by Maisey Yates
He arched a brow at her. “Everything is ready. Your bags are on board.”
“Great. Thanks. So...where are we going?”
“Did I not mention?”
“No, it’s one of those silly little incidentals we’ve never talked about. Like what your favorite color is, the real nature of your relationship with my sister...that kind of thing.”
“Are you really bringing that up again now?” he asked, holding the door open for her. She walked out in front of him and started through the terminal, headed to the exit where the private planes were parked, ready for takeoff.
“I guess so. I hadn’t planned to. But I hadn’t really planned to the first time. I’m suffering from a case of terminal honesty at the moment.”
“It’s not as charming as one might think.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s charming. I think it’s hideously embarrassing. I aim to stop it as soon as possible.”
“Anytime you see fit.”
She led the way out onto the tarmac. “Which plane is yours?”
“The big one,” he said, without a trace of humor. All she could hear was the potential double entendre.
She arched a brow. “Indeed.” She walked up the stairs that led to the interior of the jet. They’d flown in it on the way to New York, but still, to her, a plane on the runway looked like a plane on the runway.
The inside, however, was what truly distinguished it from anything she’d ever seen before. Plush carpets, leather furniture, a flat-screen television and a bedroom made it more comfortable than most Manhattan apartments. And twice as big as some of them, too.
She’d been raised wealthy, and she was used to opulence. To a degree. Ajax’s version was on a whole other level. It wasn’t showy, not in an obvious way. No gold-plated toilet paper roll holders.
It was in the quality of the leather on the couch, the type of wine being served. The glass the wine was in.
Ajax set her bags down on the couch and took a seat next to them. So she opted for the chair across the room from him. Safer.
“Now, tell me where we’re going,” she said.
“You don’t want to be surprised?”
“The wedding was my surprise,” she said dryly. “Let me in on the honeymoon destination.”
“St. Lucia.”
“Oh, wow.” For some reason, the image of the beautiful island, one she’d never been to, but had seen pictures of, made her throat close up. Maybe because she knew he’d planned to take Rachel there. And it was easy to see Rachel happy in a place like that. Lounging on the beach, smiling at her new husband. Holding his hand while they walked through the surf.
He’d planned that for her.
Why did the thought sneak up on her like that sometimes? Why did she care? Why did she care about him or the honeymoon or anything? It would be so much easier if she could just be like him. With a big fat vacancy sign hanging on her chest.
She could be married to him, run her business, go to events with him and get him naked at the end of the night and never care who he was thinking of or what he felt.
But that wasn’t her. It wasn’t how she was. She’d had to get tough when she’d made her leap into the world of business, had had to change the way she behaved in public and in private, really.
But with Ajax...sometimes he made her feel like the girl she’d been. He made her feel soft. Exposed. She didn’t like it. Especially not when she’d just purposed to double down her efforts protecting herself.
She felt like she had a knot of confusion living in her stomach. Which made eating difficult. Well, eating anything but candy.
Good thing she’d brought a bunch with her.
Ajax pulled his laptop out of his briefcase and turned his focus to the screen. The conversation was clearly over.
Well, that was fine. She could just sit there and eat candy. And think about their honeymoon, which, now that she knew where they were going, she knew was sure to be filled with sun and sand.
And for now, she wouldn’t think of anything else.
* * *
The rich blues and greens of St. Lucia felt even more vibrant and saturated after spending two weeks in the gray of New York City. Leah had always liked the city, but the ocean had always felt more like home to her.
This felt more like home.
Ajax had rented them a private villa for the duration of their stay, a massive structure made of rough-hewn wood, with a wide stretch of white sand to the front of it, backed by mountains and dense trees.
It was straight out of a fantasy. Too bad she was no longer under the delusion that her husband was, too.
“How long were you planning on this being your honeymoon destination?” she asked. Why had she asked? She didn’t really want to know. Curse her stupid curiosity.
“More than a year. When we set the wedding date, I booked this place.”
“You do like your plans, don’t you?”
“Without a plan, how do you know if you’re on the right path?”
“I don’t know. If you adhere so tightly to a plan, how do you know you’re not missing something really great that’s just a hair to your left?”
He shrugged and walked up the steps that led into the villa. “It isn’t worth the risk,” he said. “Not to me.”
He pushed the door open and went inside; Leah followed, scanning the surroundings. It was a giant, open room with a vaulted ceiling, accented by exposed beams. The floor was made from wood, too, rough and unfinished, giving the impression of something rustic in the midst of the polished luxury. The bedroom was only partitioned off from the main living area by a swathe of gauzy fabric. And beyond the veil, a large, plush bed that was certainly built for two.
And they weren’t going to need separate sleeping quarters. She looked ahead, at Ajax’s broad back, his trim hips and...well, yeah the way his black dress pants fit over his muscular butt. That was a perk to walking behind Ajax chatting his ear off she’d discovered a little later into her teens. The view from back there was good.
