by K. I. Lynn
It wasn’t something Atticus would allow. Of course he wouldn’t. Atticus would always be the one in the position of power, and he proved nothing had changed when his thumb and finger gripped my chin and simultaneously tilted my head back, while his other pulled my sunglasses off.
“You left. I followed.”
I pulled away from him. “Go away, Atticus.”
He arched a brow. “And leave you here, in this shithole?” His comment was as blasé as always and only further solidified that my decision to leave was the right one.
“I understand this place more than I will ever understand your home,” I said before stomping away.
“Am I that awful that you would prefer to be threatened by a drugged-up thief than sleep next to me in safety?”
I stopped in my tracks.
“Yes.” Because nothing about you is safe.
My eyelids closed at the warmth that filled me, the electricity that continued to pass between us even now at his chest pressed to my back.
“You really want to break the contract?”
My eyes snapped open. Yes.
No.
Fuck, I hated that contract.
“Well, considering I’m pretty sure my addition was loopholed the fuck out, yes, I do. If I have to work three jobs to pay you back, I will, but I’m not going back with you.”
“You know, then.”
I spun in his arms to face him, anger leaking out at being correct. “It became pretty fucking obvious the day you pinned me to your childhood bed. I’m sure there are all sorts of wicked ways you schemed to have sex with me without breaking the contract.”
His gaze hardened, as did his jaw. After glancing around, he took hold of my arm and walked me down the sidewalk toward my hotel.
“Let’s talk about this in private.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
When we entered my room, I set my bags down, lamenting the ruin of my appetite despite the vicinity of my delicious gyro.
“Pack your things. We’re going home.”
I snapped around to him, noting the sour expression of his downturned mouth while he scanned the room, careful not to touch anything.
“Excuse me? No.”
“No?”
“You heard me.”
“And why not?”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I fought them back by clenching my jaw. “I can’t go back to that. I can’t! Why would I want to go back?”
“I have ten million reasons.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Screw the money.”
That seemed to startle him, and he blinked at me. “What?”
“I said screw the money. No amount of money would ever be reason enough to put up with that life or with you. I’m not built for it. You chose wrong.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“I’m telling you, you did.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I’m not de Loughrey material.”
“And who said this? The media? The trash simply loves gossip, and right now you are the juiciest bit to cross their desks. All will calm down soon.”
“It may, but it will never be like it was.”
His lips formed a thin line. “No. You’re associated now. Even if you…leave me, they’ll come for you.”
I hated the strain in the deep timbre of his voice and the way it tugged at my heart. “Why can’t you just let me be?”
My gaze was glued to the floor, and in a few seconds the shiny surface of his crocodile-embossed loafers came into view. He gripped my chin, forcing me to look up at him. Forcing me to see the tortured twist of his beautiful features.
“I’m different with you than I am with other people,” he said lowly.
“If you’re saying I got to see the good version of you…wow, you need some improvement.” I kept the hard edge, not relenting. I wasn’t someone he could just walk all over. “We obviously learned two different versions of the word good in school.”
“You didn’t see the bad,” he stated, releasing my chin and stepping away. “I went from having lunch there once a month to twice a week when you started working there.”
I gasped at that. I’d always assumed it was normal. No one at the restaurant told me differently. But to go there so much just to see me?
“I didn’t just pick you at random, Ophelia. You must understand that by now.”
After his dismissal of any knowledge of that night, I’d assumed I’d just been another notch in his very expensive bed post.
Then he asked me to marry him, but I still could never reconcile the two men I knew him to be.
“I don’t know who you are, Atticus,” I said in a whisper. “Are you friend or foe?”
He paused, thinking it over, his head dropping before his spine straightened. “I’m both. As the head of the de Loughreys, I don’t have the luxury to choose one or the other.”
That was a sad revelation, but fit with what I’d witnessed. “Were you…” I trailed off, my nerve to ask him the one question I’d wondered for over a year. It wasn’t the first time I asked, but I needed an answer. “Were you ever going to call me, or was that just a flippant remark you tell all the girls?”
He shook his head, and I bit back a tear. “You act like I take every woman I meet to bed, when that is far from the truth. With regard to the first part of your question, the easy answer is yes. Yes, I had every intention of calling you. However, after you left that morning, I was thrown back into work, with many meetings the following week. When I was sitting at that table with all those men, it was in celebration of an eight-hundred-million-dollar acquisition of a sports team. The moment I saw you greeting us, I began to doubt the sheer coincidence of meeting you. By the time I’d dug far enough into your history, weeks had passed.”
“And?”
“And how was I supposed to ingratiate myself to you with the attitude I’d shown?”
“I figured your ego wouldn’t stop you.”
“Hmm, perhaps if I was Rhys or Hamilton. With the way I treated you those weeks, I felt there was no going back. Why would you want to deal with me?”
“I didn’t think you had any insecurities.”
