The Girl Who Stayed
ONE MONTH MARRIED.
She was still going to classes. Orion drove her (in a black car that made every other vehicle in the campus parking lot look like a toy), waited outside the lecture hall in sunglasses, looking like he could dismantle every student in the building without standing up.
Orion's presence alone had everyone talking about her, but when some of her classmates caught a glimpse of Mykos on the rare instance he had time to pick her up from school...
That was when they all freaked out because they knew.
He was Mykos Ravensworth, after all.
Everyone knew who he was.
And since then, her life in college had completely changed. The people who used to ignore her because she was a nobody? They suddenly fawned all over her because to them she was suddenly somebody, and it was just so...strange.
Her whole life, she had existed under the radar, and that was why that thing she told Mykos about having boys lined up around the block?
She had lied about that, actually. But somehow, when news of her marriage to the billionaire had become public—it was as if she became attractive simply because Mykos had married her.
Or maybe, all of them just wanted to see if they could steal a girl from him.
People could be so ill-advised that way. They had no idea how terribly possessive Mykos could be. And how adorably, inexplicably jealous.
But she did.
Because there was that one day when he had surprised her with a visit, intending to have lunch with her.
She had been sitting on the bench outside the science building, going over her notes with her lab partner, Kyle.
She hadn't thought anything of it. Kyle was nice enough—a little awkward, prone to talking about molecular biology in a way that made her eyes glaze over, but harmless.
They were mid-conversation when a familiar black car pulled up at the curb.
Maika's heart did the thing it always did when she saw her husband, which was try to leap out of her ribcage like it had somewhere important to be.
He stepped out of the car in a dark suit, and the entire courtyard seemed to go quiet, because Mykos Ravensworth didn't walk into a space.
He commanded it. Heads turned. Conversations died.
A girl walking past actually stumbled on the pavement, and Maika couldn't even judge her for it.
Kyle, who had been in the middle of explaining something about cell division, trailed off when he noticed Maika wasn't looking at him anymore.
"Hey, are you—" Kyle turned to follow her gaze, and his face went white.
Because Mykos was already standing in front of them, and he was smiling. It was the kind of smile that had absolutely nothing to do with warmth and everything to do with the fact that another man had been sitting next to his wife.
"I don't believe we've met." Mykos extended his hand. "Mykos Ravensworth. Maika's husband."
Kyle shook his hand once, mumbled something that might have been "nice to meet you," gathered his notes with the speed of a man who had just remembered an urgent appointment on the other side of the planet, and was gone.
Maika opened her mouth. "He's just my lab part—"
But Mykos had already taken her hand and pulled her to her feet, and then he was walking, and she was half-walking, half-stumbling to keep up, and the next thing she knew, they were in an empty classroom, and the door was locked, and his mouth was on her neck, and—
"M-Mykos, we're in a school—"
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. His answer was his teeth against her skin, and she stopped protesting after that, because honestly, what was the point?
It was only when she saw her reflection in the mirror that night—
It was only then she realized how he had flagrantly branded the side of her neck with his mark.
"M-Mykos!"
He leaned one shoulder against the doorway of their en-suite, barechested and beautiful, as he met her gaze through the mirror. "What is it?"
She was torn between exasperation and amusement. "Don't pretend you don't know." She pointed to the side of her neck. "You just..."
"What?"
"Marked me!"
"So?"
"W-What do you mean 'so'?" she sputtered. "Can't you see it's so...obvious?"
"And what if it is?" he questioned. "Do you not want people to know you're mine?"
"No, of course not—"
"What's the problem then?"
You.
The word popped in her mind out of nowhere.
And it was true.
The problem was him.
Because she realized at that moment she wanted the whole world to have no mistake about it either.
Mykos Ravensworth was hers.
A WEEK LATER, MYKOS took her to dinner, and she dressed with care for the occasion because he told her it was going to be a very special night.
She thought he meant they were going to celebrate something special (like maybe Mykos telling her he had fallen in love with her?), but instead it was so much worse.