“What risk? The risk of failure?” she asked.
“No. Failure would not be half so bad. There are much bigger things, much darker things to fear.” He set down the bag he’d been carrying and walked toward the far end of the room. “Let me ask you a question, Leah.”
“Go for it.”
“Do you think you’re a good person?”
She blinked. “Yes. I...suppose so. I make candy, not war, and I smile at people when I walk by them on the street. Never took money from my grandma’s purse. Yes.”
“All right, but do you trust that if your circumstances changed, you would remain a good person? That you would have morals, morals that took hold deep inside of you, that would keep you from ever changing?”
“I’d like to think so,” she said, sensing she wouldn’t like where he was leading her.
“I trust that I am not a good person. Not just that I might not be if things were to change, but that if I ever take my eyes off the prize in front of me, if I let myself slip up, I will go right back into the darkness I came out of, and I’m not willing to do it. Not just for me. For everyone I might hurt. Emotion, need, lust—those things distract. They are unpredictable. I don’t trust them.”
She laughed a little, not because anything he said was funny but because it was the only way she could release the tension, the unease, building inside of her.
“You wouldn’t...hurt anyone, Ajax.”
He laughed, and his was obviously not born of humor, either. “Oh, you say that, Leah, but you don’t know anything about me, not really. You think you do. You think I was born the minute I appeared on your family’s estate? No. By then...by then I had lived more life in sixteen years than a girl like you will have lived at the end of her days. And that’s not an insul
t. You don’t want to have seen what I’ve seen. To know what I’ve done. I don’t want to know it. But I do. And the memory is what keeps me going this way. It’s what reminds me, every day, of how important it is to keep your eyes on the goal.”
“Ajax...”
“We’re done talking about this.”
“No, we aren’t,” she said. “You told me yesterday that you were worse than most men. Today you’re telling me you’ve done things... I think I deserve to have an idea of what I’m dealing with here.”
“Why? I thought you knew me so well?”
“No. I knew your mask. And I liked it better.”
“Everyone does,” he said. “And they should. On that note—” he reached for his tie, loosened it and then pulled it off “—I think I’ll go for a swim.” Then he started undoing the buttons on his shirt, stripping so he was bare to the waist. Oh...my.
It was so easy to forget how angry she was, how hurt and confused when she saw that lean, well-defined torso. All olive skin with a bit of dark hair over his chest. Broadcasting just how masculine he was. As if she needed the reminder.
He headed toward the bedroom area, and she just stopped, staring. He was behind the curtain, but she could see, easily, the silhouette of him through the thin gauze. He opened one of the bags that had been delivered ahead of them and pulled out swim shorts, then he pushed his pants and underwear down his thighs.
And as he stripped the clothes away from his skin, the armor was ripped from her body.
She should look away. He wasn’t putting on a show for her. She had no right or reason to stand there staring at all that skin, hard, well-defined thighs, the butt...and...and...her brain stopped working when she caught a small glimpse of the front of him, still heavily obscured by the fabric. But the dark shadow there at the apex of his thighs was enticing nonetheless.
He raised his gaze, his eyes clashing with her as he tugged his swim shorts up and over the place she was currently ogling, then he stepped out from the behind the curtain.
“See anything you like?” he asked.
She puckered her lips. “Lots, actually. But then, that’s a good thing, right? All things considered?”
“Am I supposed to blush and stammer now?” he asked, his tone dry.
She’d seen Ajax in swim shorts plenty of times, but this was different. They were alone. There was a bed. And she’d just seen his very naked silhouette. “I wouldn’t dream of that,” she said. “After all, you’ve seen things I can’t even imagine.”
“Don’t forget.” He walked past her and out the door. And then she realized what he was doing. He was avoiding her. Avoiding the potential intimacy of the moment.
He was so not getting away with that.
She stalked back into the bedroom area and opened her suitcase, rummaging around until she found her swimsuit. It was a one-piece, black. Serviceable. It was not what she wanted. He wasn’t allowed to be the only one who could inspire lust-fueled brain failure.
She ignored the voice that told her she probably wasn’t capable of inspiring it. That voice could suck it.
She needed to make a quick trip to the resort shops.
* * *
A swim did a little to cool the burn in Ajax’s blood. But the water wasn’t as cold as he needed it to be. It wasn’t arousal. At least, it wasn’t only arousal that was firing through his system.
But the moment he’d walked into that room, looked at Leah and that bed, he’d realized that it was going to happen, and that he wanted it to. And with that had been a collision with reality. Leah had been manipulated into being here. This place had been chosen for another woman. And he had simply brought her here as if she and Rachel were interchangeable, and he knew full well they were not.
For a start, Rachel hadn’t made him feel like his blood was going to boil over and reduce to nothing. Leah on the other hand was testing the bonds of his control. Was making him want things he hadn’t craved in years.
