Page 29

AIDEN

“ I wasn’t running,” she says irritably. “We were interrupted.”

I nearly laugh into the wood-scented dimness. “Amy would have gone away. I would have made her leave. You pushed me away before she even got off the horse.”

I can’t help but think I did something wrong. The woman I’ve fantasized about was right there . She was moaning my name and trembling when I tongued her nipples and I know she liked it, and fuck , I’ll never have her again.

“I was overwhelmed,” she finally says. “Not because of you,” she adds quickly.

“Or not only because of you.” She sighs, then looks at me.

Her eyes are shadowed in the dark library, her lips softer, her cheekbones glinting.

She looks mysterious and bewitching. I force myself to be patient while I wait for her to speak.

“I’ve never fit into your world. Today was difficult for me. It reminded me a lot of high school.”

“Why?”

“I transferred to Hart’s Hill when I was sixteen. I’m sure you remember.”

“I do.” My lips tug up at the memory. “The loafers.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Sorry.”

“Eh.” I lift one shoulder. “I probably deserved it.”

She smiles, brief and bright, before it falls.

“You so did. Your friends made my life hell. My brothers’ too.

” She fiddles with the fringe on the blanket, and the half of my consciousness that’s been waiting for it to slip comes alive.

She’s naked under it. I heard each slide and slap of her wet clothes like a gunshot in the room.

“Things were different when Andreas and I started there. Uncle Enzo had just sold his house to fund the casino. Everyone lived under one roof with me and my brothers and Dad. I loved it.” She smiles.

“Leo shared a room with me, and Aunt Teresa helped me with my homework. But at school, I was the weird kid. The girl whose family ran a casino, and not even a big one. Aunt Teresa bartended and Uncle Enzo was the floor manager. Dad helped manage the private games. He’d bring in the most expensive bottles of whiskey for high stakes poker, and the thought of him serving the families of the people we went to school with—” She swallows.

“I hated it. It made me want to succeed just so everyone would shut their mouths.”

I rub at my chest as she speaks, trying to ease the ache. “Never mind the fact that if those kids knew he was serving them, it meant their parents were gambling,” I say dryly, and then wince, hoping she doesn’t take that as an insult.

She smiles faintly. “I never thought about it that way, but of course. My dad used to say that. We’re taking their money. I guess it was his way of being okay with not belonging to the world that was his birthright.”

“It was, wasn’t it? Yours too.” Her family was just as well-known as mine, once upon a time, when we ran the distillery together.

She shrugs. “I guess so. Dad’s grandparents were the last of the Hunters to have money.

After that, Dad’s parents spent it all on stupid investments and get-rich-quick schemes.

The kids at school never let me forget that history.

We’re infamous for it.” She shakes her head.

“It’s silly. I just—when your friend was talking about playing polo, I felt like I was sixteen again. ”

There’s a sinking in my stomach. “I’m s-sorry, Emory. I di-didn’t know.” I inhale slowly. “I didn’t pay attention to social dynamics much in high school.”

She gives me a weird look, and for one miserable moment, I think she’s going to ask about the stutter. “The privilege of being the most popular guy in school.”

“I wasn’t—”

She raises a brow.

I sigh. “You’re right. I was. No one had a choice about it, I suppose. The Prince family being what they are.”

“Popular, smart, athletic. The girls went wild.”

“Hot. Or so I hear.”

She groans. “At eighteen, yes.”

“So how come you never asked me out?”

She freezes. “I don’t think we should—”

“Tell me, Emory.” My words are brittle. Today is a day of uncomfortable truths, and I don’t think I’m going to like what she has to say.

“Fine. I got myself all worked up. Shannon what’s her face was going to ask you in third period, and I knew you’d say yes. Your parents liked her. I remember.” Her last words are tinged with bitterness.

“Anyway, I was waiting outside your second period study hall when I heard you say something that made me think I shouldn’t ask.”

My stomach tries to turn itself over.

“What, Emory?” My voice is harsher than I intend.

