Chapter Three #2
His palm was wide, strong, steady in the open air between them.
Knowing that nothing could prepare her, she slid her hand into his.
The jolt was immediate, full of pressure in places she didn’t want to think of in front of him and memories that unleashed like weapons against her. The simple touch evoked heat in her throat, a sharp pulse behind her ribs.
His fingers curled around hers, almost a reflex, she thought.
She hated how right and good it felt. Like they were still tethered by something neither of them had managed to sever. Like her body would always operate from a different place than her mind near him.
When he dragged her close by that grip, she looked up.
Lights flickered across his face, helping her greedy gaze.
His jaw could have been made of granite, and his gray eyes…
looked hungry, feral. It was the one thing that reminded her of the boy he had been once—free, fierce and full of fire—and how he had fascinated her.
How brave and hungry he’d been for life despite having so little.
It had burst open her own longing for a rich life. He’d made her hope, despite the negligence and apathy she’d known from her own parents, that she could have a life full of love and affection and happiness and then tore that very hope into shreds.
Now, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see beneath the smooth, mocking mask to the actual man beneath. But apparently, that too wasn’t a choice anymore.
She hadn’t meant to provoke him by standing out on the ledge and yet something had shaken loose in him.
For once, she could feel his emotions, coiling around her, making sparks in her lower belly.
The wind might’ve rattled her bones, but this—his hand wrapped around hers, the intensity of his gaze as if he meant to devour her—threatened to unmake her.
She pulled her hand back abruptly and regretted it instantly. God, she had to stop acting like a scared kitten. Maybe asking him to kiss her and get it out of the way would be a better way to fight this tension.
Or you just want to kiss him, a foolish voice whispered in her head.
A beat later, some of his composure seemed to return. “Don’t ever do something so foolish again.”
The command in his voice irked her to no end. “Don’t bark orders at me, Constantine.” She lifted her chin. “And for your information, I’m not so weak that I would jump at your little scare tactics.”
“Scare tactics, is it?” he said, those glowing embers of his anger still in his eyes. “The wind gets dangerously turbulent at this altitude. You could have been thrown clear off.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then decided against it. No point in arguing when he was right and clearly concerned for her. Apparently, he only wanted to cause her emotional harm. If she wasn’t so…tuned in to his physicality, she would’ve laughed at the ridiculous distinction.
“I have a condition,” she said, and her voice surprised even her. It was low but clear of tremors or hesitation.
Surprise glinted in his eyes and that fueled her a bit more.
“If I have to marry you…” She kept her gaze level. “Then I want a child.”
For a long while, he didn’t say anything. The wind whizzed between and around them, making the silence heavier. He stared at her as if she’d spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
Satisfaction filled Aliyah’s insides.
“You’re serious,” he said finally, voice low, unreadable.
“Yes.”
His gaze flicked down, to her waist, her hips, her mouth. Just for a second.
Aliyah’s pulse ticked at the base of her throat, a live wire ready to burst at one wrong word.
“Why?”
“If I’m to be at your mercy for God knows how long, I want something meaningful out of it. A baby is something I’ve wanted for a while.”
His mouth moved, barely—a twitch, not quite a smile. The kind of expression that could cut or kiss, depending on how his mood turned. “Why does it feel like it’s a trap you’re setting for me?”
It was her turn to laugh and she gave it full rein.
“I want primary custody of the child with whatever rights you want, whatever ends come of our…association. A trust fund for the child’s education and future that you can control.
And guaranteed freedom from an inconvenient wife as soon as you come to your senses… that it sure is a trap.”
The breeze slid between them, wrapping around her legs like a whisper. His shock was palpable, only because she knew him so well. Or at least used to.
“Oh, and your word that you will never ever use the child as a target for any and all of my perceived sins toward you.”
“You trust my word?”
“I trust that you would never harm an innocent.”
Finally, something relented in his gaze. “You expect this child to come from me.”
Her mouth split into a smile. Hopefully into something sharp, like the mockery he usually directed at her.
“Unless you aren’t up to the task of providing the required material,” she said, teasing the words out slowly. “We can outsource it to a third party. I’m sure I could find a willing donor—”
“Over my dead body.”
Riling him up felt like another small win. A new burst of confidence filled her. “We could simply go the IVF route,” she added lightly. “No need to complicate things.”
His jaw ticked. “You want a baby with my genes?”
Her face flamed, even as she worked hard to hide how much his perceptive question threw her.
She’d been mulling the idea of having a baby for a while, had even brought up going the anonymous-donor way with Richard, who had fully supported her. Now, she couldn’t avoid facing how quickly she’d warmed up to the idea of Constantine as her child’s father.
Seconds ticked by, the silence tautening like a stretched wire.
“Why not?” Aliyah said, with a fake smile and a faker shrug.
“You’re tall, handsome, driven. Smart and ambitious.
Clearly a leader. You possess most qualities I would have looked for in a donor.
As for the qualities I don’t like or are missing…
” She made a humming noise in the back of her throat, as if she was mulling over the matter, while every inch of her thrummed at her audacious taunting of him. “I hope to nurture those in my child.”
His eyes gleamed with promise of payback. “Our child, poulaki mou.”
Aliyah barely braced herself against the possessive tone when his mouth twisted.
“One I’ll agree to only if we conceive it the traditional way.”
“I have zero interest in becoming one of your conquests, Constantine,” Aliyah said, more out of principle than out of faith.
He stepped closer. Just enough to remind her how her body thrummed at his mere proximity. His confident arrogance grated on her nerves. Enough that she wondered why she couldn’t consider it a win that he still wanted her.
The actress who had been walking out of his office two hours ago was proof enough that she was nowhere near the caliber of his usual arm candy, whether in looks or accomplishments. So was it just the twisted remnants of the past that made him want her? Or did he actually find her attractive?
And God, why the hell did she care either way?
“That,” he murmured, “sounds like a challenge if I’ve ever heard one.”
A small gasp escaped her mouth.
He leaned in. Warm breaths feathered against her cheek, sending a devastating curl of heat low in her belly.
“You’ll beg me, fterouga,” he said softly. “To put a baby in your belly…and make you scream my name while I do it.”
Her stomach swooped. Heat bloomed all over her, inside out, between her thighs, as if he had stroked a hand at the exact spot where she needed it.
And she hated him for it. For the promise in his voice. For the certainty in his tone. For knowing just how to twist the knife.
“Chemistry means nothing in the long term, Constantine. You were a skilled lover even back then. Now, with all the experience you must have gained, seducing me will be child’s play for you.
And even if you manage to get me to enjoy it, I won’t forget that it’s for the higher purpose, ne? That it’s toward gaining what I want.”
He pulled back slowly, gaze searching hers, before stepping back.
Aliyah had the strangest sense that her words had cut him this time. Or she was being her usual foolish self around him.
The wind curled around them both, catching the loose ends of her hair, dragging it across her cheek.
She didn’t lift a hand to fix it. Didn’t let him see how every inch of her wanted to lean into him, begging him to give her a taste.
Didn’t let him see how much the hurt he had caused her once had changed her into this…
this pragmatic woman with a bruised heart.