Page 18 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“I love Hannah,” Apollo said. He was very good at manufacturing words of love. The truth was, everyone should be horrified that he had rolled up to confess his long-hidden love for the girl he had been caring for all these years, but they wouldn’t be. They would all think it was a boon for her because he was a billionaire, and because her father had trusted him, so what else mattered?

This was the truth of the world. There was nothing Apollo could do about it, except use it to his own advantage.

What they didn’t know was that she’d offered to get down on her knees before him in the street, and that he’d been tempted...

No. Not tempted. A physical response was not real temptation. He would never have done it.

“You do not love me,” she whispered.

“Little fool,” he said, his voice a hushed rasp. “If you marry me, you will have access to your trust fund and the control of the company. If you don’t, things go back to the way they were, and I can opt to have your time under my control extended. So, what will you choose, Hannah?”

He could see her calculating. She already knew she’d lost, but she had to be sure there was no other choice. He respected that even if he did not have the patience for it.

He saw as the defiance in her eyes was replaced with weary acceptance.

Good. He was inevitable. The sooner she accepted that, the better.

“Fine,” she said, her cheeks turning red with anger. “I’ll marry you.”

“There now. That was not a difficult choice, was it?”

She looked as if she would cheerfully eviscerate him with her teeth at the first opportunity, but her happiness in the moment was not his primary concern. His concern was her safety.

And his own reputation.

“Let us proceed,” he said.

He took her hands in his and felt that they were damp.

Her fingertips were cold.

Reflexively he smoothed his thumb over her knuckles, and her eyes met his again, confusion in those blue depths.

He took a moment to take a visual tour of her features. Wide blue eyes, a delicately upturned nose, full lips, a defiant, pointed chin. Her dark brown hair was styled in the waves that fell down her back, and her dress conformed lovingly to her figure. She was well curved, which was exactly how he liked his women. And she smelled like... Peaches and sunshine. Which was unlike anything he had ever thought he might want to draw nearer to. And yet with her, he found he did.

The words didn’t matter.

They both repeated them.

They were lies.

And yet he would never forget the slight shift of her bare shoulder. The way the sun came through the windows and ignited a halo of gold around the edges of her hair. The shimmer of her dress when she shifted her hips and the silk moved like a tide over her body.

And the smell. Those peaches. That was what he would remember. Always.

There were few memories that he felt the urge to try and capture. Hold on to it. And the ones he did have were mercenary. He liked to think of when he had made his first substantial sum of money and had been able to turn down a regular client wanting to meet up for a quick shag. He remembered that because it had made him feel powerful.

He could remember the first time he walked into a party filled with rich beautiful people and made conversation with a woman who was exactly to his taste. He had taken her to his bed, because he had chosen to. Though it had not been the escape, the heady rush of pleasure he’d hoped it to be. He had done it, though. He had chosen it.

They were grim things. Defiant things.

They were not soft and lovely. Not sunshine and peaches and silk.

This he could cling to, not because it felt like a victory, but because it filled him. Every one of his senses, like all the natural wonders around them.

And then came the moment that he had perhaps forgotten for a reason.

“You may now kiss your bride.”

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