Page 5 of Contractually Wed

“You’ll be bored within two days. Why are you so intent on having the most boring marriage in the world?”

“Boring marriages last.”

“Wow, so you’re really only going for quantity, not quality?”

“I still haven’t heard one word about how you’re a better candidate. Only disparagement of your sister.”

She gasped, feeling outraged. “I’m trying to protect Rina and you from—”

“Tell me,” he said, leaning forward, for the first time showing a sliver of curiosity. “Did Rina ask you to save her from this predicament or is this all an elaborately spun lie so that you could have me for yourself?”

“Of course she asked me. Like multiple times. In fact, she’s been...” Jia let out an angry breath, realizing the blasted man had tricked her into admitting it.

Something almost like distaste curled his upper lip. But then, his lips always seemed to greet the world with that lick of contempt. “Look, my sister is...” she began, wanting to defend Rina but he raised a hand.

She was so shocked he was engaging in dialogue that her brain stupidly followed his commands. “Why are you a better bet? You and I both know you have something bigger for you to drop.”

Jia shouldn’t have been surprised that he had figured her out. But she couldn’t play her ace just yet. “You and I have chemistry. And your plan to punish my father would yield a thousand percent more results if it was me you—”

He shot to his feet and moved toward her, and Jia’s synapses gave out. That lizard part of her brain seemed to come awake, screaming,Hot sexy man at twelve o’clock.

She craned her neck, just slightly, to look up into his face when he left only a foot or so between them. God, he smelled like cinnamon and pine and reminded her of decadent winter evenings spent near her mom’s feet while she knitted.

This close, she could see the lines of tiredness fanning out from Apollo’s eyes. And even as it reduced him from that larger-than-life figure in her head, Jia didn’t like seeing them. Didn’t like knowing him at this level.

“That’s an interesting observation. Care to prove it?”

“Prove it...how?” she said, her throat suddenly dry, and hating herself for taking a step back. She should have known the beast would play with her.

“Kiss me. Then we will know if you’re really a better proposition than—”

She pressed her hand to his mouth. Something hot and feral came awake in his gray eyes, something she hadn’t even been sure he was capable of feeling.

“Please don’t—”

“You should know, Jia,” he said, wrapping long fingers around her wrist and tugging her hand away from his mouth. “Every game you begin, I will play, and play to win.”

Her name on his lips was a sweet threat. A reminder that she was playing a dangerous game, that she was letting this attraction go to her head. And maybe even handing him a weapon. And he was right. He was a master at this. “Fine. I’ll show you my ace. But you have to promise that you’ll grant me three wishes in the aftermath. Whatever I ask for.”

“You’re so sure you’ll win me over?”

“Give me your word, Apollo. Three conditions for our deal in your language.”

“How do you know I won’t go back on them?”

“Because I just know,” she said, hating the fact that she trusted him. How had that happened?

That little flicker of heat again in his eyes and then a nod.

Jia drew in a deep breath, even as fear spread its tentacles wide and far in her body. If she did this, there was no turning back. If she did this, she was tying her future—at least half a decade in the best-case scenario—to this man, who was bent on ruining her family. If she did this, her father was never going to give her what she’d desperately craved for years.

But it was the only way to protect Rina and the only way to stop her father from getting hurt by this man who would not hesitate when he discovered her father’s lies. And while the thought of settling into unholy matrimony, even for a temporary period, with this man turned her inside out, it would at least serve as a break from her own life. Especially if Rina summoned the courage to stand up to their father and leave home.

“The plans for the new wing of that private library in Seattle, the low-income apartments out in Brooklyn, my brother, Vik...didn’t design any of that stuff.”

“It’s his name on the blueprints,” Apollo said, thunder in his eyes. “He accepted a bloody award for it. His face was on a magazine cover for...who? Who’s the architect?”

“Me. I drew the initial plans. And the revisions after you requested them. And... I did all of them. So, there you have it. I’m the asset you want. You take me out of Dad’s company and...it loses its prestige faster than you can cut it up. It won’t win any more contacts moving forward.” Something thick and sticky coated her throat and Jia had to swallow to speak past it. “You marry me, and take me away from the company, and you truly have won.”

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