23. CHAPTER 21
Orion
I wasn’t sure why the argument bothered me.
It was a small thing. A single conversation at the dinner table. But somehow it lodged itself behind my ribs and stayed there like a splinter buried too deep to reach.
By the time I checked the clock again, it was almost five in the morning.
I’d spent the entire night fighting the urge to go walk across the wing, knock on her door, and demand to know why the hell the word freedom had been said to me like an accusation.
Instead, I chose flowers.
Extravagant ones, delivered at an hour only the very wealthy can justify. No card. Cards felt like apologies.
And I wasn’t wrong.
I walked into my first meeting of the day and for the next forty minutes, all we did was circle the same slide deck.
Capacity constraints. The same problems wrapped in new acronyms. Ironshore and Equinox were now aligned under the alliance structure from a legal standpoint.
The market still needed to catch up. Same bullshit Andreas had pulled me out of my wedding reception for.
I tried to listen but my mind kept taking me back to dinner yesterday and I couldn’t help but wonder what her face looked like when she woke to those flowers. Did they smooth anything over?
I picked up my phone and texted her under the table.
A voice cut through the room.
“Mr. Kade?”
I lifted my head. The board member droning on about IronShore’s logistics paused, clearly waiting for a response.
I forced my focus back to the documents, but the lines were blurry.
I had expected this alliance to streamline operations; instead, it had introduced a new set of complications.
Even though I’d sharpened the language of the clause as a deterrent, the clock was still ticking on the contract’s demands.
Per the agreement, IronShore and Equinox would operate as integrated entities, but the heir clause meant I wouldn’t hold the full governing majority until an heir existed. I defined it, as it should be.
For now I oversee most of our interests which should be a win for Ironshore. Apparently it is… but not for my mother and the board chairman. They've both turned my legacy into something they manage on my behalf.
It’s the hopeful look on my mother’s face that grates on me the most, as though she expected Léonie and I to be fucking like rabbits to give her a grandchild.
When in truth it wasn’t her concern what my wife and I were doing.
Or not doing.
After the meeting, I returned to my office, but my attention was shot to hell. My day dissolved into meetings, demands, signatures. Business as usual.
When the noise of the day finally died down, I pulled up surveillance.
She was out.
Mrs. Lewis had mentioned that Céleste came by. The clips played in order: Céleste Vassier entering the estate in an extravagantly tailored trench coat in some vibrant color, paired with expensive heeled boots that announced her presence before she did.
The outer cameras caught her smiling as she reached for Léonie with both hands, placing quick kisses on each cheek. The tracker inside my wife’s ring lit up on the map as she walked toward the car, where Isolde Moreaux was waiting.
Stephen opened the door.
They drove into the city.
I watched the dots move across the map. Stratum’s external feeds picked up fragments when they crossed certain zones.
An angle of them exiting a café in Saint-Germain, a distant view of them on a street lined with restaurants, bags on their arms as they laughed like they owned everything around them.
I had asked Severin to keep the outside coverage running. I needed to make sure she was safe when I wasn't there. Plus the tracker on the ring would alert me on her every move, especially in unsafe zones.
All necessary precautions.
When I got home, the dining room was set but her chair was empty.
“Mrs. Lewis,” I said as she approached, “Where’s my wife?”
“Resting, sir,” she replied. “Isabella said she came back with some discomfort. She asked for tampons, and painkillers. I added a hot water bottle. She spent some time in the library and must’ve fallen asleep there.”
“Did she eat anything?” I asked, not letting the worry arising in my throat surface.
“She had a bowl of soup earlier,” Mrs. Lewis responded. “She seemed more tired than ill.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
I didn’t bother sitting for dinner. I could hear Mrs Lewis attempting to ask a question, but I was already walking down the corridor to take the stairs toward the library.
The door was half-open, and I could see the lamplight spilling into the hallway.
She was asleep on the recliner, her legs drawn up, and a book half-open on her chest. The hot water bottle lay crooked near her abdomen, the elastic strap loose. Her hair had escaped whatever clip she’d used, falling in waves over her shoulder, and across her cheek.
I paused there, watching her. Sleep had softened the tension from her features, and the sight dragged an unwelcome warmth through me I refused to indulge.
This was definitely not the woman that fought me last night.
The fierceness had vanished, leaving only a more fragile version of her in its place.
I stepped in stealthily, keeping my eyes on the floor as I moved, cautious not to trigger any sound that might wake her.
Up close, I could see faint lines of fatigue around her eyes. She’d gone out, enjoyed her day, come back, and her body had reminded her she was still human.
I brushed her hair gently away from her face before pressing the back of my hand to her forehead. Her skin was warm, though not enough to suggest a fever. I carefully pulled the book from her hands and set it on the side table, followed by the water bottle.
That was when she whispered—
“Yves.”
I stilled.
The intimate sound of it twisted something dark inside me. A sardonic laugh tore out of my chest unbidden.
I’d hoped marriage, distance, and reality would be enough to relegate him to a closed chapter. Apparently he still lived somewhere under her skin.
I’d already extended an absurd level of mercy.
Severin had approached his family after the hospital, offered relocation money, conditions, and an exile designed to keep them safe and distant.
No further contact with her. No gossip. No drama.
No demands. Nothing that would force me to reconsider that mercy.
They had accepted without giving it a second thought. His parents were eager to exclude him further from the mess.
I’d taken a risk on their sense of self-preservation and on my own preference for a clean victory over a bloody one, like the Fernándezes would have preferred.
Her dreams clearly hadn't received that memo.
By now, he should’ve been nothing more than a footnote, yet he still haunted her sleep.
