Page 29 of Baron in Check
She pivoted and made to leave.
He blocked her way, standing tall in the doorway, his mien dark. “Are you finished?”
“No.”
“Good, because you’re wrong.”
She crossed her arms. “Prove it.”
CHAPTER 14
Greg should have known it had been too easy to win her back. Well, he hadn’t won at all. She’d agree to marry him, which was a match planned but not a game won.
Hermy stood in front of him, her lips curling, and Greg wished he could say what he felt. Why was it he could engage in elaborate speeches in front of the House of Lords but alone in a room with Hermy, he weighed every word to the point that he couldn’t utter it.
She blew the flyaway hairs off of her face and held his gaze, her hands on her hips. Her neck and decollete were red and her face burning.
Just like his body. He’d longed for her all this time. Imagined her on top of him, beneath him, in front of him and always naked. But looking at her in real life was a distraction so grave that his body and mind tore him apart like two oxen pulling a cart in opposite directions.
In this state, he ought not say anything.
Better yet, he mustn’t act on his impulse to grab her gorgeous hands from her hips and press his body against her center to let her know just how heated their argument had become and how deeply she’d affected him.
Hermy, eyes still narrow, raised her chin as her mother used to. She was waiting for him to explain himself.
No, thank you.
Greg avoided her gaze so he wouldn’t have to tell her the truth. How could he even begin to tell her how much he loved her, always had, and always would? He’d set the expectation that she should become his wife and remain so, which he didn’t want unless she wanted it.
Then his eyes fell to the chess set. She’d set it up already. So he did the only natural thing and sat on his armchair. “You’re white.”
She bent forward, moved her e-pawn to the fourth rank, and sat in front of him.
Greg responded with e5 and Hermy followed with the daring f4. Greg took her pawn on f4 with his pawn, and so they played a rather straightforward King’s gambit that Hermy accepted until she didn’t capture Greg’s g3-knight even though she had the opportunity.
The tension between Hermy and Greg crackled like a slow-burning fuse, threatening to ignite the air with its silent explosion.
“Why didn’t you capture—but he didn’t know whether to say his knight, or him? Why didn’t you capture me?
They were speaking in the clearest way they had, chess pieces on the board.
Greg deflated when Hermy brought her hand over her queen but hesitated to touch the piece. If she didn’t move her queen, she’d be refusing him after all.
On the tenth move, her h-pawn took on g3 and Greg had enough. He moved his queen and took on h1 to deliver a check, demanding a response to his proposal with more than a forced move.Have me because you want me or not at all.
Hermy’s gaze, sharp as the edge of a blade, locked onto Greg’s with an intensity that could slice through the thick atmosphere of unsaid words hanging between them.
Greg shifted uneasily in his seat, the fabric creaking under the weight of his growing impatience. He studied her face, trying to glean any hint of her intentions. The muscles in his jaw tightened. He longed to break the silence, to demand answers, yet the gravity of the moment held his tongue captive.
White knight on e2.
She was buying time.
Greg captured it with his queen on d1. He wasn’t letting her out of this.
Hermy’s fingers hovered over the board, poised with lethal grace. She was at a crossroads, her decision carrying the weight of their future, and she knew it. They both did. With a deliberate touch, she advanced her knight and took on d1, a silent warrior cutting through the tension, its path a clear challenge to his queen.
Greg caught his breath, the implications of her move unraveling before him like a tapestry of war strategies, a daring gambit that left him reeling. It was more than a mere blockade; it was an invitation, a dance of minds and hearts set upon the chequered battlefield. His heart pounded against his ribs, a drumbeat urging him to rise to her challenge.
