Page 35 of Contractually Wed

God, despite her best intentions to safeguard her heart, she wanted it all. To belong to him, to build a new life with him, to root herself to him and the house he wanted to build for them...meant hoping and wishing and praying that he would always want her with the same intensity. That he would always see the value in having her in his life. That someday, he wouldn’t see a mistake when he looked at her, like her Mom always had.

And that kind of faith in him and herself... Jia didn’t know how to build it, much less hold on to it. She’d never been shown how.

When her rational mind showed her the prospect of leaving him behind one day, as if to protect her, her heart raced. Her limbs shook. She pushed herself up on her elbow, to better drink in his haughty, rough-hewn features.

His dark hair was graying at the temples and his mouth, relaxed in his sleep, was lush and wide. The column of his throat, the defined musculature of his chest and abdomen, everything about him screamed hardness. And yet, he could be so incredibly tender with her.

In sleep, he looked like the man he’d buried deep under his motives and ambition, the man who hadn’t deserted her for a minute when she’d been sick. The man who would do anything for his family but somehow found himself outside of the tight unit.

Jia hadn’t missed the distinction.

His mother and sisters loved him and yet, she’d sensed the painful rift, especially between his mother and Apollo. And ever since she’d caught snippets of its source, she finally saw beyond the machinations and the thirst for power to the tormented man beneath it all. Her heart ached with the need to take away his burden, to make him see what kind of man he was outside of this revenge that had consumed two decades of his life.

Giving in to the urge, she traced the bridge of his nose with the tip of her finger and then the bow-shaped curve of his upper lip.

Such little expectations of the people around you, he had said, mocking her.

And it had been easy to follow that edict. Except now, with him. Beneath his obvious anger toward her brother and father, beneath his very righteous belief that here was another way her father was a villain, had been something else though. Something more.

It was such a tempting illusion that Jia fell back against the bed, shaking.

A large, rough palm landed on her belly before long fingers traced the curve of her hip with a possessive familiarity that made her breath come in little pants. “Not tired enough for sleep?”

“I’m...restless tonight.” She was standing at a crossroads, and her heart wanted to go one way and her mind another. One way lay the rational, no-risk, empty life she’d always lived and the other way...lay the possibility of infinite happiness. “Confused,” she added, feeling this uncharacteristic urge to bare all of herself to him.

“About?” he said, a grave tone to the single word.

“About myself, you. And us.” Each word ripped her out from under all the shackles she had bound herself with. Released her into a new terrifying world. But she couldn’t stay put anymore, not after tasting this joy with Apollo.

“What about us?” He practically growled the words at her.

“Why do you want to build another house when we can live in this one?”

“It’s a fresh start.” He replied readily enough that she knew he had been thinking of it too. “For us.”

Or a fresh start for him?

The words he didn’t say danced between them, shocking Jia with their vulnerability.

Because this house was tainted with his need to prove something to the world? Because it was tied to the shadow of a man he had not let go of? Because he was finding himself in a new place with her, and wanted to let go of old things like revenge and reparation?

Excitement skittered through her. “If I sign over my stock in my father’s company to you tomorrow, instead of three years later as he and you agreed on, will this all be over?”

Delaying the stock transfer was the one thing her father had asked of her when Apollo had given her ten minutes to leave. The one thing she’d promised herself she’d never do.

And yet here she was, ready to betray the man who had raised her.

He only raised you. He wasn’t really a father.

She heard the cruel words in Apollo’s voice.

The idea took root in her head and was already spreading its gnarled whispers all over, solidifying. What if she could give Apollo what he wanted and this was over? What if it meant a real fresh start for the both of them, and not just a shiny new house? What if it meant there were no conditions hanging over their relationship?

Behind her, Apollo stiffened. Sudden tension swathed them, as if forming their very own bubble. “What?”

“It would bring you controlling percentage in the company, yeah?”

“Yes.”

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