CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lynna couldn’t sleep . A new place. A new life. So many doubts circling in her head and, worst of all, the low, distracting rumble of Athan’s voice playing over and over in her head.
Do you need to hear me say it plain?
She hadn’t let him actually say much of anything. But she had spent too much time in the days since imagining what he might say plain. What it might feel like to kiss him again. To lose herself in something…
Wrong. Wrong. He is your sworn enemy.
She was just hungry. That’s what was causing these ridiculous thoughts. She needed a sweet treat. There had been some options in the kitchen. Maybe she could even put together a sundae. It wouldn’t be as good as her usual ones since there were no homemade brownies or chocolate sauce on hand, but it would do in a pinch.
She got out of bed. She didn’t think she’d see Athan, or anyone else, but she grabbed a robe all the same. It was easier than changing out of the somewhat revealing pajamas. Because all she was going to do was grab a dessert. She’d even bring it back to her room to eat it.
Determined that this would be just the thing to cure her insomnia, Lynna left her room. She found herself…sneaking, essentially. Which was stupid. She lived here too. No matter how little she liked it, she was the owner’s wife.
Wife.
If she let that word rattle around in her head, she might start screaming. Maybe run out the front door.
And where would you go? Back to London? Back to all that hard work just to tread water? Just to fail your mother and Rhys?
No. It wasn’t an option. She’d made her choice and she had to live with it. For the people she loved most. Lynna had never once accepted failure in herself, and she would not start now.
She crept down the stairs, before she could make her way to the back of the house and the kitchen she heard voices. Low, dark, vicious voices.
Suspicious, she moved toward the sound. Coming from Athan’s library he’d showed her upon arrival. It was a lovely room. Not as bright and spacious as his office back in Mykonos, likely to protect the books from too much sunlight. Instead it was made of dark woods and deep colors, but it had been cozy. She’d been able to easily picture herself curled up on one of the oversize chairs reading in front of the fire on a cold night.
In the dim hallway, light from the library poured out. The door was open about halfway, so it was easy to see inside. To see Athan, still dressed as he’d been at dinner, and then Constantine. They spoke to one another in low tones, and Lynna stopped short with the terrible, horrible realization.
They were working together. This was the plan all along. She had been so stupid. So careless. She didn’t know what they wanted from her, when they’d already killed her father and won a million times over, but what else could this be?
Her breath sawed in and out, her heart beating loudly in her ears, but then…she remembered what Athan had said before they’d left Mykonos.
He’d been so sure Constantine would arrive the moment they were here.
Her breathing slowed. Was this just some father-son…spat? She calmed enough to actually listen to what they were saying.
“People will see through this farce, Athan. I take no joy in ending you, but if it must be done, I will do it. I will ruin you. Once and for all. This is your final chance to be saved.”
Lynna found herself holding her breath, not sure how Athan would react. He seemed determined to overthrow his father, but maybe he would falter? Maybe he would take whatever deal Constantine was offering? Maybe he was all talk and absolutely no wherewithal.
Even as she tried to believe that, she knew in her heart it wasn’t true. She could fault Athan for many things, but being weak willed was not one of them.
“You know, it’s funny, Lynna called you the devil. And I’m afraid I can no longer do deals with the devil when I have married a saint.”
So no, this was not the moment of Athan’s inevitable betrayal—one she knew could come at any moment and had to remember that.
She knew he didn’t really think her a saint, but he wasn’t taking whatever his father was offering. And it was clearly making Constantine angry. His voice wasn’t slick anymore. It was all venom.
“Do you honestly expect anyone to believe you care for that mousy, pathetic, pudgy servant girl? Everyone will know it’s a transparent ploy to win over her father’s idiotic supporters.”
Mousy, pathetic, pudgy servant girl. The absolute gall of that man to narrow her down to his opinion on her looks and her position as a personal chef. As if that was all anyone could ever see when they looked at her.
