Page 10 of Contractually Wed

The man flushed a deep red.

“Where is she?” Apollo repeated.

“She’s...unwell, Mr. Galanis,” Rina said, “or she—”

“So unwell that she couldn’t answer the phone? Or is she saving one of you from another mess?”

Rina blanched. “It’s just that—”

“Already missing me, darling?” came a soft, husky voice from behind him.

Apollo turned to find his new bride a few feet away, dressed in a black lace top and black jeans, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, her expressive eyes hidden behind wraparound shades.

Whatever unease he had felt didn’t dissolve at seeing her. If anything, it intensified. Reaching her, he snatched the shades off her face. A deep, black-and-blue bruise shone under her left eye, stretching sideways toward her cheekbone where she had two butterfly stitches.

Rage swept through him. Was this the reason she had so readily made a deal with him? To escape from this?

Her eyes flared with apprehension at whatever she saw in his face and she took a step back. It was enough for Apollo to steady himself. One hand on her hip, he gently pulled her closer. Something in him calmed when she came without protest.

He ran the pad of his thumb under the bruise, careful not to touch the painful-looking boundary against unmarred skin. “What happened?” he said softly, loathing the presence of their audience, wishing he had never let her come back here.

“I tripped and landed my cheek on the leg of a table.”

“Hmm...right after we got married too,” he said, not missing the practiced, neat explanation. “This is the reason you wouldn’t answer my calls?”

“Rina took me to the ER and it took forever. I had to get stitches and then I had the worst headache for hours. I popped a couple of sleeping pills and slept for, like, twenty hours straight.”

Apollo didn’t push it, even though she wasn’t telling him the complete truth. One of the two men behind him were responsible for her bruise. If he pushed her, she would only double down on her lie. And he wanted her to trust him. “Why didn’t you text me?”

“I didn’t realize my phone battery had died. This morning, you kept video calling me.” She made a tsking sound, leaning closer. Her fingers played with the buttons of his shirt, and every swipe of her fingertip against his throat tightened the knot of desire in his gut. “The last thing I wanted was my new husband to see what a frightful sight I was and return the merchandise. I was feeling sad enough that I didn’t get a proper wedding night.”

Despite his simmering rage, Apollo’s mouth twitched. There was something almost adorable when she put on that hot-for-him act. He couldn’t wait to discover how much of it was real. “You’re a horrible flirt. Fortunately for me,” he said, just to tease her.

“Hey! You’re just not used to women coming on to you freely, are you? My generation believes in owning our desires. I foresee a lot of this age gap causing problems in our married life,” she finished with a sigh. “It could count as ‘irreconcilable differences’ when we—”

Apollo shut her up the only way he knew, and the only way he wanted to. He caught her mouth with his, and she was surprised enough that she gasped.

It was their third kiss and the fact that he was keeping count like a teenager betrayed more than he cared to admit. But not enough to stop him from deepening it when she opened up with a soft moan.Christos, she was sweet and hot and he was regretting not taking her back to the penthouse immediately after their wedding. Her father wouldn’t be threatening him with annulment and he would have had the chance to explore this fizzing need and bring it under control.

He gentled himself when she panted, even as his arousal heightened by the weight of her pressed up against him. For all her outward toughness, she was a skinny, almost fragile thing in his hands. Her fingers fluttered over his jaw and instantly, the kiss changed tenor, became softer, sweeter, as if she could magic out of it what she needed.

When she pulled back with another soft sigh and hid her face in his chest, Apollo wrapped his arms around her in what he would call a tender embrace. Which was another first for him because he wasn’t the man women flocked to for tenderness and understanding.

Her tight knuckles drummed against his chest as she looked up. He saw a flash of anger in her eyes, directed at herself and him, before she cursed. She hadn’t wanted that kiss to happen in front of her family.

Because she’d painted a picture of the suffering in store for her as his wife? Or because she felt exposed at her clear attraction to the family’s enemy? Or because she had a whole new scheme cooking in her cunning brain and he’d disturbed it by showing up ahead of time?

Dios mio, the sooner he took her out of this place and from among them, the better for both of them. He could stop feeling like a caged animal at the mercy of its base desires and return to the rationality he knew and needed.

He rubbed his palm over her back, marveling at the wiry, lean strength of her body. Marveling at his attraction to a woman who was such a study in contrasts. “Say goodbye. We’re leaving. Now.”

She looked up, confusion clouding her sparkling brown eyes. “Now? You said I had six weeks.”

“I didn’t realize that you needed a keeper.”

She stiffened, reminding him of his older sister’s cat. “It’s an accident, Apollo. Just a bruise.”

“Do you really want to get into what it is now,matia mou?”

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