He’d been so close to pushing her down onto that bed when they’d first walked in. To kissing her until she lost that sad look, until he made the room theirs and exorcised the ghost of the woman he’d intended to bring into it.
And then he’d had to remind himself why he must keep control. Why he had to remember what sort of man he was.
Of course, with Leah there would be no drugs involved. Of course not. He hadn’t touched them in seventeen years. Not even tempted to. Not after the last time.
Still, he couldn’t separate sex from the chaos and shame that lingered in the air at his father’s home. Couldn’t separate it from that last night there. From that haze, that feeling of being out of control. Of everything being skewed and confused. And one frightened woman. A woman he had frightened.
No, he didn’t want to think about it. But he had to. He had to remember. So he would remember why control was so important.
“Oh, good, you’re still here.”
He turned around at the sound of Leah’s voice and his throat went dry. The memory he’d been replaying was wiped out completely. Now all he could see was curves, soft, pale skin.
And a red bikini that should be illegal. It tied at her rounded hips, and it seemed, to him, that it would be the easiest thing to release those ties. The top was the same, barely covering her breasts. Her stomach wasn’t cut or defined like many of the women he saw at the beaches at the exclusive resorts he frequented, compliments of exercise or a skilled surgeon. No, she was simply Leah. Simply a woman.
In that moment it was her softness, her roundness, that made her seem wholly, purely female. There was a natural quality to her shape, to her movements.
For a moment, just a moment, his view of sex, the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, were erased. And there was only Leah.
“Yes, I am. Where have you been?” he asked, willing his body under control before he took a step out of the water and started toward where she stood on the white sand beach.
“Shopping.”
“For?”
“All kinds of things,” she said. “Mainly this.” She put her hand on her hip, indicating the bikini, he imagined. Not that there was much of it to indicate.
“What else?”
She met his eyes. “Underwear. The kind you want someone to see.”
Heat shot through him, starting in his stomach, pooling in his groin. “Really?” His voice sounded rough. Not like his own.
“Yes. You seem interested.”
There was no lying about it. It would be too obvious. And anyway, why should he? She was his wife. She wanted him. He wouldn’t be forcing himself on her.
She did want him. And not just because she had to be here with him. She’d made her choice. She had.
“I am.” His voice was unsteady, a stranger’s voice.
“I’m glad.”
“Does that mean you’re ready? Here? Now?” He wasn’t. Not while he felt like this.
“No. It’s nice to have a little buildup, don’t you think? Nice to anticipate.”
She had no idea how damn long he’d been anticipating.
“I don’t know if nice is the word I’d use.”
She took a step toward him, her steps unsteady as her feet sank into the deep sand, her breasts bouncing with the motion.
And he felt like he was a teenage boy. Not the teenage boy he’d been with unlimited access to sex. Sex that had been, at its heart, twisted, one-sided, a commodity. Sex in his world was used for the pleasures of the rich, powerful and debauched.
There was something dark to his encounters in the past, to lust as he knew it. It wasn’t this jittery feeling in his veins, this shot of anticipation and pure excitement. This desire to give, not just to take. To caress, not just possess.
And also uncertainty. She made him feel off balance. A side ef
fect of things not going according to his plan. Or maybe just a side effect of her beautiful figure.
She extended her hand, touched his face. “I don’t know—it’s nicer than fighting, which is the only other thing we seem to be able to do. Fight and kiss.”
And the reins holding him back snapped. He dipped his head and captured her lips, quick and hard, too desperate for a taste to wait. When he broke the kiss, her eyes were round, her mouth swollen.
“Oh,” she said.
“What?” he asked, afraid for a second he’d overstepped his bounds. But he’d been sure this was what she was here for. Flirtation. Seduction.
He knew what it looked like when women wanted him. Women had always wanted him, especially since he’d started earning money. He turned them down, but it didn’t mean he didn’t recognize what it looked like when a woman had sex on her mind.
“Sorry, you just knocked all my thoughts out of my head.”
“Is that...good?” he asked.
“Yeah. Just... I don’t think I can think of anything witty to say for at least a minute, so maybe you could just look away from my shame and leave me and my mushy brain in peace?”
“Are you going to swim?”
“I think you’re supposed to wait a half hour to swim after having your brain scrambled.”
“Is that a scientific fact?”
“No idea.”
He smiled. Not because he wanted her to see him smile, not because he was conscious of needing to project an emotion. He smiled because he couldn’t help himself. “I think...I think I should take you to dinner tonight.”
“Romance?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I want to.”
“Coming from you, Ajax, that’s romance all by itself.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT TOOK LEAH only an hour after the encounter on the beach to decide that she wasn’t letting Ajax take her to dinner. And she had reasons and her own plan. A plan she was going to ambush him with. She didn’t necessarily want romance. What she wanted was to feel as if she had some control. To feel like she wasn’t simply being led around.