She couldn’t hear Athan’s response over the roaring in her head. She thought maybe he laughed, but she couldn’t be sure.
Because she wasn’t about to let that stand. Maybe her marriage to Athan would never be real , but now she was bound and determined for Constantine to think it was.
It was rage and pride and a million other things that had her acting. Stupid, mostly, but she did it anyway. She undid the belt on her robe. Her pajamas weren’t exactly sexy lace, but the tank top she wore was soft and thin and dipped a little to give a hint of cleavage. She let the robe slide off her shoulders, hook at her elbows.
She pushed the door open farther, trying to make her expression into one of silky promise and intent.
Two pairs of dark eyes turned to her. She feigned shock, rushed to pull her robe together as though she had not expected to find anyone but her husband in his library.
“Oh. Athan. I… I didn’t realize you’d been…” she looked from Athan to Constantine, widened her eyes “…distracted.”
Athan’s mouth curved, dark eyes amused. “Darling, I apologize for not returning immediately. But my father had stopped by to offer his congratulations.” He was picking up the thread easily. He held out his arm and she moved across the room to him, let him wrap it around her waist and pull her to his side. She ignored how warm it was here, how hard he felt against her side.
She had acting to do. So she leaned into Athan, smiled at Constantine, though the smile threatened to curdle at the edges. “It’s awfully late for congratulations,” she offered, not hiding the censure in her tone.
Constantine’s expression was not rage exactly. His color was high, he was breathing a little heavily, but she could see the wheels in his head all but turning as he surveyed them.
Then he moved toward them, and Lynna felt a bit like she was being stalked by a lion. It was only Athan’s strong arm around her that allowed her to feel…protected. And stopped her from backing away.
Which she was not going to think too deeply about considering she hated both of these men.
Hated.
“Perhaps I have seen the error of my ways,” Constantine said, in a low, purring voice when he was close—too close. “You hide your assets, Lynna. Why don’t you show them off?” He even reached out, as if he was going to pull the robe off her.
Lynna jerked back in horror and disgust, but then in a blur, Constantine was gone. Well, sort of.
Athan had him pinned up against the wall, his forearm against Constantine’s throat.
But Constantine didn’t look scared , even as Lynna’s heart clattered around in her rib cage at the shock of it all. The older man smiled .
“Perhaps you should call the police, Ms. Carew,” he rasped. “It seems your husband has assaulted me.”
“If you ever try to touch my wife again, she will be calling the police to report a murder.”
“Threats? Athan.” Constantine tsked. “This is shocking .”
Lynna held her breath. For a moment, she was afraid Athan was actually going to commit that murder. It likely wouldn’t take him much to crush his father’s windpipe right then and there.
But then Athan released him, so abruptly Constantine stumbled a bit before he righted himself. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” he said to Athan, then strode out of the room.
Athan stood stock-still. He stared at the point on the wall he’d had his father pinned against. She had never seen him look quite so…dangerous and devastated at the same time.
Lynna also didn’t move. She didn’t know what to say. It took time for her heart to stop hammering at her, for the fear and thrill of too many things to dissipate.
“I thought I’d find a weak spot,” Athan said after what must have been several ticking minutes. He blew out a long, loud breath that left Lynna feeling…
Off-balance. Like she’d stumbled upon a private moment. That Athan might be human instead of the evil demon she wanted him to be.
“Instead, I suppose he found mine,” Athan added, somewhat thoughtfully. Perhaps a little too resignedly for her taste.
“A bad temper?” she offered, hoping to get some…response out of him that put them back on their normal footing.
He turned slowly, his gaze met hers, too direct, too potent. “You,” he said gravely, that dark voice like an arrow that landed low in her stomach, a pooling, painful heat. “It was never my intention to make you a target.”
He said this with a gravity that had too many things inside of her trying to melt , but she had to harden herself against him. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as Constantine, maybe he’d defended her when she couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t had to defend herself, maybe he almost seemed human in this moment, but he was still her enemy.