“Only one,” he responded with a sad smile—one that if I didn’t know better would be taken as a grimace—while our gazes remained locked. “Only you.”
“And yet, after our arrangement and living together, you continued to push me away when I can see what you hide from everyone else.”
“And what is it you think you see?” he asked.
“That you’re lonely. That you’re dying for any sort of affection, but have no idea how to ask for it.” He stayed frozen in front of me. “And you’ve made me lonely with you. All alone in that huge home, and the only person I have is you. But you ignore me, because why?”
“Because…” He let out a frustrated sigh. “There is no dark beast lurking in the shadows. It’s just me, in broad daylight, standing in front of the cameras with a look of strength while I wipe the dirt from my hands. You have no idea the burdens of my position.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see the strain it puts on you. You don’t have to shoulder it all.”
“As the head of this family, yes, I do. I will be the final say in all regards. The king of the de Loughreys left to rot in the makings of my birthright.”
It was the most open he’d ever been by miles, and my heart hurt for the anguish in his voice. Had he ever done anything for himself? “Even kings have advisors.”
“Is that what you want to be? My advisor?”
“All I know is that I want to be more than I am. Being treated like a person and not like an object.”
“What if I’m not capable of that?” he asked. The insecurity he spoke of was on full display. He felt for me, but didn’t know what to do about it.
“But you are. I know you are.”
“How?”
“Because for one
night, I couldn’t stop looking at the most wonderful man I’d ever met. I still feel like that was a dream, but I know he was real. And he’s in you, somewhere, buried under all the duty and loneliness.” I pursed my lips and tilted my head as I stared at him. “Have you ever been happy, Atticus?” His brow furrowed, and he remained silent. “It just seems sad to go through life never being happy.”
“Work fulfills me.”
“Do you even enjoy it or is that just the de Loughrey brainwashing in effect?”
His silence held so much. The weight upon him was crushing, piling up around him so he couldn’t move.
“I was happy once,” he says after a few minutes, his voice so low and almost reverent. I cringed against the emotion, because it was obvious she touched him. “For one night, I had happiness and peace and fun.”
“Just one night?”
The furrow of his brow deepened. “That was all we had.” His eyes met mine, and shock rocked me.
I was the one who touched him. Our one night was the same.
“You weren’t chosen at random, Ophelia. You were chosen because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About that night. The one night in my life I felt like a regular man and not the head of a five-hundred-billion-dollar company. With you, I wasn’t a de Loughrey. That was why I forbid anyone to tell you my last name, and why my credit card held no name at all.”
That was something I’d always wondered. I’d only ever seen prepaid credit cards like that, not personal ones. But it always went through, so there was no need to know, and Mitchell told me he was one of the investors.
“I wanted you to see me as a man, even if it was from the other side of the table. Even if I couldn’t bring myself to even attempt to undo the damage of my silence and contempt. What would I have said to you? I felt like a schoolboy nursing a crush and unable to act upon it. You weaken me.”
“Emotion isn’t a crippling thing. It should set you free, not weigh you down. Your obligations to your family do that enough. Even if we’re never anything more than a contract, I want you to find an ally in me. Someone to lean on. I’m not made to be a doll; I’m built to be a warrior.”
“I don’t know if I can open up like that.”
I reached up and cupped his face. “It won’t be easy at first, but once you let go, like you did then, it will flow from you with ease.”
“You’ll come back?” he asked, a hopeful edge lacing his words.
Would I? I was so vehement about it earlier, but then he opened up. My loneliness embraced his loneliness and bonded. For a few brief moments, he’d been so honest with me. More honest than I think he’d ever been with himself, and that was worth sticking around to see more of.
I nodded. “If you promise to try, I promise to be on my best de Loughrey impersonator behavior.”
“Outside the home.”
My lips curled up into a smile, liking that I still had freedom in our little haven in the sky. “Outside the home. As long as you agree that inside the home, we can be more than strangers.”
He reached out and enveloped my hand with his. “I think I’d like that very much.”
“Good. We’re in agreement.”
“One last thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course there is.”
“Don’t run again.”
I blinked at him, my gaze flicking between his eyes and taking in the deep sorrow and pain reflected there. Without my thinking, I threw my arms around his shoulders and pulled him close. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be apologizing for scaring me like that.” He pulled back and cupped my cheek, his thumb lightly stroking the skin beneath. “I’m sorry that I had to show you that side of me. I tried to shield you, hoping to not make you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Atticus. We’ll get past this. Just take it one day at a time.”
He held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”
I smiled up at him and slipped my hand into his. “Okay.”
Atticus kept sneaking a peek at me, his gaze flipping toward me all through breakfast. I’d returned with him days ago, and his behavior had been similar since I’d taken his hand—always watching like he thinks I’m going to disappear.
“What?”
His brow furrowed. “You promise that you’ll stay? That if you leave, it is with Michael and you will return with him?”
I reached out and placed my hand on his, giving him a comforting smile. “I promise.”
