“Did she?”
“Of course.”
“A cleaning lady offered the chance to live in luxury after years barely making it in the US? After years of homeless poverty in Greece?”
“That isn’t... It has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe the point is that you can always say no, Elle.” He leaned in. “Always.”
She could barely breathe, her head swimming, her entire body on high alert. She was almost certain she had no blood in her veins, not anymore. It was molten lava now, heating her from her core.
She remembered so clearly feeling this way every time he brushed past her in the halls of the family estate. Every time she caught sight of him at the pool—his lean, muscular body so fascinating to the girl she’d been.
Only once had they ever come so close to each other. Only one other time had she ever thought he might feel the same forbidden desire that she’d felt from the moment she’d set eyes on him.
Apollo is going to be your new stepbrother.
Everything in her had rebelled at that, immediately. Because she had seen him and wanted him in a way she knew would be wrong once their parents were married. So she had distanced him. She had been...well, sometimes she’d been terrible. But it had been for her own survival.
It was even worse now. He was still her stepbrother. But now, any affection she’d ever felt for him had been twisted by his betrayal. She should have stopped obsessing about him a long time ago.
But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. She was a slave to this, to him. Always.
She hated it. She hated him.
And she had spent nine years resisting him. Embracing the anger, the annoyance and everything else she could possibly use as a barrier between her desire for him and her actions.
Giving in would be a failure. In terms of her self-control. In terms of her relationship with her father. What would he think if he knew she wanted Apollo? What sort of scandal would erupt if the media knew she was helplessly attracted to her stepbrother?
So she had denied it. Pushed it down deep. But she had been aware of it every time she saw him. Every glance. Every accidental brush of his hand against hers. Every time she went to bed at night, hot and aching for something she knew only he could give her.
But he had bought out her father’s company. He was gunning for Matte. Her father had installed her as CEO to keep some connection to the company—just as Apollo had said. And she’d failed spectacularly.
She could feel everything slipping out of her grasp. The company. Her control. Everything.
And she’d never tasted him. Never had him. This man who was destroying her whole life. Who commanded her fantasies and called out the deepest, darkest desire from deep inside of her.
For what? For appearances. To triumph.
There would be no triumph here. She was losing. Utterly. Epically.
Why not have this? Why not have him?
It was all going to burn to the ground. She might as well go up in flames with it.
She could see his pulse throbbing at the base of his throat. If only she had a pen in her hand. It would be so easy from this position to stab him clean through with it. But she didn’t.
So instead, she reached up and grabbed hold of the knot in his tie, and wrenched it free.