Page 36 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“Well, I’d like to know how.”

“I can’t give you that answer. Because I don’t know the answer. I don’t... It was different. That’s all I can say.”

There was more. There was more to him, there was more to this, and he wouldn’t tell her. He was hiding behind that icy facade, that insistence that he remain her guardian, that nothing had changed. Even though she had spoken plainly and said that for her it could never go back. Apollo didn’t really listen to other people. He played by his own rules. She knew that. Of course she did.

He was determined to frustrate her, she could see that. Exhaust her so she didn’t push him here. And yet... She wasn’t sure what she wanted. For him to tell her that she was special? He didn’t know her. Not really. They didn’t know each other. What he had just told her about his mother was completely new to her. They had been part of each other’s lives, but in a very distant fashion. He had been a fantasy object for her, but nothing more. It was easy for her to tell herself that she had loved him, but what part of him? His looks, his aura of power, sure. Those were the kinds of things that anyone could see from across a crowded room.

But the substance of Apollo was hidden from her entirely, and she had to wonder if it was hidden from almost everybody. He’d been through horrible trauma, she knew that. But that didn’t make this hurt less.

That while he felt significant to her, special to her, there was no real evidence that he was. She knew him as well as anyone in the world who had read a profile about him. Except she slept with him.

He’d been inside of her. And to her that mattered, and to him it didn’t seem to. Beyond the lapse of control, that was.

It exhausted her. Caring for a man who might as well be a wall. And now after hearing about his mother she hurt for him too and she was tired. So tired of caring so damned much when he didn’t seem to care in return. At least not in the way she wanted him to.

Maybe that isn’t fair. Maybe for him this is caring.

Well, maybe the way her father and mother had cared was love, but it still left her feeling like a lonely little husk.

Was it too much to wish that she might be cared for the way she wanted to be? Even once?

“So you really want to just pack up and head to New York?” she asked, because she didn’t know what else to say. Because she wanted to push the conversation further and she could sense that she was at a dead end with him. Maybe she did know him. For all the good it did.

“Yes. I will have your things prepared.”

“You’re not even going to let me pack my own clothes?”

“You’re welcome to. If you like. You may want to begin asking yourself what the best use of your time is. There is quite a lot of work to be done.”

“I know that,” she said, snapping.

“Well. You may wish to start behaving like a CEO. Delegate the task that you’re not needed for.”

“How is it that I’ve somehow retained a babysitter.”

“Many people would be pleased to have me consult them. They would pay hundreds if not thousands for the privilege.”

“Well. They’ve never met you.”

“So certain. And so sharp and pointy.”

“Yes,” she said, waving a hand. “That’s me. Sharp and pointy and utterly ridiculous. Absolutely no merit to the issues that I have with this extraordinarily weird situation.”

“If you’d like, you can go in and speak to your manager about the fact you will not be working at your job anymore.”

“Oh, can I? Thank you.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you. You’re far too intelligent for that.”

“Well thank you for the most useless compliment of all time.”

She finished her coffee, and she did go to work, quitting unceremoniously.

“I’d like to manage the property here,” Mariana said. “If you don’t mind. Because what I would like is to bring the whole team with me.”

“Well, that’s going to make Rudolfo angry,” she said.

“Yeah, but he’s a bad manager. So I feel like he’s getting no less than he deserves.”

---