Page 3 of Modern Romance October 2025 5-8

Yes, that thought hit him satisfyingly hard. Right now he wantedherto pay for the hellish evening she’d put him through. For the months—years—of hell she’d put him through. For her being as bloody bewitching as ever. But most of all for the fact that she was defying him once more. But Bethan Eagle—Bethan Vasiliadis—wasn’t avoiding this moment a minute longer.

His rage had been roiling all day. He’d arrived at her poky flat just as she was walking out of it and into a waiting car. He’d followed on auto. Where was she going, dressed like that? Back when he’d first met her she’d barely worn any make-up but tonight she’d perfectly applied shading to make her eyes sparkle more, her lips even redder. Had that effort been for herself or for someone else?Someone who wasn’t him.

She’d walked into a restaurant. Ares had had his driver idle so he could see into the window. From the car he’d watched her scan the room, then smile as a man had stood. The jerk couldn’t drag his eyes from her as she’d joined him. Two hours of torture had followed as Ares watched and waited. His driver probably thought he was mad. He didn’t care. They’d been seated at a table in the front window so the entire date had been visible. He wasn’t being a stalker, he merely needed to speak to his ex about completing their damned paperwork. But watching that goodbye scene just now had shot his already sketchy blood pressure through the roof. Her date had clearly wanted to get closer to her. If he’d made a move Ares would have bolted out of the car and done fuck knew what. Not from jealousy. No. But because Bethan had looked flighty as hell. Ares knew her tells but she’d been babbling and so fidgety her discomfort ought to have been obvious to anyone. Fortunately the jerk had given her space—which meant he wasn’t a jerk and he’d left at exactly the right time.

Whichwasn’twhat Ares would have done. He’d have reached for her. Caged her in his arms. Soothed her anxiety with his hands. Yeah, Areswasthe jerk here. Always had been. Always would be. He would do whatever it took to get what he wanted—because that was what he’d had to do when he’d been left alone to fend for survival in a family more poisonous than a nest of vipers. But what made him the biggest jerk was that Ares could barely control his ‘want’ where Bethan was concerned. Her beautiful dress clung to her bountiful curves. Curves that needed a man to handle. They’d been his once. He’d been the first to unwrap her. To taste her. To make her tremble, sigh, scream with pleasure. His stomach churned at the thought of her letting some other guy do that. His old arrogance would have him believe that she never would’ve sought nor found such pleasure in another man’s arms. But he was wrong. Here she’d been, out with someone else and, while she might not have invited that guy in, who knew how many someone elses there had been since he’d seen her last?

‘I’ve not been your wife for years,’ she argued, rubbing salt into the wound she’d ripped open.

‘I think you’ll find the courts might disagree.’ He stepped closer.

Satisfaction trickled through him when she didn’t back away the way she had from that other guy.

‘I’d assumed that, seeing you’ve not bothered to initiate a divorce, you were happy to remain married to me,’ he added.

It had suited him to be unattainable all this time. To thwart the intentions of his unwanted family. And now it suited him to punish her. Just a little. It was nothing on the torture she’d put him through.

Her jaw dropped. ‘You thought I was happy?’

Her arrow hit the target. Yeah, that had been his mistake. Hehadthought she’d been happy.

‘You were happy in my bed,’ he snapped. Because she had been and he needed her to admit at least that small truth.

She froze. It hung between them—the instant rush of unstoppable lust. But that he’d ever be capable of keeping her happy beyond that—that he could ever be enough for her? No. It had been a flight of fancy.

She tore her gaze from his. ‘It’s only minor paperwork,’ she said bravely. ‘We had to be separated two years before the divorce can be finalised.’

So she knew that and still hadn’t done anything about it.

‘You think we’ve been separated?’ He couldn’t resist provoking her. ‘For these two years andfour months?’ He nearly laughed at the defiant flash in her eyes.

‘You haven’t accepted that I abandoned you?’ Her breath hissed.

Oh, she had. She knew it. He knew it. And the lawyers would certainly agree it was a fact. But right now he would argue the sky was green just to disagree with whatever came out of her beautiful, sultry mouth. He’d missed this—her moving to meet him like a little sparrow taking on a lion. Always game, even when she was way out of her depth and had no chance of winning. That didn’t stop her. So once more he steeled himself in readiness for her rejection. Angry that he even had to. But he’d been burned by a young and inexperienced woman. She’d been nobody, had had nothing. He’d given her riches and a lifestyle she’d never known, things he’d not given anyone before. Yet for Bethan it wasn’t enough. It had taken a shockingly short time for her to realise she didn’t want more than his body—and even that only for a while. Although it seemed that even now she still noticed his physique. He deliberately moved closer, noting the undeniable reaction in her eyes and deepening colour in her cheeks as he entered her personal space.

She didn’t back away, but lifted her chin. While he could appreciate her fiery proud stance in this second, he also hated her for it. He got close enough to feel her heat. It would be nothing to touch her. Kiss her.

No.He would never do that ever again. Didn’t want to. He damned welldid notwant to.

‘Why haven’t you pushed for the divorce, then?’ he queried quietly. ‘Or is it that you don’t really want to?’

Her nostrils flared. ‘Of course I want to,’ she growled.

‘You’d best get to Greece and renounce me, then,’ he said huskily, her fury both a reward and an ache.

‘I’m never going back to Greece.’

He stared at her appalled expression. Didn’t she know? Still a little naïve, then. How sweet. ‘But, Bethan, you have to.’

‘No, I don’t.’ A lick of her lip gave her nerves away. ‘The lawyers can handle it.’

‘Then why haven’t you asked them to?’

‘Why haven’t you?’

His trickle of satisfaction went full flow. He’d come to London to expedite their divorce—as smoothly and easily as possible—because she was right about the time requirement and they were way over it. But she was also very wrong. He would indeed get his damned divorce, but maybe he would also get a soupçon of revenge. Maybe he would make her pay—just alittle.

Bethan glared up at the man she’d married in a whirlwind few weeks of heady romance. She’d been swept off her feet, consumed by temptation, by the desire to believe the best of him. She’d thought she’d found her fairy-tale romance like the one her parents had. Intense. Wonderful. Easy. Instant. It was laughable what a fool she’d been. But Bethan’s childhood home had been filled with photos and her father had shared the stories daily—generous in keeping the memory of her mother alive, in building an impossible ideal. Theirs had been love at first sight and would have lasted a lifetime if her mother hadn’t died tragically young.