Page 87 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

He shook his head. “You do understand that I’m going to find out these answers on my own, I hope. And I’ll tell you right now, Jolie, that it can only go better for you if I hear them from you first.”

But he’d lost her. There was no hint of panic anywhere on her now. On the contrary, she looked almost lazy and amused, instead.

“Well then,” she said, as patronizingly as possible, “I certainly hope I wrap up all of my nefarious doings before that occurs. Though what do you think will happen either way? We still have to be married to each other the next five years. Or have you forgotten?”

“I cannot imagine that I will ever forget,” he shot back.

“Did you think the exchange of confidences would makemeconfide inyou?”she asked, as if astonished. “You did, didn’t you? You thought you would lead me, all unknowing, into some or other moment of vulnerability.” She sighed at that. “Haven’t you learned yet? I’m better at this game than you are.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he replied, and he was. “Because all that means to me is that you’re not ready for what’s coming. Given we both already know you’re not clever enough to keep all your trespasses hidden.”

And to his surprise, then, and something else—something like the light that was dancing all over her like it was specifically attracted to her—Jolie tossed back her head and laughed.

It wasn’t a soft laugh. It was sharp and pointed and he was certain he could feel its talons, deep inside him.

“You’ve caught me,” she said after a little too long with all that laughing. “I’m an idiot. Aren’t you smart, Apostolis, to work that out so quickly.”

She couldn’t have been more sarcastic if she tried.

And maybe that was why he found himself closing the space between them.

The only thing he could think about was giving her back that laugh, with interest. All he could think about was restitution, especially when her blue eyes took on that challenging gleam that he’d last seen when her hand was on his sex—

And he didn’t know what might have happened if the door to the office didn’t open then.

If one of the staff members didn’t stand there, looking apologetic. “I’m so sorry to interrupt,” the woman said, looking back and forth between the two of them in a mix of alarm and speculation. “But the guests are asking for a host?”

“Allow me,” murmured Jolie. It was only as she stepped around him that he realized how close to her that he had been standing. How much his hands actually twitched with the desire to get them on her, and all over her.

She glanced back at him when she reached the door as if she expected Apostolis might lunge after her. As if he was that far gone.

Then again...wasn’t he?

Moving her into the carriage house had been a tactical error. He was certain that she disturbed the very air that he breathed, simply by existing in the same space. Sometimes he thought he could find traces of her scent...everywhere.

In rooms she wasn’t in. When he woke in the night, his heart pounding thanks to one more distractingly detailed dream about the two of them wrapped together, rolling over and over each other in his bed.

Literally anywhere and everywhere, she made her presence known.

Maybe she could see these things stamped all over his face. Because once again, her lips curved and her blue eyes gleamed. And then she shut the door behind her.

Quietly, as if to indicate thatshewas unbothered by thisthingbetween them.

But she left him with a puzzle to solve, above and beyond the maddening fact that he wanted this woman who seemed determined to keep him at a distance.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want him. He knew better than that. And that wasn’t his ego talking, though he was fully aware that he possessed one of remarkable size.

He didn’t have to put his hands on her to know a truth as stark as the one they’d both tasted when he’d kissed her. The same one he’d showed her the night she’d run her hand down his body.

Apostolis wasn’t sure when he’d accepted that he was not only attracted to her, but that he always had been. It had been its own slow simmer. And it was difficult not to torture himself with wondering if she’d known exactly how he ached for her since the very beginning of her marriage to his father. If his father had known it. If it was that bleedingly obvious to everyone else alive.

But that didn’t matter.

He crossed back over to the window and this time, he braced his hands on either side of the glass.

What mattered was that it was only a matter of time before he had her.

He understood that. And he couldn’t know if Jolie had accepted that inevitability yet, but he had. There was a certain peace in that, because there was no need to push for something that was inevitable. There was no need to worry himself over something that was as unavoidable as day following night.

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