Page 35 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“Nothing,” he bit out. “I told myself nothing. I wanted you, and I failed in the task of resisting you. I was weak. I can’t pretend otherwise.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered by that?”

“No. As I said. Never be flattered by the desires of men. But you must know, I am never overcome by desire. It was rare. But it won’t happen again.”

“Why...”

“Because it won’t. How do you see your life, Hannah? What do you want for your future?”

“I want to take my father’s company and I want to run it well. I want to grow it. I want to prove that I deserved to be there all along. That I am in charge of my own life, that I know my own mind. That I am not a stupid, silly woman. That’s what I want. All of that and more.”

“And what do you want in your personal life?”

“What everybody does. I suppose. I want a family. I want to fall in love and have children and...”

“Not everybody wants that.”

“No. I mean... I know that. And I don’t intend to do it for a very long time. I need to get used to running the company before I go changing things again. But... Surely everybody wants to be loved.”

“No,” he said. “They don’t. And that is what I need you to be especially aware of. I don’t want that. I don’t want it because I no longer believe myself capable of returning the feelings. I don’t want it, and I don’t ever want to be the source of someone else’s thwarted passion. You don’t know about my past.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. Because you won’t tell me.”

“It’s obvious enough that my last name is Italian.”

“Yes. But you’re from Greece.”

“Correct. My father was an Italian man I never met. He broke my mother’s heart. And she never recovered. She looked for love everywhere. She was flattered by the desires of any man. She wanted to feel beautiful, she wanted to feel cherished, and men will say whatever they need to in order to take pleasure with an object of their desire, won’t they?”

“Your mother was taken advantage of.”

“More than you realize. She fell in love with a man who lived in Scotland, and when he agreed to bring her and me to Edinburgh, she agreed without hesitation. It never occurred to her that it might be a trap. It never occurred to her that the man might not love her because she wanted to believe it so damned badly. He pushed her into prostitution. Manipulated her.”

Shock hit her directly in the midsection.

“That’s awful,” she said, and she could see the way that it haunted him still. She meant it. She felt... Immensely sorry for the young woman who must’ve had him, believing the best of the world at one time only to have her soft heart used against her.

“Is that why you’re so psychotic about me?”

“In part, yes.”

“And it’s why you need me to know that what happened between us wasn’t a transaction.”

His shoulders got visibly tight, moving up toward his ears. “In a fashion.”

“Why did you do it? I don’t understand. You want me, but... Didn’t it matter that it was me at all?”

He looked like he was at a loss, and she couldn’t remember ever seeing Apollo at a loss before.

“Rarely have I slept with a woman that I know. I think perhaps I was somewhat affected by that.”

“You mean you usually sleep with strangers and sleeping with someone you have a relationship with is a novelty?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, I’d like to understand.”

“Why? To what end? There’s no point going over any of this,agape. Perhaps it’s because you are my wife. And that changed things for me.”

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