Apollo reached out and wrapped his fingers around Elle’s wrist, holding her hands still. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice a growl.

She looked up at him, her green eyes round, those soft, sassy pink lips shaped into a perfect O. “I …” Color flooded her face.

“If you were thinking you were going to take my shirt off, either stop now and walk out that door, or keep going and realize that I will have you flat on your back and screaming my name in a very different way before you can protest.”

Her color deepened … her eyes grew even wider. He thought she would run. Because Elle was a good girl. And she was stone-cold, aloof, and fancied herself far above him.

It had made him want to destroy that façade from the first. He hadn’t. Because he knew that she was innocent. Knew that she was nothing more than a cosseted rich girl who would be completely out of her depth with a man like him. A man who had grown up on the streets in Athens—who had learned the hard truths about life early on. About loss. About the true nature of people.

He had known that if he ever touched her it would violate the trust he had built with her father.

But if she was going to touch him now, if she was going to remove the barrier that had always loomed between them, then he wasn’t going to put a stop to it.

One Night With Consequences

When one night … leads to pregnancy!

When succumbing to a night of unbridled desire it’s impossible to think past the morning after!

But, with the sheets barely settled, that little blue line appears on the pregnancy test and it doesn’t take long to realise that one night of white-hot passion has turned into a lifetime of consequences!

Only one question remains:

How do you tell a man you’ve just met that you’re about to share more than just his bed?

Find out in:

Her Nine Month Confession by Kim Lawrence September 2015

An Heir Fit for a King by Abby Green October 2015

Larenzo’s Christmas Baby by Kate Hewitt November 2015

Illicit Night with the Greek by Susanna Carr February 2016

Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire by Susan Stephens March 2016

The Shock Cassano Baby by Andie Brock May 2016

An Heir to Make a Marriage by Abby Green June 2016

Look for more One Night With Consequences coming soon!

The Greek’s Nine-Month Redemption

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAISEY YATES is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: maiseyyates.com.

To Jackie, Megan and Nicole for listening to me say, ‘This is weird. I’m not doing it right.

I don’t think this is good enough!’ every time I work on a book, and helping me through it. Every time.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

One Night With Consequences

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SOMETIMES ELLE ST. JAMES imagined taking a pen and stabbing it straight through Apollo Savas’s chest. Not to kill him of course. He didn’t have a heart so the wound would hardly be fatal. Just to hurt him.

Still, other times she fantasized about crossing the boardroom, wrenching free the knot on his tie and tearing the front of his shirt open, scraping her fingernails down his heated skin and feeling all those hard muscles beneath her hands. Finally. After nine long years of resisting him, resisting the heat that roared through her body every time their eyes met.

That one was way more disturbing than the stabbing thing.

It was also far too frequent.

They were sitting in a crowded meeting and she should be paying attention. But all she could think about was what she would do to him if she had five minutes with him, alone, behind a locked door.

It would either be violent or naked.

He was talking about budgets and cuts. And she hated those words. It would mean scaling down her team again. As had been the story of the past twelve months, ever since he’d bought her out from her father’s holding company. A company that had since sunk into bankruptcy.

Just another moment in a long line of Apollo undermining her. Finally, her father had been forced to give her responsibility. Since his stepson had finally proven to be a viper in the nest, so to speak.

She’d been installed as CEO. Then Apollo had come down like a hammer.

It was his fault. At least in part. And nothing would convince her otherwise.

She had a plan. A plan he seemed intent on thwarting at every turn. She knew she could rescue Matte without all of these sweeping staff changes, but he wouldn’t give her a chance.

Because—just as he’d always done—he was making it his mission to undermine her. To prove he was better even now.

But that didn’t stop her eyes from following his hands as he gestured broadly, from wondering what those hands might feel like on her skin.

She could write what she knew about sex on a napkin. The sad thing was, it would be two words.

Apollo Savas.

He’d been sex to her from the moment she’d understood what the word sex meant. From the moment she’d understood why men and women were different, and why it was such a wonderful thing.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed son of the woman her father had married when Elle was fourteen. He had been fascinating. So different from her. Rough around the edges, a product of his upbringing in a class of society Elle herself had had no contact with. His mother had been a maid prior to her marriage to Elle’s father. The culture shock had been intense. And very, very interesting.