“We were kids,” she says. “It’s silly that I even remember what happened, much less care.”

“Tell m-me.” I take a deep breath and force my jaw to relax. “Tell me, please.”

She sighs. “You were talking about prom. Your friend Alex wanted to ask me. You told him—” She swallows.

“You told him not to. You said I was at the school because I was a social climber and I’d never be one of you.

You said don’t forget, she will never be one of us .

” She says the words like they’ve burrowed into her heart, and a fissure opens in my chest.

She always seems so strong, but she’s soft under all that armor. And I shot my arrow straight to the center of her.

“So today, when you agreed that I shouldn’t play, I just—” She lifts one shoulder and lets it drop, staring into the fire. “I freaked out. It all came crashing down when Amy showed up.”

“I was worried. I didn’t mean it as an insult,” I say, fisting my hands into the blanket on my lap so I don’t reach for her.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, shaking her head. “It was a decade ago, Aiden. It’s silly that I even remember.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry, Emory. Alex was a dick. He kept pressuring his girlfriends to have sex with him. I was probably warning him off.”

“Sure.” She shrugs. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. You would have said no anyway.”

I nod, my throat catching. “I would have said no.” There’s a flare of hurt in her eyes, and I swallow hard.

“Not for the reasons you think. I just—you were never an option, okay? Not for me. Not with how my grandfather wanted me to behave. My father too. Talking to you would have gotten me grounded for a week.” I shake my head.

She’s scanning my face, her brows pinched unhappily. “Really?”

“Really.” I nod. “Let me make it up to you?”

She looks at me suspiciously. I can see her walls going up. I can’t allow that to happen. We nearly ruined everything today. Our past nearly ruined everything.

“Let me look at your shoulder.” I gesture for her to turn, and she does, slowly, settling between my legs, her blanket slipping.

“How did you know?”

“You made a face earlier when I jostled you.”

There’s a bruise already blooming on her smooth skin. I trace the edges of it gently, inhaling her rain-drenched scent, and under that, the smell of her body wash.

“I’ll put some arnica on this. I have it in the first-aid kit.” I grab the bottle from inside the kit in the cabinet and settle behind her again. She’s so vulnerable like this. Trusting me when, normally, her walls are all the way up. This is the Emory I need to get to know.

I spread the gel on her back. She hisses a breath but tells me to keep going.

She’s not all bad. She got me into trouble a lot as a kid, yes, but she was dealing with her own problems. She’s prickly, but I’m starting to see why.

I don’t approve of her job, but she’s not my real wife. When this is over, she can go right back to swindling people out of their money and then donating it to the high school, like a fucked-up, sexy Robin Hood.

We might never be best friends, but we can fake it better than we have been.

“This isn’t working,” I say as I rub more gel into her skin.

“Are you divorcing me?”

I bark a surprised laugh. “No. I mean faking it. No one believes us. Grandfather is throwing other women at me. Your brothers like me a little better after the bar night, but they still don’t want us together.

And after today—” I blow out a breath and brush her hair to the side.

She trembles under my fingers, and I freeze.

This is not supposed to be that. “I’m not sure we’ll last a year. ”

“I agree,” she says ruefully. “We need to do better.”

“I think,” I say slowly, “that we need to try to like each other.”

She twists and gives me a look that communicates all of her distaste. “Well, that will never happen.” I press her shoulder in warning, right under the bruise, and she narrows her eyes.

“Emory, it has to. I want that land.”

“Fine. What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” I rub at my jaw. “We get to know each other?”

Her face wrinkles. “And you think that will make me like you more?”

I laugh again, helplessly. She’s a menace, but she’s funny. “I think it won’t make you like me less.”

“Probably not.” She sighs.

“You opened up to me today,” I tell her.

“That’s good. That’s a start. We have an event next week.

We’ll go, dance, mingle. Put on a show. This week, we can actually talk.

Find some of those conversation cards people use on first dates or something and start baring our souls. Now let me finish your back.”

