24. CHAPTER 22
Orion
“Three months!”
Julian repeated, like the timeline alone had personally provoked him.
“You’re telling me that for three months you’ve been married, and you’re yet to fuck your wife.”
We were alone on the tennis court. The late-afternoon sky was a washed-out blue, and the club was almost silent except for the rhythmic pop of balls from a distant court. He stood at the baseline, holding on to his racquet, staring at me like I’d confessed to an actual felony.
“Language Julian.”
“Fuck language,” he snapped.
“You might as well take a loudspeaker and announce it from the Eiffel Tower. Notify all of France. How about that? Hmm?”
Elias burst out laughing near the benches, where he was lazily bouncing a ball with his racquet.
“Who are you,” he called out, while trying to contain his laugh, “and what have you done with the priest?”
Julian shot him a look. “You’re not helping.”
I tossed the ball up and served hard, the force of it cutting clean through the air. The ball slammed into the service box and kicked wide; Julian sprinted and barely got his racquet under it.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he huffed, sending a return that clipped the line. “You, of all people. You’re the reason why the people come to the altar of sin to worship. Now you’re married and abstinent… how?”
I cut his shot down the line. “She’s my wife—” I said. “I need her to want it. To come to me.”
Julian lunged, missed, and the ball hit the back fence.
“Then make her,” he snapped. “How hard is it?”
He had no idea.
We switched sides. Elias wandered onto the court and tossed Julian a ball.
“For some reason,” I said, “with Léonie, things are different. If she’s not fighting me on something, she’s pulling away and hiding from me.”
Julian snorted. “So corner her properly. You do it with everyone else.”
I ignored that.
The truth was simpler and more complicated at once. In the last three months, my life had been divided between travel and… her.
I’d been away for nearly a month of that time, different continents, patching holes in deals and smoothing the friction the alliance had created. The rest of the time, when I was in Paris, I spent more energy than I liked to admit making sure my wife was… content.
Happy was too big a word.
But I gave her what I could.
I made sure her favorite pastries were delivered to the estate every morning, even after the owner of that ridiculous little patisserie she liked insisted he didn’t do daily deliveries. Money and Stratum pressure changed his mind.
Mrs. Lewis had mentioned offhand that Léonie wanted to redecorate some rooms in the west wing, turn that part of the house into something that felt like hers.
I’d given immediate approval, signed off on budgets that would make my CFO twitch, and watched—on screens, mostly—as she walked each finished room with that wondering expression she always carried when she liked something, paired with the delicate smile she thought no paid attention to.
It wasn’t enough.
I’d agreed when she asked to claim one of the larger rooms for a fashion studio.
It made sense. More space, better light, somewhere to focus her not-inconsiderable energy.
On evenings when I’d made it home early, I heard laughter filtering from the side of the wing.
Hers. Céleste’s. Isolde’s. The sound travelled down the corridors, totally unbothered.
The happier my wife seemed, the more she unnerved me. The more comfortable she grew, the bolder she became. The more she pushed.
About three weeks ago, I’d come back earlier than expected and gone looking for her.
I’d found her at the pool house. Alone.
She’d stepped out of the pool when she saw me, water sliding down her skin in slow, infuriating lines. And she was wearing a yellow bikini.
Yellow!
Léonie didn’t own colors. She practically lived in neutrals, but there she was wrapped in sunlight-yellow that made her skin look like something I had no business thinking about in the middle of the day.
“The audacity,” I muttered now.
Julian served; I returned without really seeing the ball.
She’d twirled that day. Actually twirled. Stopped in front of me, her hands smoothing her waist, chin tilted as if settling a private dare.
“Well?” she’d asked. “Do you like it?”
My cock had answered before my brain did. I liked it too much.
If she liked colour, why had she fought everyone so hard to stick to neutrals for years? Why turn herself into mute beige when she was clearly capable of blazing?
I would ask her, but she spoke to everyone else before me. Isabella. Mrs Lewis. The gardener. Temporary staff passing through for seasonal hours.
Did I wish she would talk to me more?
No.
I preferred peace.
I also preferred not to notice that part of me wanted her to bring those small things to me, too. To ask my opinion on the studio layout instead of just my signature. To lean on my side of the bed with her sketchpad in her hand and ramble until she got to the point.
“You know you need to sleep with her to get the heir your mother keeps hounding you for,” Elias said dryly between games, tossing me a fresh ball.