Of course, since then he’d grown into a dark-hearted man who’d betrayed her family and put her under his boot heel.

Still, she wanted him.

The Big Bad Wolf of the business world, huffing and puffing and blowing your dreams down.

“Don’t you agree, Ms. St. James?”

She looked up, her eyes locking with Apollo’s, her heart thudding a dull rhythm. The last thing she needed was to admit she’d missed what he was saying. She would rather admit to having fantasies of killing him than the alternative.

“You’ll have to repeat the question, Mr. Savas. My attention span for repetition isn’t infinite. This is the same song you’ve been singing for months, and it isn’t any more effective or logical than it was last time.”

He stood, his movements liquid silk. She could see from the black glitter in his eyes that she was going to pay for her words. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. Fear mingled with unaccountable lust.

“I am sorry you find me boring. I shall endeavor to make myself more interesting. You see, I was speaking of the fact that for a company to be successful it must be sleek. Well oiled. Each cog functioning at top capacity. Extraneous cogs are unnecessary. Sluggish cogs are unnecessary. I was attempting to be delicate with my metaphor.” He began to walk down the length of the boardroom table, the postures of each person he moved behind straightening as he did. “Perhaps I would have held your attention a bit better if I would have simply said that if I identify a portion of your company functioning at less than optimum capacity I will start slashing and burning your employees like they were dry brush.”

Her entire face felt like it was on fire, her heart pounding harder now. She clenched her shaking hands into fists. “Everyone in this company—”

“I’m sure your speech is about to be inspiring and truly emotional, but since this is not a feel-good underdog sports movie, you should perhaps save your breath, Ms. St. James. You can say what you will, but I have seen the numbers. Conviction doesn’t equal profits. I will be reviewing everything closely and making cuts at my discretion. With that, I think the meeting is adjourned. Ms. St. James has a very low tolerance for my droning, I hear. If it is the same for the rest of you, you should be pleased to be sent on your way.”

The collective surge of bodies making their way out of the room reminded Elle of a herd of wildebeests fleeing a lion.

A big, bored lion who wanted nothing more than to scare them by flashing his teeth. He wasn’t going to give chase. Not now.

No, now his focus had turned to her.

“You are in rare form today, Elle.”

“I am in exactly the appropriate form, Apollo,” she said, reverting to the use of his first name.

They were family, after all.

Not that she’d ever seen him as a brother. A sexual fantasy she didn’t want. Her biggest competitor. Her darkest enemy. He was all of those things, but not a brother.

“I own your company,” he said. “I own you.” Oh, dammit all, why did those words make her...ache? “You never seem to show me the proper amount of fear.”

“Real leaders don’t rule with an iron fist,” she hissed. “They understand that intimidation isn’t the way to gain respect.”

She shouldn’t be talking back to him, but she could never control her tongue around him. They’d known each other for too long. Had spent too many years in the same household.

And she had spent too many years tearing strips off him when she’d felt like she had the upper hand. When she was the blood daughter of her father, the one who held a rightful place in their upstate mansion.

Things changed. Oh, how things changed.

“Says the woman who is no longer in a true position of leadership.” He smiled. Showing his teeth.

She wouldn’t scatter. She would not. She was not a wildebeest.

“Oh, but I am. As long as Matte is an independently operating entity beneath your large corporate umbrella, I am here to run it as best as I can. I am here to stand in the gap for my employees and give you the information black-and-white printouts can’t.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Everything is electronic now. I’m not wasting resources on printouts.”

He turned and started to walk out of the office. “You know what I mean. A flat, two-dimensional report reducing everything to statistics and cold numbers is hardly the be-all and end-all.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, taking long strides down the hall.

Elle had to take two steps to his one, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor as she hurried after him. “I am not wrong. It doesn’t offer the whole picture. You can’t possibly know how the company is really functioning. How each worker impacts the creative process. Matte isn’t just a magazine. It’s a line of cosmetics, a fashion brand. We have books and—”

“Yes,” he said, stepping into an elevator, “thank you, I am very familiar with how my assets function.”