“You thought I could just be a pawn you got to move how you wanted with no consequences?” she asked, doing her best to sound haughty instead of winded.
He shook his head, suddenly looking exhausted. “Never mind,” he said. “I suppose I should call my own lawyer.”
“You don’t actually think…”
“It’s my father’s specialty. Poke at someone until they come undone. Then use their outburst against them either with veiled threats or police action. He will do something, and it will be on my doorstep by morning.”
It was awful. Underhanded and awful. So, of course, it suited Constantine to the bone. And no doubt she should leave Athan to deal with it, but…
Well, he had reacted that way in protection of her . Now, she wasn’t silly enough to believe it was because of some great protective feeling he had toward her , or even some inner sense of goodness since he was an Akakios and could have none, but he had done it all the same.
“Come,” she said firmly. She walked out of the library, striding for the kitchen. She didn’t know if he followed, and she told herself she didn’t care. If he came, she would make him a sundae. If he did not, he was on his own for comfort.
She didn’t look behind her. She just moved into the kitchen and began to collect everything she’d need.
Once she had everything out, she ventured a look around the room. Athan had seated himself on a stool at the counter and was watching her intently.
“What is this?” he asked, clearly because she’d stopped.
She set the bowls out, took the lid off the ice cream. “It is the makings of a sundae. Subpar, as I do not have the time this late to make the brownies from scratch, or the ingredients to make any kind of sauce, so we will have to do with store-bought.”
“You do not churn your own ice cream?” he asked sarcastically.
But she didn’t know why that would be sarcastic. She was a chef—and one who enjoyed making desserts as much as she enjoyed concocting savory items. “I do, when I have the time and supplies.”
“Of course you do.”
She put the sad little store-bought cookies at the bottom of the bowl. The premium ice cream would help elevate them…she hoped. She put a scoop into each bowl.
“Why are you making me comfort food? I’d think you were trying to treat me like a child, but you’re making yourself one.”
“There is nothing childish about wanting a little sweet comfort after a difficult encounter,” Lynna said loftily. “I know I am little more than a pathetic, pudgy servant girl—”
“I know you don’t actually believe those things about yourself, Lynna,” he said, almost reproachfully.
“No, I don’t.”
“But let the record show—”
“What record?”
“I happen to think you’re beautiful, forceful, and an utterly remarkable chef and businesswoman.”
She hated that each compliment landed with force , as if she’d spent her entire life waiting for someone to notice what she thought to be true. Which felt far too close to a vulnerability that would leave her doing nothing but repeating her father’s mistakes.
She kept her gaze studiously on her creations, no matter how much some strange internal impulse made her want to look up at him.
“You needn’t butter me up for me to participate in the war against your father. If I wasn’t already enlisted, tonight would have done it.”
“I am not buttering anything. I am merely stating facts.” Athan shrugged, as if it made no difference to him whether she believed that or not. “That was remarkable, though,” he finally managed, sounding more like his insouciant self. “Acting as though you were waiting for me to return to bed. An amazing performance. I applaud and thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“No, of course not.” There was a twisted kind of amusement for the way he said that, but she couldn’t quite make sense of it.
She finished off the sundae, slid it across the counter to him. “If he does call the police, and there are questions, I am a witness. I will tell them that your father was about to attack me, and you acted in my defense. Perhaps it’s an exaggeration, but it isn’t much of one.”
Athan studied her with steady eyes. When he spoke it was softly, carefully.
“You will make yourself a target, Lynna. My father is a formidable opponent. You were never meant to be anything more than…well, that pawn you mentioned.”
“A shame for you then, as I have no plans on being a pawn.” She met his gaze with a fierce one. “From here on out, Athan, I am your partner.” A partnership with an Akakios was dangerous, but Lynna was no fool. If she was going to be in this, it was time to be in it.
A willing participant. Aware of the risks. The target she might become. Maybe she’d get burned in the process, but if Rhys had a future, and she could avenge her father in some way, her burns would be worth it.