Page 13 of Contractually Wed

“I needed to make sure you do not have any other bruises,” he said, coming to his feet.

“So you made me strip? Under false pretenses?” she said, thanking the universe the tears she felt crawling up her throat didn’t coat the words.

“Would you have told me the truth if I asked?”

She opened her mouth and closed it, like a fish gasping for air on land. A draft from some hidden vent in the cabin blew over her skin, making her shiver. Before she could reply, he was in her face again, crowding her with his broad frame, draping the duvet around her shoulders with a gentleness she couldn’t abide.

Jia shook it off, merciful anger coming to her aid. “I’m not some...victim you have to rescue.”

“No? Because I’m beginning to wonder if your eager proposal wasn’t an escape hatch.”

“That would only work if I mistook you for a hero, Apollo. But you aren’t. So please, don’t let it go to your head.”

“As long as we’re—”

“Far from being a hero, you’re a villain, to prey on my family’s company, on my family. To use my desire for you to mind-fuck with me is only another step.”

His chin tilted down, a flash of anger in his own eyes. But with a control that was miraculous to watch, he tamped it down. “I didn’t mind-fuck you.”

“No?”

“I used what I had in hand to achieve what you won’t give me. How do you think I’ve crawled up out the muck your father left us in to where I am today. If that makes me a villain, then yes, I am one.”

“Whatever it is that you’re imagining about my family, about me, is not true,” Jia said, losing her temper.

Fingers on her jaw, Apollo tilted her chin up with such gentleness that tears scratched at her throat.This is pity, she chanted in her head but something in his eyes, or her projection of what she wanted it to be...made it so damned hard not to see it as more.

“So your father or brother didn’t cause this?”

“No one punched me. I wouldn’t have let it go so far.”

His fingers tightened infinitesimally, brackets of tension around his mouth. “Did one of them cause this, Jia?” he repeated.

She leaned forward until his exhale stroked her lips, until she could see into the fathomless gray of his eyes and imagine drowning there. Until she could feel the tension emanating from his hard, solid body. And his mouth...a tightness pinched it that had nothing to do with his perpetual grumpiness.

He had played with her, but it hadn’t been without cost to him. And Jia needed that equalizer between them more than she needed air. She stepped back and faced him, her body still shaking with anger and unmet need. “You have no rights to my secrets or fears or wants. Whatever little trust was there between us, you’ve broken it.”

He released her. “I see that I’ve made a mistake.”

“What...what do you mean?” she whispered, already missing his feather-like touch.

“Rinawasthe right choice for me.”

It was meant to hurt and so automatically, shouldn’t, but God, it did. How foolish was she?

She tried to shake it off, used to that kind of casual rejection all her life. When she looked at him though, her belief that he meant to hurt her faltered. He truly believed her sisterwasthe better choice. Or that they were interchangeable, except for her talent. And while there were any number of real, valid reasons Rina was a better choice for any man, she wasn’t a masochist to try and find out his.

“Of course Rina’s the better choice,” she said with a scoff.

“As for gaining control of your talent, I could have done it through the board in a year or two anyway. You distracted me,” he said, almost to himself.

The admission soothed the little hurt he’d dealt seconds ago. God, the man was giving her whiplash. Or her reaction to him was doing it. “What will you do? Return me with the packaging and the tag intact? Get an exchange deal?”

His mouth curled in distaste.

An uncontrollable shiver went through her again.

“As villainous as I am,” he said, magicking a robe out of somewhere, and with firm but gentle movements, pushing her arms through the hole, “I protect my assets at any cost.” He tugged the silky flaps closer and tied the sash at her waist, like he was dressing a recalcitrant child.

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