Page 61 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

This version was trying enough.

Her erstwhile groom had decided to express himself in his choice of apparel as well, she saw. He wore the expected suit, but it looked almost as if he’d slept in it—or, knowing Apostolis, had slept with someone else on top of it. Or several someone elses.

Jolie told herself she would not care in the least if he had.

“Kaliméra,”Apostolis murmured in that rough-edged drawl of his that made a meal of both his accent and the simplegood morning.“What a perfectly hideous day to marry my wicked stepmother. A luckier man has never walked this earth, I am certain.”

“The joy is all mine,” she replied with a polite smile that she knew he would take as a thrown gauntlet. The flash in his dark eyes assured her he did. “Nothing could bring me more happiness than forced proximity with a man who is the human equivalent of landfill. Felicitations all around.”

Apostolis laughed at that as he slouched into the room, every step liquid and low, as if he did not so much walk asglide.The rumpled effect was not helpful. It made her think abouthowhis thick, dark hair had come to look like that, as if greedy fingers had tugged at it and run their way through it. It made her wonder if he had misbuttoned his shirt deliberately or in a hurry, or if someone else had done it for him.

Obviously she would die before she asked him. Before she gave him the slightest reason to imagine she cared when she did not.

They had come to a resigneddétenteafter it was clear that no victories could be won in their situation, not even Pyrrhic ones. It was an uneasy truce at best, no good faith treaties in sight, because neither one of them wanted any part of this. Left to their own devices, they would have maintained the chilly, exquisitelyprecisecourtesy that had characterized their relationship since Jolie had married Spyros through the old man’s funeral and the reading of his will, then never spoken to each other or interacted again.

Apostolis had not been able to forgive his father for marrying her, a girl the same age as his sister, Dioni. A girl who his father had, in fact, met at the finishing school where Dioni and Jolie had been classmates graduating together.

And he had not been able to excuse Jolie for not accepting his unsolicited advice on the topic of the forty-year age gap between her and his father. His arguments had been, boringly, that the only reasons a girl would accept an old goat like Spyros were either because she was a victim...or a gold digger.

It had been obvious what he thoughtshewas.

Or maybe,she’d told her newly minted stepson the night before her wedding back then, who was ten years older than her himself,I just like a power dynamic.

That was the one and only personal conversation they’d had in the seven years she’d been married to Spyros.

She had not even tried to forgive him. Jolie preferred not to think of Apostolis Adrianakis and his much-lauded cheekbones at all.

And now she was marrying him.

Jolie had no idea what she could possibly have done to deserve this fate. First her aunt and uncle’s behavior, which had led to all of this, but nowthis. She suspected it involved whole previous lifetimes of wickedness, at the very least, and she only wished she could remember them. That sounded like a lot more fun.

Apostolis came to a stop beside her, looking at her only briefly before he turned his attention to the gale outside. And she turned with him, instinctually, and regretted it immediately. It seemed too pat, somehow. Too coordinated, as if she was trying to mirror him.

Or maybe it was simply that she had gone out of her way to never, ever stand this close to him before.

She wished she hadn’t broken that unstated boundary that had always been between them now. Or perhaps he had broken it, but either way, it did her no favors. This close to him, she was regretfully aware of him in ways she would have liked to never, ever have comprehended. Jolie knew he was tall, of course. And that he could look lean and elegant or broodingly fit, depending on his mood or the photograph in question or even what he chose to wear. And even that he, regretfully, radiated a certain kind of charisma that she liked to tell herself was repellent.

But it was easier to convince herself of that when he was across a room, aiming nothing but freezing, pointed courtesy in her direction.

Next to him, she found that her head barely cleared his shoulder and she was not a tiny woman. Today she was wearing only moderate heels, but she was instantly aware in the way taller women were that even if she been wearing her highest stilettos he would still tower over her.

She told herself that made her feel angry.

But it didn’t.

What Jolie felt was fragile. And deeply, deeply feminine in a way that probably would have shocked her if she’d allowed herself to think more about it.

But she couldn’t, because he also smelled good.

Jolie could have gone the whole rest of her life without the unfortunate knowledge that Apostolis Adrianakissmelled good. Not too much. It was nothing overbearing. Just a hint of something not cloying enough to be cologne. A whisper of scent, something that made her think of cloves stuck in oranges, the kind of Christmas decorations she pretended she couldn’t remember, from a childhood that she worked hard to forget.

Because softness had never been an option. It had been a mirage like everything else, and thinking about it did her more harm than good.

Meanwhile, she was discovering that Apostolis was also warm. It was like he was a radiator, emanating heat from where he stood—

Or maybe he is simply standing there,she lectured herself.And here you are reacting like this.

“Appropriate weather,” he drawled from beside her. “At least we have that going for us.”

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