Julian snickered. “Biology lesson from the tech prince. We are truly lost.”
“I know how reproduction works, Elias.” I said flatly.
We were here to play tennis, not dissect my forced celibacy as though it was a public health crisis.
We finished the game. Sweat slicked my back; the sun had dipped lower, turning the court lines into long white strokes. We walked off, took the chilled bottles handed to us by the attendants.
Julian chugged half of his, then set it down on the bench.
“So,” he said, eyes on me. “What’s the plan? I know you always have one.”
Elias leaned back against the bench, paying rapt attention like he was about to take mental notes for a masterclass.
“Yes, enlighten us. This should be good.”
I wiped sweat from my jaw. I didn’t answer immediately.
I did have a plan. In fact, it was already in motion.
It involved tracking her cycle schedule with the same discipline I applied to major work timelines. Through Mrs Lewis’s inventory of household supplies, I kept a personal log of when Léonie’s cycle began and ended.
I knew when she needed tampons, a hot water bottle, stronger painkillers than usual, and the herbal tea Mrs Lewis only brewed for her that week.
I saw the orders for extra chocolate, the increase in bakery deliveries, the nights when a tray went up to her room instead of her coming down to dinner.
She preferred seclusion during those days, which made the pattern easy to confirm.
There were other tells. She preferred loose, dark clothes, lower heels or flats. When she gave up on lipstick and tied her hair in a messy low bun, I knew she’d hit the worst of it. Some days, she didn’t wear perfume at all.
I had ovulation notifications synced to my executive calendar; her physiological patterns were synchronised with my logistics schedule. To some, it might seem like a barbaric system. To me, it was methodical. And I’ve always preferred order over leaving anything to chance.
The only missing ingredient was her permission.
Because when the moment finally came—when she eventually comes to me of her own volition—I wasn’t going to waste it.
I wanted it to count.
My mind went to the unmarked dates on my personal calendar that held a significance known only to me. On those nights, my schedule mysteriously cleared, ensuring I was home earlier.
Dinner would be moved forward. Mrs. Lewis operated under standing orders: to ensure the wine was higher vintage, the dessert Léonie’s favorites, and the house staff were to be dismissed early.
It was a systematic elimination of any variable I couldn't predict. I was simply ensuring the conditions were perfect for the outcome I required.
But I'd rather not bore Julain and Elias with any of the details.
“My only plan,” I said finally, “is to make her happy enough to surrender to me.”
Julian’s eyes rolled before he could stop himself.
“Have some dignity,” he said flatly. “You sound like you swallowed a self-help book.” He pitched his voice higher, mocking: “Make her happy enough to surrender.” His stare cut back to me. “What the hell happened to you?”
Elias laughed under his breath. “He got married.”
Julian pointed a finger at me. “I preferred you when you were a bastard in theory and in practice, Kade. This…this waiting? This turning your wife into a… a long-term acquisition target? It’s unnatural.”
That’s rich,” I said. “Coming from a man who trains women to obey and then walks away just to see if the programming sticks.”
His mouth slanted, quick and amused. “You’ve gone soft.”
I met his gaze and let the truth sit between us.
“It’s all strategic,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
Julian stared me for a long moment, then huffed out a laugh and reached for his racquet again.
“Fine,” he said. “Be strategic. But if we hit six months and you’re still playing Saint Orion of the Domestic Monastery, patron saint of Marital Piety, I’m staging an intervention.”
Elias shook his head, laughing. “You two need help.”
The ball basket was wheeled back onto the court. We walked toward it, the sun giving way to cooler air.
As I stepped onto the baseline, I pictured her in the west wing, waiting for me to walk through the door, perhaps wearing yellow again… or maybe red this time.
I wanted her to look at me with lust and intense desire, not because a contract dictated her submission, but because she chose it.
I wanted her eyes on mine—stubborn, defiant, and fully aware—as she made the decision to yield.
Julian tossed me a ball. “Your serve, priest.”
I lined up the shot, flexed my shoulders, my mind already split between the court and the thought of my wife finally giving in to me.
Soon, I told myself as the ball left my hand.
This time I wasn’t just holding on to patience, I was also making myself a promise, that when she chooses to come to me, I’d have her trembling…for all the right reasons.
Isabella was in the foyer when I walked in.