I bit down on my bottom lip as he returned to reading something on his tablet. With as closed off as he was emotionally, I had to admit I liked seeing the almost desperate desire for me.
Maybe not the kind of desire that set me on fire, but the desire for me on another level, one that would make the next five years a lot easier on us both if it continued.
More than just strangers with an arrangement, but a true relationship of sorts.
I jumped at the sound that suddenly sprang from the speakers, my eyes widening while I froze.
“Last weekend Atticus de Loughrey, head of the de Loughrey Corporation, was seen pulling his fiancée, Ophelia Evans, from the nightclub Stratus. Eyewitnesses recount the wild behavior of the soon-to-be wife caught drunk and partying with Atticus’s sister, Genevieve. Since the event, the de Loughrey family has remained silent, and there has been no sight of Ophelia.”
I glared at him, wondering why, for a brief moment, I was content. “Turn it off,” I grumbled.
He arched a perfect brow at me and turned the screen toward me. “You need thicker skin.”
I looked away from the awful photo of me. And there I was, almost thinking he was sweet and a marshmallow on the inside. There was a softness there buried deep inside, but it wasn’t sugary.
“Well, probably not going to happen.”
“A reminder, then. Behave how you want within these floors, but out there, you are a representative of my family now. Even if by name you aren’t yet, you are a de Loughrey.”
“Are you trying to scare me off again?”
“No, I’m simply trying to be more transparent. From now on, we need to be a united front.”
I nodded in agreement.
He grabbed my hand and raised it to his mouth to place a kiss on it and topped it off with a lick. The atmosphere had thickened, and so had Atticus’s touch. I loved seeing the different flashes in his eyes, and the darkness that was taking over excited me. It wasn’t the cold detachment I’d seen so often.
“Be a good girl, and perhaps I’ll reward you,” he said as he stood.
“What kind of treat do I get?” I asked.
“Why does that matter?”
“Because I need to know if it’s worth it.”
“Let’s just say it’s long and thick.” The corner of his mouth ticked.
My gaze narrowed, and I shook my head. “Not happening.”
“I thought you wanted a, what was it called…pool noodle?”
I froze for a second and straightened. “Well, yes. But I have a feeling we’re talking about two totally different things.” I was surprised he remembered my offhand comment about one of those.
“Are we?”
“By the near lecherous expression you’re wearing, yes.”
He poured himself another cup of coffee and headed back my way, giving me a full view of his grey sweatpants and white T-shirt. Everything he wore fit him with perfection, and added with his natural swagger and confidence and with the authoritative vibe that rolled off him, it was amazing women weren’t constantly clinging to him like a koala. I knew I wanted to.
Suddenly I was shocked out of my imaginings by a swath of skin appearing in front of me. Almost innocently, Atticus inspected something on the hem of his shirt, drawing it up and exposing his abs—something that I hadn’t seen in a year.
The unabashed sexiness in front of me was blinding.
The clearing of a throat caught my attention, and my gaze snapped to his. A smirk played on his lips, and he had that look, t
hat one that said, “Got you.”
“Who has the lecherous expression now?”
Heat flamed my face. “You did that on purpose.”
He stepped up next to me and reached out, his fingertips lightly caressing my collarbone, sending a shiver down my spine and causing heat to settle between my thighs. “Of course. If I’m to suffer, you should burn with me.”
Once he was done torturing me, he took his seat again. My plate was clean with the exception of a few crumbs, but I wasn’t ready to leave his presence.
Since my return, we’d settled into a different pattern than before. One where we actually spent time together.
I found I liked it. It wasn’t as lonely as before. The atmosphere had been intimidating with the museum-like stillness and pristine cleanliness. Somehow, since I’d returned, even with its large size, it had become a little more homey.
Maybe I was relaxing a bit since his confession, but I enjoyed our simple times together.
In order to continue our growth and to keep his walls from coming back up, I began texting him throughout the day. Responses weren’t always prompt, but I didn’t expect that they would be, so it made me appreciate when he did. Not in a badgering way, but simple, innocuous things.
Today was not one of those days.
Ophelia: Survey says?
I was pleasantly surprised when his reply came moments later.
Atticus: What survey?
Ophelia: *sigh* never mind.
Atticus: Are you referring to the plans regarding your stepfather.
Okay, now he’s playing with me.
Atticus had glossed over what he was going to do to Lou, not wanting me to worry, but how could I not? Lou had tried to blackmail me, and it would have worked under normal circumstances if my fiancé wasn’t the wicked king.
The king bowed to no man, and he was determined to make Lou feel his wrath.
Ophelia: You did say there would be a meeting this morning. What happened?
Atticus: Meet me for lunch at noon. You know where.
I rolled my eyes. I guessed after a year of eating there multiple times a week, it was a hard habit to break.
Being that it was already ten, I moved to the closet to find an ensemble that was de Loughrey-worthy while being cool. It was supposed to be in the upper nineties.