Her face shutters. She pulls the blanket up over her shoulders and turns to face me fully. “I think you’ve mauled me enough for one day.”

My stomach bottoms out. “I’m not like that,” I say abruptly, ignoring every sense that screams in warning. “In bed. I mean, not normally.”

Her eyes widen, flick over my shoulders, then my chest. She bites her lip. We’re as close as we were in the garden.

“What are you like, then?” she asks, her voice low and soft. “We’re getting to know each other, remember?” She smiles slightly, like the whole thing is ridiculous. And yes, it fucking is, but I can’t stand her thinking I’m that kind of guy.

“I’m not an asshole in bed,” I tell her, each word drawing something tight inside me. “I like it…honest.”

“Honest?” Her eyes drop to my body again before she looks away guiltily.

“I like to know if she likes it,” I say roughly. “I like to hear her.” I swallow, my body going taut. I’m half hard, even in my damp trousers, and this was definitely a mistake. “I like when she comes first.” I shut my eyes briefly. “I really like that.”

“What else?”

Need is spinning inside me, like one of those tops I had as a kid that would speed up before it went totally out of control.

“I like to watch her face. I like to see her fall apart. I like when she’s out of control.”

She sucks in a little breath. My eyes fly open.

Desire is so stark on her face that it feels like a punch in the stomach.

“Because you’re always in control?” she asks.

I blink through the haze of need. Her lips are curling at the edges, like she’s won something.

“I’m always in control.” I have to be. It’s how I live.

She raises a brow. “Really, golden boy? You seemed—” She tilts her head, her smile growing. “On the brink earlier. In fact, I don’t think you would even have gotten me there.”

Something fires inside me. She makes me want to snap my teeth in her face.

I lean forward, savoring the way her eyes widen and her plush lips part.

I’m so much bigger than her, and right now, she’s realizing it.

I’m realizing it too—how I’d fit if I stretched myself over her, how I’d be able to lift her against the door of this library without breaking a sweat, how I’d anchor her with my hips. Fuck.

“If we were together for real, you would have come four times before I ever did. I’d make sure of it.”

She shudders, and the flare of need in her eyes makes me reel back, before she douses it.

“Not a chance,” she says, her tongue darting over her lips.

That beast inside me that loves competing with her raises its head. “Then what was that in the garden earlier?”

“Adrenaline.” She presses a hand to her throat.

“Little liar. Bet I could make you beg for me,” I say idly. I’m playing with fire, but I can’t stop. Every part of her that denies her desire for me goads every part of me into making her admit it.

Her eyes flash. “I would never beg you.”

“You’d be so fucking wet for me,” I tell her, my voice gravel rough. “I’d get you there so fast. You’d scream for me, evil queen.”

“I have literally never screamed with a man.” She gives me a derisive onceover, but I don’t miss the way her gaze lingers on my arms.

“Well, that’s just sad,” I murmur, leaning in, our breaths mingling, her lips so close that I could close the distance in half a second. “I felt how drenched you were earlier. Such a good girl.” My voice is low and crooning.

“Not your good girl,” she snaps, pulling back. “And you were just as turned on.” Her gaze flicks to my trousers, where my erection tents the fine wool.

I raise a single brow, ignoring the obvious facts. “Was I? How’d you even have time to notice between panting my name?”

She scowls. “I would never pant for you. And you were hard as a rock.”

I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. I think I just discovered my new religion—tormenting my wife. “You must be mistaken. I’d never get hard for you.”

She lets out a little growl. “Good thing you’re such an asshole. I’m cured of the desire to ever touch you again.”

I chuckle and shove up to standing, not missing the way her eyes slit and her gaze catalogs every flex of my stomach. I need to get away from her before I push her into the carpet and show her just how hard I am for her.

“Good luck with that,” I say.

I stalk out of the room, feeling lighter than I have in a year. We’re going to make this relationship work. All we have to do is get to know each other and never let things get physical.

With the woman I spend half my time fantasizing about. The one I never let myself want.

No problem.