One Night to Risk It All (8 page)

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, as if that might hold what was left of her armor close to her skin. As if it might protect her.

Suddenly she was very aware of the baby inside of her, and that, in spite of the fact she had a human in her, she’d never felt so alone or frightened in all of her life. As if everything, inside and out, had turned completely alien.

She would take pictures of herself being intimate with her former almost-lover hitting the news any day over the feeling that had grabbed her by the throat just now.

“I...I need to go,” she said. “Send the plane. I’ll pack.”

“No. Lucy will pack for you. You rest here and I will see to all the arrangements.” For Alex, he seemed almost contrite.

“You don’t have to come.”

“You don’t want me to?” he asked.

“No.”

“You can’t always get what you want,
agape.
”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“S
HOW
-
OFF
,”
SHE
SAID
,
looking around the penthouse and walking toward the window, looking out at the ocean below.

The flight to Cannes had been quick and uneventful. The uneventful part he credited to the fact that Rachel had ignored him the entire time.

“What? The hotel room you put me up in was very nice. And the room service was excellent.”

Something flashed in her eyes that he didn’t like. Pain. Shame. “You aren’t authorized to joke about that night,” she said. “I don’t like the reminder that you used me.”

“No more than you used me. You were engaged to another man, after all. You were hardly blameless.”

“You knew, though. I didn’t trick you.”

“Can we not have this fight again? The one where you tell me all the things I did to wound you? I felt...guilty, after it happened, Rachel. That’s why I didn’t call. That’s why I didn’t storm your wedding. It’s why I came to see you and not him.”

She frowned. “You felt guilty.”

“It turns out that when you seek revenge on someone you hate...because of the way they treated women—the way they treated people in general—and you use someone in order to do it, you come out feeling a lot like the thing you despise.”

It was the truth. He’d never allowed himself to fully form the thought. To examine exactly why the whole incident with her left him feeling dirty. Empty. It was because it was another piece of evidence for the trial being conducted over his soul.

Innocent or guilty. Victim or predator. Which was he?

He didn’t even know the answer. And it burned.

“A conscience, huh?” she asked.

“I’m maybe not as bad as you think. I’m maybe not as good as I think, but...also perhaps I’m not completely amoral, either. Which is good to know.”

“Do you want to be...good?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. I know what I don’t want to be.”

“So you really... You really think you grew up in a brothel with Ajax.”

“I did,” he said, his chest tightening. “He wouldn’t remember me. I was a boy when he left. Maybe eight. But I remember him. And his father.”

A leaden weight settled in his chest. As it did whenever he thought too much about...everything. When he had moments of wanting to call Ajax’s father “my father.”

He swallowed past the bile that was rising in his throat.
Bad blood, right? That’s the way it works.

It must. Except it didn’t seem to work that way for Ajax. Ajax, who’d acquired a family when he’d left the compound. Ajax, who’d had no trouble finding love.

He couldn’t think about it. It gave him a headache. It was too complicated. Too hard.

“He never told me about his life before he came to work for my family,” she said. “I mean...nothing. He never said a thing about it and now...now I think it’s a bit strange. But honestly, Alex, if you knew him...he’s so serious. He never does one thing out of line. I can’t even imagine the man you’re describing.”

“He was little better than a boy,” Alex said, his voice rough. “I suppose I imagined he hadn’t changed much as a man. That when I met you you would have stories of him in excess, and that he would be the same.”

“He doesn’t even drink. He’s the most outrageously decent man I’ve ever known, and no, he doesn’t inspire great passion in me. But he’s a friend. He’s not a bad person.”

“But he was,” Alex said, feeling the need to justify himself. “He was.”

“Or maybe he just had his moments? Like you said, what happened with me...it wasn’t your best.”

“No,” he said.

“It wasn’t mine, either. But I don’t think it was my worst. Well, it depends on how you look at it. It wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It was definitely the worst thing I’ve done. Because I didn’t keep my promises, and that was... That wasn’t right of me.”

