24. CHAPTER 22 #3
My eyes stayed on hers. Her chin tipped up, defiant. Her hand came up and poked my chest, hard enough to be felt.
“Stop managing me, Orion,” she said. “It won’t do you any good.”
Managing.
Another interesting word.
I caught her wrist before she could pull her hand back, to stop her from retreating. Her pulse fluttered under my fingers. I liked it too much.
“Everything I do has a purpose,” I said. “Including rescuing you from a tea party you'd rather fake your own death than attend.”
“I would’ve survived.”
“I know. You always do. But surviving isn’t the same as living.”
She blinked at that like she hadn’t expected it. Her shoulders relaxed, and I let go of her wrist.
“We do actually have plans this weekend,” I brought it up again.
“We do?” Suspicion cut through her features. “What plans?”
“A surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“I know.” I allowed myself a real smile this time. “You’ll like this one.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said automatically.
I took a slow breath, deliberately letting my gaze sweep over her—over the dress that pulled at my restraint one slow inch at a time, her bare shoulders, and the reminder in form of the imprint of her hand still burning on my thigh where she’d touched me.
“That’s the thing about being married to me, Léa,” I said, still not raising my voice. “You get to say you won’t, as many times as you like.”
“And you’ll just… ignore me?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll make it tempting enough that you talk yourself into it.”
She folded her arms, probably resolved that she can't fight me on this one. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere outside the city,” I replied. “Somewhere you can exist without half of Paris watching your every move. A place that isn’t this house, or my mother’s salon, or a tea party full of women measuring the cut of your dress against their own insecurities.”
After tennis, I turned over my conversation with Elias and Julian. Perhaps I wasn’t doing enough to make my wife comfortable. If I wanted her to come to me, to trust me with the whole of her, I had to exert more effort.
And nothing signaled effort quite like a weekend alone, away from the prying eyes and the chaos of the estate. Considering we'd hardly spent a moment of true solitude since the wedding, the timing felt right.
Her throat worked.
“Is this another… Kade prison?” she asked without meeting my eyes. “Just with a nicer view?”
Her question caught me off-balance. I had spent months trying to scrub the prison label from these walls.
I wanted her to view this estate not as a cage, but as her kingdom.
I had also provided everything—limitless resources, total comfort, a life of absolute security.
In my world, when a person lacks nothing, they are satisfied. I'd convinced myself she felt the same.
“It’s just one weekend,” I said, my voice low. “It's forty-eight hours of us not pretending we’re strangers. It isn't a prison, Léa.”
She looked at me intensely, wondering what the catch was.
“Why?”
A thousand answers flooded my mind, and I wasn’t sure which one to divulge. What could I say?
Because I’m tired of you keeping me at a distance. Every time I hear you laugh in that studio, a part of me I didn’t know was wound tight finally relaxes. I want to be in on the joke.
It’s pathetic, Léa, but I’m getting more selfish by the day. I want you closer. Somewhere I don't have to share your attention with anyone else.
“Because I want time with my wife,” I said simply. It was the easiest truth to settle for. “I want to spend time with you without an audience. Without my mother, or your family hovering. I want it to be just us. You can call that management if it makes you feel better.”
A crease appeared at the corner of her mouth. I could see approval dancing in her eyes, and a dark sense of triumph rolled over me. I liked it…far more than I should. Seeing her defenses drop felt like a conquest worth more than anything I'd ever won.
Then she walked straight toward me with a daring confidence.
Her gaze met mine, annoyance still lingering from earlier, tempered by the faintest hint of mischief. She brushed past me, her bare shoulder grazing my arm, before turning toward the stairs leading to our bedrooms.
“I haven’t said yes,” she tossed over her shoulder.
My eyes followed her as she walked away. The sway of her hips pulled at my restraint, as did the sight of those long, perfect legs. Both detrimental to the resolve of any man alive.
This woman would definitely be the death of me.
Her refusal to bow to me, my mother, or the life we'd both been forced into, was more invigorating than any drink, more haunting than any masked night at the Sanctum. Her defiance slipped under my skin like a fever, waking things I’d worked hard to bury.
“You will,” I whispered, the words meant for my ears alone.
We had an entire weekend to ourselves. More than enough time to see whether that indestructible stubborn streak of hers was truly as indestructible as she believed once the distance she'd been maintaining became impossible to keep.