I shoved the possessive irritation down hard before slipping my arms under her and lifting her.
She folded into me instantly, her head falling against my chest as her body molded into mine. My breath instantly hitched at the contact. The sweet scent of her hair—peonies and sugar—invaded my lungs, making coherent thought impossible.
I straightened my back and carried her out of the library. Her head lolled against my shoulder as I moved. She was so trusting in sleep.
For a dangerous moment, the thought pulled at me to take a step towards the right and head to my room instead of hers. My grip tightened around her waist and thighs as I shut the thought down and kept walking.
I was going to put her to sleep in her room, on her bed, and walk away. I convinced myself, in that order.
Halfway down the hall, she stirred in my arms. Her hands slid higher around my neck while her body instinctively pressed closer. A soft sound slipped from her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a whimper, her warm breath feathering my skin.
Heat shot down my spine with the speed of lightning. My cock throbbed thick and insistent against my trousers, completely uninterested in my good intentions.
My pulse hammered so hard, I swallowed a curse.
She clung tighter in her sleep, and I felt every inch of her. The weight of her soft thighs around my arm. The press of her breasts against my chest. The line of her stomach aligned with my ribs. It would have looked innocent to anyone else. There was nothing innocent about what it was doing to me.
Each step made the contact worse. Or perhaps better. I was no longer certain which part of me was winning the argument.
Her warmth soaked through my shirt, the faint sweetness of her perfume sinking deeper into my lungs. She exhaled softly by my throat, her lips so close that if she were awake, I could've turned my head and taken her mouth.
It was fucking devastating.
I adjusted my hold on her, more for my sanity than her comfort, my fingers gripping tighter to keep her steady and not an inch more.
By the time I reached her door, my self-control was fraying.
Sex had always been a controlled outlet for me. It was structured, tailored to my specific requirements and dictated by my own timeline. My body’s reactions had always been subject to my will.
This defied every law I lived by. There was no rationalizing the heat under my skin, and worse, I couldn't override the impulse. It made no sense that my body was reacting to a woman who hadn’t even given me permission to touch her.
A woman who had never once looked at me with desire, or reached for me of her own accord.
Worse, a woman who called out for another man in her sleep.
My jaw clenched hard. I shouldn’t be jealous of a nobody I’ve already conquered, but it still dug under my skin with humiliating ease.
I set her down on her bed as gently as I could. Her arms remained looped around my neck for a second longer, reluctant to release me. I eased them away and pulled the blanket over her. She turned her face into the pillow, her features smoothing out.
I turned to the thermostat, using it as an excuse to regain control of myself. Once I adjusted the room temperature to ensure she was comfortable, I reached for the door. I'd just placed my fingers around the handle—
“Orion.”
The sound of my name stopped me cold.
Blood roared in my ears.
The way she’d whispered my name like it hurt, and at the same time as if she needed something, went straight to my cock and punched the air from my lungs.
Heat surged back through me, stronger than before.
I turned my head to find her laying on her side now, her lashes still pressed to her cheeks, lips parted in sleep. Her brows drew in as though she were caught in the middle of some dream she couldn’t escape.
“Please—” she breathed.
The word was fragile, and thin, but it tore through me.
For one split second, I let myself believe that plea was for me. Then the earlier whisper of Yves shattered the illusion, tearing through whatever fantasy my body wanted to build.
My jaw locked. Heat viciously flaring in my gut.
Who was she asking for in that half-formed plea? The boy I’d allowed to crawl away with his life?
Was she still clinging to the delusion they’d constructed around themselves in that little rented house by the sea?
Rage and want tangled together, both ugly and undeniably were alive in my veins.
I stepped back to the door and gripped the frame. The wood creaked under the pressure of my grip, protesting the pressure I was placing on it. I welcomed the ache blooming across my knuckles; it was the only thing keeping me from losing my fucking mind.
Because I could cross the space between us in a few strides. Push my hand into her hair. Press my mouth to her throat and drag every sound from her lungs until there was no room left in her for any other name but mine.
The part of me that had spent years wielding control like a weapon said no.
Not now. Not like this.
Not when she was half-dreaming of someone else.
I tore myself away from the doorway and walked down the hall, faster than necessary.
In my room, I shut the door with a force that could have rattled the frame. The slam echoed in the quiet room, then faded.
I braced both hands on the top of the dresser, letting my head hang for a moment.
She had said his name first.
Then mine.
In the same breath.
I hated how much that order mattered.
Fuck, I hated how much I wanted her pleas for myself. How much I wanted her whines breaking on my name, her hips bucking against mine, her nails raking my back.
A sense of total possession roared through me—more feral than anything I’d ever experienced.
I was blinded by the need to claim every sound and every shiver, until the rest of the world burned away and nothing existed but the two of us.
The things I’d do to her till she screamed my name clearly… Mine. And no one else’s.
A primal, vicious part of me wanted to fix that. To make sure that, in every part of her—waking and dreaming—my name was the only one that existed.
I sat on the edge of my bed and pressed my hands together until the bone-deep ache in my knuckles grounded me again.
I could find him in an hour. I knew exactly where he was. It would be effortless to erase him, not just from her memory, but from the surface of the earth.
I breathed, slow and deep, forcing the feral instinct back into its cage.
An agreement is an agreement; I'd given my word to let him go unscathed so long as he stayed dead to her. So far, he and his family have kept to their word.
But as I stared into the darkness, the fury remained. Its persistence offended me.
I could tolerate many things to secure this alliance. But sharing space with a ghost I’d already paid to bury? That is where my patience ends.