Chapter Six
Tessa
I SHOULD BE ASLEEP.
By rights, after the storm he unleashed in me, my body should be limp, sated, incapable of thought. But instead, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, my skin still humming, my mind a frantic blur.
I nearly forgot.
God help me, in the haze of his hands, his mouth, the way he filled me, I nearly forgot. Just as I once believed the lies my body told me four years ago.
That it couldn’t happen, that contraception couldn’t fail, that one careless night could be excused.
This time, the near-miss shakes me harder than the memory of that morning-after text. Harder even than seeing I’m pregnant flash across his phone screen. Because what kind of fool almost stumbles into the same disaster twice?
I shift restlessly, edging towards the side of the bed, telling myself I should go back to my own suite. I should leave before he wakes, before dawn makes this mistake even harder to live down.
But before I can swing my legs free, his voice cuts through the dark, rough and thick with sleep. ‘I could hear your agitation in my dreams.’
I freeze, pulse hammering, then force a lightness into my tone I don’t feel. ‘Perhaps your dreams are overdeveloped, Theo.’
He rolls towards me, eyes narrowing, all languid satisfaction gone in a heartbeat. For an age he stares at me, dissecting, dominating, an immovable pillar even gloriously naked and reclined. ‘What was that with the condom?’
My throat closes.
I aim for breezy, but instead land somewhere jagged and silently frantic. ‘Because neither of us wants…’ I falter, then add, too quickly, ‘…a complication. Do we?’
Something flashes across his face.
A flicker too swift and raw, almost like a wince.
My breath catches. But no…surely I imagined it.
Surely the great Theodore Biney wouldn’t let a single crack show.
‘No. We don’t.’ The words come out curt, clipped and final.
And against every instinct, hurt lances through me, sharp and stupid. As if his brisk agreement hasn’t just confirmed what I should already know.
I deleted it… I deleted it… I deleted it…
Before the ache can grow claws, he hauls me close, his mouth claiming mine in a kiss that silences thought. Long, deep and thorough, as though daring me to question him, daring me to let the conversation die under the weight of his tongue and teeth and breath.
When he finally pulls back, his hand slides lazily down my thigh, settling between my knees. ‘It’s a good thing…’ he murmurs, voice low and sinful, ‘…I have a healthy supply then.’ His grin curves slow, wolfish. ‘And it’s my turn to ride, I believe.’
My protest dies in a shudder when he rolls me beneath him, when he sheathes himself again with deliberate slowness, his eyes tracking my face, searching for things I cannot show.
The second claiming is every bit as devastating as the first, his body commanding, his words thick with reverence and wicked intent.
He praises me, curses me, worships me until I can’t remember my own name, only the ache of his and the merciless rhythm of his thrusts. The room blurs to nothing but sweat, slick skin and the rasp of our breathing.
Yet still, even as he wrings another climax from me, even as he collapses with me trembling in his arms, something cold lingers at the edges.
A space between his kiss and his words.
A shadow in the way he looked at me when I mentioned the condom.
By the time dawn edges against the curtains, I know with chilling certainty… I can fool myself all I want, but every moment spent with Theo Biney, on top or beneath or jousting or laughing, will never be a thing I can walk away from with the flippancy I wish I could conjure up.
It seems even being armed with that foreknowledge doesn’t quite equate to power.
Not when it comes to this man. Because a mere handful of hours after my bracing thoughts here I am, my back plastered to the shower wall, the most devastatingly handsome of men poised before me, charting my body once again with his large, impossibly magic hands.
‘Why exactly are you crashing my shower again?’ My voice is hoarse, breathless, my nipples tight and aching as his mouth trails hot and wet down the column of my neck.
‘I discovered…’ he murmurs, tongue flicking over my collarbone, ‘…that I despise waking up without you next to me. And I also thought…’ he continued to say as his teeth graze my skin, slowly and deliberately, ‘…I should alter the way this morning-after unfolds. Four years ago, I let you walk out my door with nothing but fury and silence, thinking rather poorly of me. I’m flipping the script. ’
His words pierce, stoking old wounds even as his hands stroke lower, splaying wide across my hips. My pulse stumbles.
‘I thought we…’ The words trip out before I can stop them. ‘We weren’t going to exhume old history.’
He stills. Lifts his head, his eyes drilling into mine. Searching. Probing. The weight of his stare is unbearable, and I know he’s cataloguing every flicker, every hesitation.