"I d-don't think I can do this," she blurted out.
They were standing outside a hotel that looked like it belonged in a movie.
Through the glass doors, she could see a ballroom filled with men and women who probably had more money in their wallets right now than she had ever seen in her entire life.
She could hear the clink of glasses, the hum of conversation, the kind of background noise that screamed you don't belong here.
"Of course you can."
"No, really, I can't."
She turned around to walk away, but Mykos took hold of her shoulders and spun her around to face him again. His hands were warm through the fabric of her dress, and his golden eyes were level with hers.
"You can do this."
"But I'm just a college student," she protested, "while everyone inside that ballroom are all rich and powerful—"
"Then you're in familiar company," he drawled, "since you married someone who perfectly fits that description."
"Mykos! I'm not joking—"
"Neither am I, matia mou. You are my wife, Maika. They are the ones who should pay their respects to you, not the other way around." His voice turned brisk. "Now, enough of this. I want the world to know you're mine."
He offered her his arm. She took it, mostly because her knees were shaking and she needed something to hold on to.
And so that was how she was publicly introduced as Mrs. Mykos Ravensworth for the first time, and well...
Her husband turned out to be right like always.
She absolutely didn't have anything to be worried about because it was immediately easy to see that all of the guests there either thought highly of him...or were afraid of him. Or both. In any case, that was why they were all extra nice to her, and phew.
Maika didn't bother hiding her relief from her husband as they took their seats at their assigned table.
As the waiters went around to serve the first course, Mykos turned to smile at her, and she started to smile back...until she felt him reach under her gown before placing his hand on her knee.
And then he gave it a little squeeze, and she almost jumped in her seat.
Oh my goodness!
She could barely concentrate for the rest of the evening, with his hand on her knee, squeezing every so often and causing her whole body to tremble and her cheeks to feel like they were on fire.
Maika could tell how the other guests were starting to think she was a little tipsy, and honestly, that was exactly how she felt... because of his hand on her knee.
It was just that simple, and by the time they were alone in the backseat of his limo—
Mykos chuckled when it was his wife who actually took the initiative to push the button that had the privacy window once again sliding up to conceal them from view.
Maika wanted to make a face when she heard her husband chuckle, but the moment she turned to him—
Aaaah.
His kiss had her ceasing to think completely, and soon after that, they weren't just kissing, and...oh, she wasn't able to think for a long, long time.
MAIKA'S SECOND PUBLIC outing as his wife was when she attended a board meeting with him for one of the charities he supported.
The conference room was on the top floor of a building downtown, all floor-to-ceiling windows and a long mahogany table surrounded by leather chairs.
The kind of room where important people made important decisions, and Maika was fairly certain she was the first person to ever walk into it carrying a highlighter pen she'd accidentally brought from her Shakespeare seminar.
She slipped the pen into her pocket before anyone noticed. At least she hoped nobody noticed.
"All you have to do is listen," Mykos murmured as he pulled out her chair for her. "I'll do all the talking for now, but next time it will be your turn."
She nodded eagerly, wanting to be of help to Mykos.
But that desire faded when the board meeting officially commenced, and she noticed how the air in the room had changed into something...
unfriendly. The smiles became stiffer. The postures shifted.
It almost tasted like envy and resentment, underscored by fear.
They seemed to fear her husband, but at the same time, they also seemed to want to be him.
But because they couldn't, they wanted to destroy—
No, stop that, Maika!
Give them a chance.
You may just be reading them wrong.
"I mean no disrespect, Ravensworth," the member seated across from them said. He was an older man with silver hair and a signet ring that he kept turning on his finger, and his tone was the kind of pleasant that wasn't actually pleasant at all. "But many people still remember who your father was."
Yup, still reading them wrong.
Mykos inclined his head. "No offense was taken."
It should have ended there, but then...
"That's true, Joe. I still remember the news reports when his father was still alive."
This came from a woman three seats down, and the way she said it—leaning back in her chair, arms crossed, like she was discussing something mildly distasteful—made Maika's fingers curl under the table.