Page 44 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy
Her heart stuttered to a stop. Why was he looking at her like that? “Please,” she whispered, longing for the simpler days when they could share anything with each other. “We can go back to what we were before.”
“No!” The word erupted from him with startling vehemence, making her flinch. And yet his hands continued their gentle exploration, his fingers finding the purple bruises on her wrist with such tenderness that it made her want to cry. “Why are you throwing lines at me, Bris? I don’t deserve to be your friend. C’mon. Say what we’re both thinking? I was supposed to protect you.”
Why did he think he could control the entire universe? They were like children tumbling headfirst down a steep, slippery slope—spinning wildly out of control with no way to stop their chaotic descent. And still he thought he could alter their fates through sheer force of will?
His misplaced guilt stopped her from confessing everything about the Earl’s violent temper, and from admitting how desperately she loved Achilles—anything she said would only send him spiraling deeper into self-destruction. Besides, if she’d learned anything from her father, she knew that trying to trick anyone into loving her would never work.
She forced a weak smile. “Well, you should see the other guy. I’ve got a wicked left hook when I need it.”
Fire flashed in his eyes like a lightning strike. “I’m never going to joke about this. Ever.”
She shrugged with false bravado. “Too bad… because I’m not some helpless damsel in distress.” She started to turn away in protest, but she hadn’t given him any warning because shefelt his lips brush past her cheek. The rough bristle of his jaw scraped against her sensitive skin.
“Oops!” She spun around completely and found herself trapped against the doorframe, with his hands braced on either side of her.
She froze. Time did the same as she took him in, his heightened color against his tan, his hair disheveled and hanging over his eye. Her head tilted as she watched him.
“That was completely accidental…” he tried to reassure her, though his voice had gone rough.
She groaned, fighting the urge to kiss him senseless, to make him forget every other woman who’d ever existed.
“Prissy?” he asked softly, uncertainly. She felt the back of his hand brush across her jaw. That wasn’t accidental.
“Don’t… touch me.” She took a shaky breath, acutely aware of how husky and breathless she sounded. “I’m not as tough as I pretend to be, okay? So, let’s not make our arrangement more complicated. Please, just don’t play with my heart anymore.”
He stepped back like one would from a fire—no, worse, because her words had burned him. She could tell the instant his expression became unreadable. She broke eye contact first, desperately trying to make this seem casual. “So should I take the couch?” She made her voice sound bored and indifferent. “Or I suppose we could test whether that blue suite is actually flood-free. That would probably be best.”
“I’ll take the couch,” he said with finality. His stubborn, protective gaze ended any argument before it could begin. He planned on keeping watch over her tonight, whether she wanted him to or not.
The question was: how long could she let him?
He’d kill the man. Squish the Earl of Alexopoulos like a bug.
Achilles lay sprawled across the unforgiving couch, his large frame hanging over the edges as he stared at the ornate ceiling with burning eyes. Sleep eluded him completely, every muscle coiled with rage and restless energy. He threw the thin blanket to the side, the silk fabric pooling on the Persian rug below.
How did such a parasite hold such sway over the High Consortium? Was it his money? Achilles ran through the possibilities with methodical precision, dissecting each option like a chess master studying the board. The Earl governed the coast of Alexopoulos—not a particularly strong region militarily speaking, mostly a crowded maze of crumbling buildings overflowing with poverty-stricken citizens who suffered under his mismanagement. Achilles could see why the area struggled, with that insect sucking them dry of resources while living in luxury.
The Earl’s family held shares in drilling and offshore energy, but those investments were just as worthless as Bris’s Tyndarian Holdings that he’d inherited through marriage. Ships that ventured too close to Aeaea Island disappeared without a trace. So no, Alexopoulos wasn’t rich—at least not legitimately. If it wasn’t money funding his influence, what currency did he deal in instead? Blackmail? Corruption? If Achilles could figure that out, he could hang the worm out to dry.
It was easier to plot elaborate revenge than to think of Bris’s stricken face when Deedee had goaded her about him abandoning her for Charisse. The way her shoulders had saggedwith defeat even as she’d tried to maintain her royal composure—it haunted him.
Was she really as fragile as she’d claimed tonight?
More fragile than I want her to be.
All while she defiantly claimed she was no damsel in distress. His wife was so small, delicate bones hiding a stout heart, and that monster had left his brutal fingerprints on her soft skin. His hands burned with the need to teach that smug aristocrat a lesson in respecting women, but his arms ached mostly for her—to hold her, comfort her, protect her from a world determined to break her spirit.
“Don’t touch me.”
And that was supposed to be his cardinal rule, yet he couldn’t keep his traitorous hands off her. The memory of her white silk robe shifting and whispering under his desperate fingers, how she had trembled against him—it made him shake his head at himself. His burning gaze landed on the blue swimming trunks with their cheerful orange and yellow sunburst pattern, folded neatly over the arm of an antique chair.
Ah, Peder must have anticipated his nocturnal swimming sessions and prepared accordingly after today’s public disaster. Not surprising—the whole world knew the reasons behind his sleepless nights, thanks to Deedee’s invasive camera.
He picked up his phone with shaking hands and reread the text from their unwanted social media chronicler:“Sorry, Sugarpop! There’s only so much I can do to protect your wife. Next time, it’s your job!”Then she’d attached the link to her viral video like a digital dagger to the heart.
He winced as familiar guilt crashed over him in suffocating waves. With a growl of fury directed at himself, he hurled his phone across the room, the expensive device hitting the marble wall with a satisfying crack that spider-webbed across the screen.
He rolled his eyes at his own childish tantrum while grabbing the swim trunks on his way toward the door. His hand froze on the ornate handle as realization struck. What was he doing? Abandoning his wife again like the coward he was? Who was he trying to escape anyway? He was a caged bear, plagued by resentment, crushing self-doubt, and paranoid suspicions. There was no escaping himself, no matter how many laps he swam.
