was flooding with heat. Of the way his hand shifted to cradle her jaw. His body heat was like a physical aura that radiated across her skin. Her heart began to stumble and race.
Then his mouth brushed hers, tickling and sharp. A tease. A test? She didn’t know if she passed. She only knew that her hands were closing into his turtleneck. She kept her eyes closed, but leaned in, seeking the smoothness of his lips. The firmness she recalled so vividly—
With a gruff noise, he slid his arms around her and pulled her deep into the vee of his legs, lashing her to his chest as he claimed her with a powerful kiss.
She was instantly overwhelmed, yet greed rose like a monster from within her. Without conscious awareness, she found herself responding urgently, pressing into the kiss and seeking his tongue with her own.
This was the kiss she’d been chasing since their first one, the kind that swallowed her whole. The kind that seemed to lift her from the floor and pull her into a maelstrom of sensations—firm hands shaping her back and hips, the hard plane of his chest crushing her breasts, the heat . Her arms curled themselves around his waist and her fingers found the bumps of his bowed spine. His thighs were such a hard cage against the outsides of hers, they hurt to press against, but she did it anyway, liking that sensation of his indomitable strength.
The plunge into this wildness should have terrified her, but beneath her overwhelmedness was familiarity. This was exactly how it had been before. They were picking up from where they’d left off. Everything felt good and right and necessary.
He grasped her plait and dragged it down her back, forcing her to lift her chin and expose her throat to his hot breath and the scrape of his teeth and a lick against her carotid artery. Heat flooded into her loins and some primal instinct made her seek relief by pushing her mound against the thick column behind his fly.
With a growled noise, he straightened and twisted. In a powerful move he sat her on the edge of the desk.
Now he was between her legs. Her knees lifted of their own accord, tilting her pelvis into a more welcoming angle. Her calves found the firm shape of his buttocks and pulled him in, urging him to settle the ridge of his erection against the ache in her core. There . She moaned into his mouth.
He muttered something in Greek and pulled her hips closer to the edge, then swept an arm behind her. There was a tumble of something heavy and the smash of broken glass. She thought she smelled the pungent scent of alcohol, but she only hugged his hips with her knees, rising into the slow, rolling grind of his sex against hers.
His hand burrowed beneath her top, pushing aside the cup of her bra so he could capture the naked swell of her breast in his hot palm.
She arched, startled by how sensitive her skin was to his touch, as though she felt the whorls of his fingerprints. Then she did what he’d asked her to do five long years ago. What she had wanted to do that night. She dragged the hem of her sweater up, exposing her bra-covered breast.
His nostrils flared. The lust in his eyes scorched her swollen breast. He dragged the cup further away and exposed her distended nipple, then dropped his head to capture it with the hot pull of his mouth.
Such a knifing slash of pleasure shot through her, she cried out, toes curling in delight.
He lifted his head. “Good?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she moaned, letting her eyes blink open long enough to be confused by the beams in the ceiling. She’d forgotten where she was.
Then he was licking and teasing her nipple again, plunging her back into ecstasy while pulsing the tip of his erection in exactly the right place to coil the tension within her. She was aroused more than she knew how to bear and writhed, needing to escape that excruciatingly intimate pressure between her thighs because she was arriving on a ledge that couldn’t hold her. It was too narrow, but each wriggle of agony pushed her closer to toppling off it.
“Atlas,” she gasped.
He sucked her nipple again, hard, and she shattered . Ragged noises came out of her, noises she’d never made in her life. She shuddered in release, clinging to him, ankles locked behind his back, keeping him pinned in place while the contractions racked her.
As she sobbed helplessly, still in the throes of her orgasm, he brought his mouth to hers. His body was tense and his hips were heavy where they pinned hers to the desk. His kiss was passionate, and hungry, but sweet. Almost tender.
“You’ve wanted this as badly as I have,” he said with a gritty laugh against her trembling mouth. He ran his restless lips along the edge of her jaw. “I’ve never been so hard in my life. I have a condom on me if you want to change your mind about having sex.”
“Wh-what?” Her body was molasses, her brain incapable of thought.
“I always carry them.” His thumb caressed beneath her ear. “It’s not premeditated.” He looked at her through weighted eyelids, cheeks flushed, but he clearly had all his wits about him while she was still trying to gather hers after completely abandoning herself.
The hand she slid to his shoulder was pure reflex. She needed air. Space to think. It was hitting her how quickly she had lost herself. Why did he always make her behave like this?
“Wise.” He straightened, drawing her to sit up and helping her straighten her clothing. The tension in his expression changed to something more contained. “We should discuss the ground rules before we go any further.”
Ground rules? She didn’t know how to talk about sex. She didn’t know how to do it! Everything about them was unequal, especially this. Look at him. He was completely in control and she had none. The embarrassment creeping over her was so profound, so visceral, her throat burned. Her eyes stung, making her blink to stave off tears.
“Stella.” He dipped his head, brows crashing together. “Did I hurt you? Why are you crying?”
How utterly humiliating. She was acting like the virgin she was—as though that had been her first orgasm ever.
When it was actually the first one that someone else had delivered, but that was no excuse for acting so callow.
She wanted to run away again. Far away. She let herself imagine quitting her job and catching a train and starting over where no one knew her—which was a ridiculously melodramatic reaction to something that had only gone a little further than the encounter they’d had five years ago. What must he think of her?
“Stella.” He touched her chin, trying to make her look at him.
She brushed his hand away and ducked her head.
“I—” She gulped back her rush of emotion. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” She meant the tears. This was awful. “Can you—” She pushed at his chest until she was able to slide off the desk, but her knees still felt soft.
He caught her elbow and she pulled away, fearful she’d fall straight back into his arms. Straight back onto her back.
“You’re perfectly safe, Stella.”
No, she wasn’t! She was going to have an affair with him and he would break her heart and destroy her life even worse than he already had.
But not yet. Not yet.
“It’s been a long day.” She stumbled down the stairs and locked herself into the bedroom again.