A moment ticks by. Then another. My chest aches from holding my breath.
Finally, he speaks, his mouth curving into something sinful. ‘Then let’s bring it back to the present. I want you vocal. Gasp, sigh, scream…beg. That will keep us very much in the present, I believe.’
His tongue drags across my nipple before I can reply and then I’m lost again.
He drives into me, hard and hot as the steam cloaks us and the spray mingles with sweat.
His thrusts echo off the tiles, his name breaking from my lips in a litany I can’t suppress.
He takes me against the wall, his hands gripping my thighs, his mouth claiming mine as though trying to erase or rewrite the very past we should leave behind and yet seeming to inevitably probe like a sore tooth.
When it’s over, I sag against him, trembling and undone, water sluicing down us both. He kisses my temple like a man very much satisfied with his fresh conquest.
And I…damn it, but I can’t help the languorous drug of pleasure trickling through me like wild honey, drowning out everything else, as I follow him back into the bedroom.
Breakfast later is deceptively civilised. Affable, even.
We eat on the balcony, Lisbon glittering beneath us, his bare foot brushing mine under the table as though we’re nothing more than lovers with no storm between us.
We touch briefly on work—the site proposals, the next phase of pitches.
I keep my smile easy when I mention South Africa. How I’ll need to visit in the coming weeks to study their cultural and film-education model.
It’s true, professionally.
But it also gives me cover.
Because while I used the proximity of their London branch to ensure a smooth start, South Africa is where my first IVF treatment is scheduled. A truth I will not hand Theo Biney, no matter how deep he pries and not when he could turn it into another weapon.
It was a toss-up between London or South Africa, because no way was I doing it in Accra, where the society is smaller and nowhere near discreet enough.
The flight back to Accra is quiet and calming with the kind of hushed luxury only a private jet can conjure. Cream leather seats, walnut panelling, champagne flutes that catch the low golden light, the hum of engines wrapping us in false intimacy. I pretend to read.
Theo doesn’t bother pretending at all—just watches me with that unnerving intensity until I finally lower the book.
Then he rises, smooth and deliberate, and holds out his hand. ‘I want you again,’ he says simply.
I should resist. I don’t.
An hour later, I’m sprawled on top of him in the jet’s narrow bed, the scent of sex heavy in the air, my cheek pressed against the slick warmth of his chest. The pilot’s voice comes over the intercom, announcing we’ll be landing in an hour.
My stomach knots, reality intruding where bliss had briefly numbed me.
He senses it. His hand smooths up and down my spine once, twice, then stops.
‘Whatever you’re thinking, this isn’t ending,’ he says simply, voice threaded with iron. ‘Not when we land. Not next week. Not until I say it does. I want you in my bed, in my life. For as long as it works for both of us.’ His gaze bores into me, daring me to say no. ‘Agree, Tessa.’
My heart pounds in my throat. My lips part and the word slips out, soft but irrevocable. ‘Yes.’
I should feel triumphant. Or at least steady. Instead, my pulse is ragged, my chest hollow. Because I know something he doesn’t.
We’re already on a countdown clock.
Because before my thirtieth birthday, I will have my baby.
Without the heartache. Without the compromises.
Without the wreckage that comes from shattered promises and an all-consuming relationship that turns out to be an illusion like the one I had with Giles.
Without false promises and most definitely without Theo Biney in my life, dragging frantic, temporary lust and emotional chaos through a world that a new, single mother is better off keeping steady.
And if I have to tell myself that a million times a day until it finally sticks, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.
We land back in Accra with a taste of victory and anxiety-edged excitement.
The news we received just before landing was champagne-worthy.
All the donors we approached are on board. Not just architecturally, but culturally, too, agreeing to consider a robust cultural exchange programme once Obibini’s studio is up and running. The kind of breakthrough I’ve dreamed of for years, the kind that makes every sleepless night worth it.
My phone pings with Ashon’s message on the group chat as we’re disembarking, a string of celebratory exclamation marks, followed by Cilla’s neatly worded but iron-clad directive.
Dinner tomorrow night. Our place. No is not an option.
And yet, instead of basking in the glow of a win, I’m tense, pulse hammering with awareness of the man at my side.
By the time we step out of the VIP terminal in Accra, the humid night air wraps around me like a heavy cloak. I slow my stride, trying to create a little space, some semblance of professional distance.
Theo notices instantly. Of course he does.