Chapter Five
Leonidas moved before his mind caught up with his body.
The hallway stretched before him, and there she was at the end of it, his wife fumbling with the handle of the guest room like it had personally betrayed her, and something about the sight of her — flushed and frantic and trying so desperately to escape him — made every rational thought in his head dissolve into smoke.
“Wrong room.”
Lexy spun around, and whatever protest had been forming on her lips died the moment she saw the look on his face.
He was already crossing the distance between them with the kind of unhurried purpose that made her heart slam against her ribs, already reaching for her chin with fingers that tilted her face up toward his, already so close she could feel the heat of him through her clothes.
“Leon, I didn’t mean—”
His mouth covered hers before she could finish, and it wasn’t gentle, wasn’t careful, wasn’t anything like the tentative first kisses she’d read about in books.
It was eight years of something neither of them had ever named finally spilling over, his hand sliding into her hair while the other pressed flat against the small of her back, pulling her into him like he couldn’t stand even an inch of distance between them.
She made a sound against his mouth that might have been surprise or protest or something else entirely, but her hands were already fisting in his shirt, and when his tongue swept against hers, she stopped trying to form words at all.
When he finally pulled back, her eyes were dazed and her lips were parted and her chest was rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths that she couldn’t seem to control.
“That was—” she started.
He lifted her off her feet.
“Leon!” Her arms went around his neck on instinct, her legs wrapping around his waist because what else was she supposed to do when her husband had apparently lost his mind and was carrying her down the hallway like she weighed nothing at all.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
“But we need to—”
“My bed, Lexina.”
“But the mediation questions—”
“Will still be there in the morning.”
“But I told you I’ve never—” She was babbling now, words tumbling out in a rush she couldn’t seem to stop.
“And you’ve had six years of practice with someone who probably knew exactly what she was doing, and I’ve only ever read about this in books, and those are probably not even accurate, and what if I’m terrible at it, what if—”
He stopped walking.
Right there in the hallway, her still in his arms, her back coming to rest against the wall as he pressed into her, his forehead dropping to meet hers.
This close, she could feel his breath mingling with her own, could see the flecks of gold in his tawny eyes, could feel the way his chest was rising and falling just as unsteadily as hers.
“Lexina.” His voice was rough in a way she’d never heard before. “Stop talking.”
“But—”
“Stop.”
“I just think we should discuss—”
He kissed her again, softer this time, a question instead of a demand, and when he pulled back his lips brushed against hers with every word.
“Do you want this?”
The question settled over her like a weight, pressing down on all the places she’d kept carefully numb for eight years.
Did she want this? She thought of every time she’d watched him leave for Milan and pretended it didn’t matter, every time she’d smiled for photographers at charity galas while something small and starving curled tighter in her chest, every night she’d spent alone in their Athens penthouse wondering what it would feel like to be touched by someone who actually wanted her.
“Yes.” The word came out smaller than she intended, so she said it again, stronger this time. “Yes.”
Something in his expression shifted, cracked open, and then they were moving again — through the door of his bedroom, across the floor she’d never set foot on in eight years of marriage, until her back met sheets that smelled like him and his weight settled over her and the rest of the world simply ceased to exist.
“Breathe,” he murmured against the hollow of her throat, and she realized she’d forgotten how.
His hands were patient in a way she hadn’t expected from a man who commanded boardrooms and never asked for anything twice.
He learned her slowly, tracing paths along her skin that no one had ever traveled before, and every touch felt like a revelation—his mouth at the curve of her shoulder, his palm sliding beneath the hem of his own Oxford shirt that she was still wearing, the sound of his breath catching when he discovered just how much she wanted him.
When she trembled, he steadied her with quiet words she couldn’t quite make out.
When she tensed, he waited, his forehead pressed to hers, his thumb stroking her cheekbone until she softened again.
When she whispered his name—just once, barely audible—something in his careful control finally snapped, and the patience gave way to hunger, and the hunger gave way to something that felt like desperation, and Lexy stopped thinking entirely.
There was pain when he finally made her his. Brief and sharp, a bright flare that made her gasp and dig her fingers into his shoulders. But he stilled the moment he heard her, his jaw tight with the effort of holding himself back, his eyes searching hers for permission to continue.
She gave it without words.
And then there was only him—the weight of him, the heat of him, the way he moved like she was something precious and breakable and his, entirely his, and maybe she always had been.
When it was over, they lay tangled in sheets that had been crisp and white an hour ago and were now beyond salvation.
The Manhattan skyline glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, indifferent to the fact that Lexy’s entire world had just rearranged itself into something she didn’t recognize.
She stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to think in complete sentences.
Beside her, Leonidas was silent, his hand resting on the curve of her hip like it belonged there, his thumb tracing absent patterns against her skin. Circles, maybe. Figure eights. Her name, if she was imagining things.
She turned her head.
He was already looking at her.
Those tawny eyes, unreadable as ever, the silver streak at his temple catching light from the city outside. Her husband. The man who had just—who she had just —who they had—
“Stop spiraling.” His voice was lower than usual, rougher, like something had scraped it raw.
“I’m not spiraling.”
“Your eye is twitching.”
“I don’t have a condition.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, barely perceptible, and something in Lexy’s chest cracked open to match whatever had cracked in him.
“What happens now?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately. His thumb kept tracing those patterns on her hip, and she watched his face in the dim light, searching for some indication of what he was thinking, what he was feeling, whether this had changed anything or everything or nothing at all.
“Now,” he said finally, his voice low, “we figure out—”
Both of their phones rang at the same time.
The sound was jarring, obscene, two separate ringtones shattering whatever fragile thing had been building in the space between them. Lexy flinched. Leonidas’s jaw went tight, his hand stilling against her hip.
He reached for his phone first, and she watched his expression shift as he registered the name on the screen.
“Aivan.” He answered with his voice clipped and professional, all traces of the man who had just been tracing patterns on her skin vanishing in an instant. “This had better be important.”
Silence as he listened. Then his body went rigid beside her.
“When?” More silence. His free hand curled into a fist against the sheets. “How much was compromised?”
Lexy’s phone was still ringing, the sound drilling into her skull. She grabbed it, saw Aivan’s name flashing on the screen, and answered with fingers that weren’t quite steady.
“Lexy.” Aivan’s voice was tight with the kind of control that meant something had gone very wrong. “Someone tried to hack your system. The adaptive technology files. We caught it before they could extract everything, but we need to assess the damage.”
Her stomach dropped. “How bad?”
“Bad enough that I need both of you here. Monaco. Tonight.”
She looked at Leonidas. He was already looking at her, phone still pressed to his ear, his expression unreadable.
“We’ll be there,” she said.
And just like that, the world came crashing back in.