“What was the worst thing?” he asked, his throat getting so tight he could scarcely breathe.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Actually, what I should do is run and check on Alana.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to. I want to be a part of your life. And I’m frustrated because I’m not really sure how to accomplish that beyond lying to you.”

A crease dented her forehead. “What would you say?”

“What?”

“If you were going to lie to try and keep me in your life, what would you say?”

He looked at her, at her flawless face and the deep blue eyes that carried a wealth of depth and hurt behind them. Hurt he didn’t want to add to, even though he knew he already had.

“I would tell you that I loved you. That my life would be nothing without you. That I needed you. More than my next breath.”

Her blue eyes shimmered, tears pooling in them and he wished for a second that what he said could be true. But he didn’t know how to feel those things.

And even if he could...

He would never risk them.

For some reason that resolution pushed forward an image of a baby. A squalling, delicate newborn whose cries screamed need. Need for him.

It made his chest feel strange. Tight and heavy. A strange sort of helplessness crept around the edges. The kind he hadn’t felt since he was a boy, surrounded by evil he knew he could never combat.

And the people who should have been protecting them—protecting him—they were the monsters.

There was no hopelessness deeper than that. And he’d felt it every day, a feeling that had only intensified the day he’d learned the truth. The day he’d run.

And now you’re going to be a father.

The thought was enough to buckle his knees. To send him straight to the ground.

“Well,” she said, bursting through the haze of his thoughts, “that would certainly be dramatic.” She swallowed visibly. “And of course I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Wise. That’s what you call learning from your mistakes.”

She flinched. “I suppose so. Now, I’m going to go and deal with Alana’s crisis. Alone, actually. Yes, I’m going alone, so find something to amuse yourself.”

“Did you just tell me to amuse myself?”

“Yeah. I can give you some spending money if you like.”

He frowned. “You need it more than I do. But your attempts at flippancy over the past week have been amusing. If flawed.”

“As have been your attempts at being a decent human being. All right. I’m going.”

“Where is her shop?”

“I’ll text you.”

“And I’ll find it. When should I expect you back?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“When I’m back.”

“So I won’t know if you’ve been backed into an alley by the paparazzi or if you’re just running late? That doesn’t work for me. Estimate a time or at least give me your location.”

“Are you...worried about me?”

“The baby,” he bit out, the word making his stomach ache.

“Well, of course. That’s what I meant.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Thanks. I’m... Thank you. I’m going to go. I’ll be back here by seven. If I’m not, I’ll text you.”

He nodded and watched her walk back out of the room, his stomach flipping over itself. Maybe he should be thankful for her refusal to marry him. What did he know about being a father? What did he know about being a husband?

All he knew was that he felt a need to be close to her. To protect her. And he knew, with a total certainty, that he would feel that way about the baby.

He meant to offer them protection. But he had no idea who would protect them from him. No, he would never harm them with his hands. But...

He had always pictured Ajax’s veins being filled with black poison. When he’d been a boy and he or Nikola would walk past him, it was a strong vision he’d had. That they were something different than men. That if you cut them, evil would pour out. They exuded it. How could it not be a physical thing beneath their skin?

And then he’d found out the truth.

If their blood was black, then his was, too.

Because it was the same blood.

Worse, he’d seen Ajax lose that legacy. Had seen him walk away and create a new life. He’d seen his mother, desperate to cling to the man she’d loved.

The men he’d always considered evil seemed to have no trouble binding people to them.

The same legacy had been coursing through his veins since birth, and yet no one had ever chosen to stay with him.

It made him fear that the only thing he’d inherited was the darkness.

* * *

The skin on Rachel’s arms prickled as a breeze blew across the water and over her. She and Alana had just closed up shop after assessing the damage, and Alana had gone with her boyfriend back to their apartment.

Rachel had just been standing out in front of the store, looking across the harbor at the yachts, at where blue sky met blue water, rich colors fading together.

She breathed in deep and the breeze set the hair on the back of her neck on end and brushed a tingling sensation over her, down to her fingertips. It wasn’t fear. But it was something she couldn’t ignore. Something urgent, little bursts of it popping through her until she turned her head.