“Then you should be aware of the fact that I have strategies in place that require all of the manpower I possess. Initiatives that take time to launch but will catapult this brand into worldwide recognition.”

“Yes. So you said last time we met. And, unlike you, I don’t drift off in meetings.”

She growled and charged into the elevator after him. “I did not drift off.”

He pushed the button to the lobby and the doors slid closed. Then he turned that dark, unsettling focus onto her. The air around them seemed to shrink, rendering the already crowded space impossibly tight. “No. I don’t believe you did, Elle,” he said, his voice as silken as his movements. “You were looking at me with a great deal of intensity. Too much to be on another planet entirely. What was it you were thinking about exactly?”

“Driving a pen through your chest,” she said, smiling.

Because she would be damned if she’d say, Tearing your clothes off and seeing if you’re as good in reality as you are in my dreams.

Even though she felt like that reality was written all over her face, across her skin in the red stain of a blush.

He offered her a wry smile. “You know I can’t be killed like that. You have to cut my head off and bury it in a separate location to my body.”

“I’ll let the hit men know.” She turned and smiled at him again, and he offered one in return.

The doors slid open, revealing the rather vacant bottom floor. Matte shared its offices with many other businesses, and with penthouses on the top floor. At this hour of the day not many people were coming and going.

“Where is it you’re staying, Apollo?” she asked. “A crypt somewhere in Midtown?”

“The one just next to yours, Elle,” he said, his tone light. “After you.”

He extended his hand, waiting for her to step out of the elevator. She swept past him, moving through the lobby and going through the revolving doors. She stepped on to the busy Manhattan sidewalk, put her sunglasses on and stood there, tapping her foot.

Apollo emerged a moment later, straightening his suit jacket and standing across from her for a moment.

“Care to continue shouting at me while I walk?” he asked.

“I’m not shouting at you. I’m calmly explaining to you why you’re wrong in your methods of handling my company.”

He turned away from her, walking down the crowded street, his broad back filling her vision.

“Apollo!” Okay, she was shouting now. “We are not through with our meeting.”

“I think we adjourned it.”

“The general meeting,” she said, upping her pace. “But we are not done.”

“I’m just here,” he said, gesturing to an old boutique hotel only two buildings down from the Matte offices. “Since I’m in town primarily to deal with Matte I thought I should stay close.”

“Congratulations. How sensible.”

“I have my moments. Judging by the fact that I’m a billionaire who successfully staged a takeover of your father’s company, I’ve had several moments, actually.”

“If you were as clever as you think you are you would listen to my plans for Matte. The answer isn’t to reduce us down to nothing. You have to let me try and expand it, otherwise we really will die.”

“You’re assuming I’m trying to save you, dear Elle. Perhaps I just want to pull the plug.”

“You... You...” She was sputtering now. She never sputtered. She blamed him.

“Villain. Scoundrel. I answer to any of those really.”

“You have always been a competitive son of a bitch, but this is above and beyond.”

“You’re assuming this is a competition.”

“What else could it be? You’re ungrateful. For everything my father gave you. And for the fact that he didn’t give you everything.”

He chuckled, a dark, humorless sound. “Oh, you mean that he didn’t give me his corporation, or Matte, in the first place? Why do you think he installed you, Elle? Your competence? No. He gave you the position to keep a foothold once I bought him out.”

The words landed hard, hollowing out her midsection. Leaving nothing but a crater behind.

Like you didn’t suspect that already.

She had. Of course she had. But the fact he knew it meant it was obvious. Possibly to everyone.

The doorman opened the golden door for them and Apollo paused to tip him before continuing on. Elle opened her purse and produced her own dollar, handing it to the man before going in after Apollo.

She was not allowing him to do her tipping for her.

“I am in the penthouse suite. It’s very nice.”

“Why am I not surprised that I just got out of a meeting where you were discussing tightening belts for my company, and yet you’re staying in the penthouse suite.”

He pushed the button for the elevator and the doors slid open. She followed in after, starting to feel slightly out of breath.

“I am not in need of money, agape, if that’s why you thought I was mentioning cuts.”

