Page 3 of Contractually Wed

He gritted his teeth and prayed for a calm that felt out of reach. “Jail, Ms. Shetty.”

“Fine,” she said, her breath hitting him on a shuddering exhale.

Apollo knew he should step back, give his lungs air that was free of that lush red rose scent threaded with a twang of sweet sweat. But he didn’t. He liked it too much and then there was the whole point of him backing away from her. Which he never would.

It was the latter mostly, he decided. She had invaded his home, showed little to no shame over it, and the last thing he was going to do was show her how much her presence...rattled him.

“Keep talking, Ms. Shetty.”

“Okay,sir. Getting to it now,sir.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, somehow controlling the urge to laugh out loud at her cheekiness. Or maybe drag her close and teach her some discipline if she was going to do that anyway. He closed his eyes, wondering why his mind was going to these strange, forbidden places, especially around this woman.

“If you insist on calling me Ms. Shetty in that tone, which by the way reminds me of my history professor, I have to call you that. My name’s Jia. How come I’ve never heard you use it?”

“I have no need to become that...familiar with you.”

“And yet, you have no problem getting all chummy with the rest of my family.”

“They do not...provoke me like you do.” He stepped farther into her space, which was his to begin with, forcing her to look up at him. Though it wasn’t by much. She was taller than most women and he didn’t have to look down at her as if from some great distance, and he liked this too. He wasn’t supposed to like anything about this.

Something else struck him all of a sudden. He scowled. “How did you get in here? The security is infallible.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“You better start spewing answers to my questions, Ms. Shetty, or else...” He grinned, and opened the contacts list on his phone. “I have a feeling telling your father about your recent stunt is a better punishment than jail for you.”

A soft, imperceptible shudder went through her and she stared at him, eyes wide. For once, that rough,I can take on the world no matter whatattitude she wore like a second skin fell off, revealing the very young woman she was beneath. She looked at him as if he’d hit her below the belt. And damn if it didn’t make him feel guilty. “I’m calling your bluff. You didn’t squeal on me the last couple of times,Apollo,” she said, making him feel foolish for the thirty seconds of guilt and curiosity he had felt for her.

Something about the way she drawled his name, as if she’d said it in her head many times and with less sweetness than she used now, hit him in the pit of his stomach with a honey-like languor. “So you admit that it wasn’t a mistake that Rina went to a different restaurant to meet me the first time, and that you nearly got tackled by my bodyguard the second time, and the third...time,” he finally choked out on a swallowed laugh. Even he had found that third stunt enormously funny, with her using her brother’s credit card that she’d filched from his jacket when she’daccidentallybumped into him and then gotten into trouble for making Jay Shetty’s vein pop in his temple.

“Of course, I admit it. Not that I succeeded.”

“What was the success criteria?” he said, suddenly curious.

“To make you despise our family enough that you’d leave Rina alone.”

“And the recent episode where your sister burst into tears at the thought of moving to Athens with me?”

She flinched, as if she herself was in pain. “I wouldn’t make her cry. Even to get rid of you.” Then she brightened, “Wait! Clearly it put you off—”

“Not enough to break off the engagement. Rina, as your father explained, is gentle and completely overwhelmed by her good fortune.”

The woman snorted. She actually snorted, probably spraying spittle onto his shirt.

Apollo refused to show, even by the twitch of his eyelid which was a hard thing to stop when he was pissed, that she was getting to him. “I assume that this...little stunt is to get my attention. So why don’t you start with how you got in here in the first place?”

“I have been working at your hotel for the last month, cleaning suites. I studied the plans and figured out which elevator rides up here and the shifting schedule of your security. I made friends with the woman Sophia, the only one allowed to clean your penthouse. I stole her key card, got your schedule from Rina’s phone and here I am.” She said the last to some show tune he didn’t recognize, her arms and hands gesticulating as if she were some great conductor.

He covered another step between them and now when that lush scent of hers wrapped around his body like a tendril of lust, he knew he was making a tremendous mistake. Still, he didn’t back down.

Her big brown eyes widened and her shoulders trembled but she stubbornly stayed still. “Now that you’ve cost Sophia her job, tell me why you’re here like an annoying pest.”

“If you fire Sophia, I’ll go to HR. I collected every document I could about how religiously on time she is, how many years she’s worked here and how there hasn’t been a single complaint about her. HR chose her for you because she hails from the same village as your father in Greece.”

Apollo was struck speechless, having never met a worthier opponent. She had not only done her homework but she’d done it because she didn’t want an innocent to get fired for her reckless act. Definitely not a trait he expected of Jay Shetty’s progeny.

Another reason he’d thought Rina was perfect for him. She lacked personality and smarts and the kind of cunning that should be rampant in Shetty blood. This one had it in spades.

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