And then it all made sense.

Alex was walking toward her, hands in his pockets. He was dressed casually, nothing like he’d been that day on the yacht, but still much more relaxed than Alex the Businessman. A pale blue shirt open at the collar and a pair of dark jeans.

“I’m glad to see you’ve not been buried beneath photographers.”

“Oh, well, thank heaven for the off-season. None of the locals would dare break their cool by raising an eyebrow at my presence, much less interrupt their day by setting the paparazzi on me.”

“Thank God for people far too blasé to care for a bit of scandal.”

She laughed. “I suppose.”

The moment was strange. Like that time a month ago in Greece playing over again. Different setting, different time. But the pull was there. Whether she wanted it to be or not, it was there. Engagement ring or not, it had been there. Conniving plot to seduce her to get revenge on Ajax or not, it had been there.

Even now, with the baby and all the baggage, it was there.

She knew he felt it, too. She could see it in those wicked blue eyes. He was thinking of sex and sin and all the wonderful things they’d done together. She didn’t know how she knew it, only that she did. Only that for some reason she had a connection with him that she couldn’t explain. One she didn’t want at all.

Why couldn’t he just be that jerk who’d seduced her? Or, if she couldn’t summon up the rage to think of him as a jerk, why couldn’t he just be the cause of her pregnancy? A distant figure until they had to work out a shared custody agreement? It’s not like he could do anything for her now anyway.

But there was more. She hated that there was more, but there was. This deep, sexual connection that somehow felt like...more. Why did it keep going with him? Why, no matter the depth of feeling she was willing to admit she had with him, did a small voice inside of her keep whispering
it’s more?

Stupid small voice inside of her.

“Dinner?” he asked, another echo from the past.

“Yes.” She felt the yes slip off her lips and a deep ache slide down deep inside of her. Her body responding to the consent.

For dinner, you little hussy. Dinner. Down, girl.

He held his hand out, and she didn’t take it. Because if she did, she knew she was really, really sunk. She had no business touching him. No business even flirting with the idea of engaging in intimacy with him again.

The fact that he was a lying liar aside, they had too much going on to confuse it all with more sex.

As if things could get more confused, but whatever.

“Where are we having dinner?” she asked. Because it seemed to her they were just going back toward the hotel.

“I hate to see a perfectly good terrace wasted, so I thought we would dine at the suite.”

“You make it sound so fancy.”

“It is,” he said. “It’s very fancy. And dinner should be waiting for us already. And I will be having juice, along with you.”

“That’s...well, that’s awfully sensitive of you.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am,” she said, walking next to him, acutely aware of the way they both held their arms at their sides as they walked. Acutely aware of how they weren’t touching when their fingertips were so close.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. She was supposed to not touch him and have all the attraction magically resolve. Her shell was supposed to protect her. All those years of self-denial. Of never letting her passion out. Learning to be risk-averse, learning to keep every emotion, every desire, every need shoved down deep and covered by a layer of smooth, impenetrable steel. All of that should have helped her now. Should have preserved her.

But it wasn’t and she couldn’t understand it. How eleven years of hard-won control had just suddenly melted as if it had never been there in the first place.

They walked into the hotel in total silence, then took the elevator to their floor. The double doors to the terrace were open, a wash of pink evening light painting the living area.

She walked through the suite and outside. The table was set for two, a bottle of sparkling grape juice in an ice bucket, wrapped in a linen towel as if it were fine champagne. And their plates were covered with a silver dome, everything set and ready.

As though Alex had wanted to make sure they weren’t disturbed.

“This is romantic,” she said, her tone about as dry as sand.

“Is it?” he looked around as though the notion surprised him. “I just asked for dinner for two and that we not be disturbed. For privacy’s sake, as we are discussing personal matters and you are a bit of a public figure. Romance never came into it.”

“Naturally not. Come to think of it, you aren’t much of a romantic, are you?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never had much practice with it. But I would like to think I romanced you that night we were together.”

“You seduced me. Completely different. I wasn’t looking for romance.”

“So you were looking for sex?”