Page 6 of Twins to Tame Him

Instead, she’d been left standing in the middle of the patio, her stomach growling because she hadn’t eaten anything since finishing Zayn’s smushed toast hours ago, and the lingering feeling that he’d never forgive her. Which was strange because she didn’t want his forgiveness in the first place.

Alexandros had pressed a quick kiss to Annika’s temple and walked away, without meeting her eyes. Clearly, the Skalas men didn’t abandon self-control even when they were angry. It was so reminiscent of her father that it soothed Laila, amid the gnawing confusion.

Her boys would have good male role models in their father and uncle at least. She added it to the positive column in her head, much like how Zayn collected his precious rocks.

Knowing she had a husband and brother-in-law feeling betrayed, Annika had looked as emotionally worn out as Laila had felt, and ordered the staff to show her to the guest suite.

So here she was at two in the afternoon, hungry and tired and sleep-deprived.

When was she not, to be honest?

Her brain glitched at the anticlimactic silence surrounding her. It wasn’t just that she was away from the boys—she’d returned to work when they were three months old. Or that she had spent most of her adult life, and a good bit of her teenage life, looking after her father, then her mother and her sister and even Guido and his sister Paloma.

It was seeing Sebastian again. And knowing that all her preparation—stalking every piece of news and watching videos of him on social media in an unending loop—hadn’t made an iota of difference to her reaction.

She’d had three years, and few enough moments without mom brain, to dwell on how decadently gorgeous he was. How his mobile mouth could mock even as his gray-eyed gaze stripped layers to see beneath. How he could be both entirely charming and exhilaratingly cunning with his quips. How some mysterious, magical thing she didn’t understand had driven her to seek pleasure in his arms, bypassing all logic and rationale.

She’d thought she’d be...immune to his brand of physicality after all this time.

She wasn’t and her brain didn’t know what to do with this unforeseen glitch.

He was the most interesting man she’d ever met and three years and thousands of sleepless hours hadn’t made a dent in her fascination with him.

He was still lean and yet somehow impossibly broad. There was a new sharpness to his gray gaze, a tightness around his mouth that she attributed to her arrival. He moved with a lazy grace and talked with an ease that she rarely saw in men who tried to dominate the people and situations around them.

No trying to intimidate the opponent for Sebastian Skalas. His power thrummed in the very air around him, making her prickly and aware. He’d tamped down his anger as easily as if he were closing his eyes.

Neither did she have any problem understanding his intent. He had meant it when he’d said, “We’ll get married.”

He meant for them to marry and live in this gigantic villa and play happy families for Nikos and Zayn. And she would be his plain, tall, big-boned wife burying her head in statistics, raising her boys in his gigantic home, feeling like a fish out of water while he...so beautiful that it hurt her eyes to look at him, went off to date stick-thin models, have sophisticated affairs, all the while laughing at her and the world. The very picture in her head made Laila want to run away and hide. Fortunately, the chirp of her phone pulled her out of the absurd reality of her marrying Sebastian.

The text was from the twins’ nanny, Paloma, saying they were on their way and that the boys had settled into a nap. So, at least one stop to change their diapers and give the boys a minute—especially hyperactive Nikos—to stretch their chubby legs.

And she had three hours and one chance to convince Sebastian that his proposal was nothing but an invitation to disaster.

She found him swimming laps at the overhang pool out on one of the multiple terraces on the second floor, after walking the maze-like grounds around the silent villa, to the beach and back, and finally going up the open stairs that had a gorgeous view of the Ionian Sea.

The villa was built into the very side of the mountain, looking like it very much belonged there, with the Skalases reigning as undisputed kings. Of course, she had known he was wealthy, and in the last few months, she had come face-to-face with the fact that the Skalas family’s wealth and power rivaled some of the richest people on the planet.

So what did a man like Sebastian Skalas—who had all this and the millions of euros that his paintings were in circulation for—need from an old chauffeur like Guido? So much that he had lured the old man into a gambling debt using his weakness against him, holding the threat of ruin on his head?

It was a question Laila had pondered for three years with no satisfying answer. And now, it came back to her again, given his easy acceptance of her claim. A missed step on the stairs brought her jarringly back to the world around her.

Her awe and admiration for the sea and the beaches and the near-floating palace that was the villa only lasted a few more seconds. Suddenly, all she could see were the dangerously open ledges and unending terraces and open stairs—a million places where her boys could get hurt.

When she reached the overhang pool on the second floor that seemed to stretch right out into the middle of the very ocean, though, she promptly forgot all her reservations.

Sunlight pierced through the bluest blue water and painted the man’s muscled limbs and smooth strokes with splashes of golden light. It would be better to approach him after he showered and dressed, give him some more time to cool down, although he hadn’t really let his emotions show.

Despite the noise of her warnings, Laila simply went to him, feeling as if there was that hook under her belly button, tugging her toward him. Memories of sleek limbs and soft touches and hard nips... The one night she’d spent with him came back in a thrumming buzz, making her skin feel tight over her own muscles. A loose, lazy kind of heat thrashed through her and she tugged her T-shirt away from her breasts. The orange stain near her left boob—from when Zayn had thrown mango pulp at her—broke the spell and she came back to herself.

That night, that role she’d played to get his attention, had been a fantasy. Reality was that she was right now very hungry, and her rationale needed to be fed. She smiled as she noticed the covered lunch tray. Grabbing it, she opened the cover to find a colorful salad, pasta in thick white sauce and a slice of thick chocolate cake.

With an easy practicality that came with dealing with two prima divas all her life, and now two very energetic toddlers, Laila had learned to eat her food with gratitude and urgency. Also, it was a timely reminder that this would be her lot if she agreed to his ridiculous plan.

He would be out there living his usual, bored playboy life and she’d be left wondering where he was.

Not that it stopped her from groaning as the rich white sauce melted on her tongue. She attacked the cake next, her eyes going back in her head at the richness of the chocolate. The salad and sweet, tart lemonade were last.

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