Agape. She hated that. He’d started using that on her sometime when she was in high school. Just to make her angry. And some small part of her grabbed hold of it every time, holding it near. Love.

Oh, what a ridiculous, stupid...

She really hated her hormones.

“Why else would you mention cuts?” she asked, keeping her tone sweet.

The doors slid shut and she had the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped in a closed-in space again.

“Because you need the money. Matte needs the money. In a digital world your print publication is lagging and while you have certainly come up with innovative ways to compete, you haven’t leveled out yet.”

“But if you have enough—”

He chuckled. “I don’t run a charity. I run a business. My corporation turns profits. That’s what it does. I make money hand over fist, and I’m comfortable admitting that. I’m proud of it. But that won’t continue if I don’t refine my assets. Refining is a hot and painful process. It takes fire. And people being fired.”

“Ha-ha. You’re far too funny for your own good.”

He frowned. “Was that funny? It wasn’t meant to be.”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened on a narrow hallway. Apollo stepped out and walked down a few doors, pausing to open it. “Come in,” he said.

She very much had the feeling of being a small, vulnerable creature invited into the lair of a predator.

You are not a wildebeest. You are just as scary as he is. You are a lioness.

She stepped over the threshold and into the room. It was lovely, he was right. Ornate moldings and trim framing the space, the windows looking out over Central Park.

There was a large seating area with a bar, and off to the left an open door that she could see led to a bedroom with a very large, dramatic bed.

She imagined, as tall as he was, he took up most of the mattress. That thought made her picture him—long, tanned limbs sprawled out on the bed. Would he look more relaxed in sleep? Would he seem less...lethal out of that custom-fit black suit that conformed to every line, every muscle in his body?

He closed the door behind her with a finality that made her jump.

“My team is the best there is,” she said. “They have some of the most creative minds in this—or any—industry. You have to admit the fact that the Matte Guidebooks have been hugely successful. And the makeup guide actually helped to increase sales of the cosmetics. It was specific to the brand and that—”

“Again you are telling me things I already know. I didn’t get to this position in life without paying attention. I understand that your team is important to you. But if I don’t do what must be done, if I don’t make the hard cuts, none of you will have a job.”

“But I—”

“You seem to be under the impression that this is a democracy, Elle. Be assured, absolutely, that this is a dictatorship. I am not negotiating with you. And it is only by my good graces that your pretty ass remains in the CEO’s office.”

Heat and fury washed over Elle in a fiery baptism. “And here I thought it was because I’m good at my job.”

“You are,” he said, taking a step toward her. “But there are a great many people who would be good at your job. People who didn’t get handed their position from their daddy.”

“Oh, that’s hilarious, Apollo. As if you didn’t get a leg up from my father, you Judas.” She took a step toward him, rage propelling her now. “My father treated you like one of his own children. He put you through school.”

“And I excelled on my own.”

“Then you stabbed him in the back.”

“I bought him out for much more than thirty pieces of silver, little girl. Perhaps what really hurts is the fact that you were betrayed by your father, not by me. He put you in this position knowing you would fail.”

She gritted her teeth, doing her best to shake off his words. To not allow them to take hold. All of this reached down deep. To old wounds. To the way she’d felt she couldn’t measure up to Apollo, the son her father had always wanted. To her own fears of being eternally inadequate. And he knew it.

She would not let him win so easily. “He trusted you. When you offered to help he didn’t imagine you dismantling everything.”

Apollo lifted one broad shoulder. “He made a mistake in trusting me.”

“Clearly. You would betray not only the man who set you on the path to success, but your own mother.”

“She’s fine. Your father is hardly financially ruined. She continues to enjoy her status as his wife. And again, Elle, need I remind you your father sold Matte, and some of his other holdings, to me of his own free will.”

“You had him in a position where he couldn’t say no.”

Apollo took another step toward her. He was so close now that she could see his eyes weren’t completely black. She could see a faint ring of gold that faded to copper, then to deep brown. Could see the dark stubble beginning to grow in at his jawline.

Could smell the scent of his aftershave and skin.

“Interesting you put it like that. If dire financial straits take away choice you could argue my mother had little choice in marrying your father in the first place.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Elle said. “She wanted to.”

“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.

CHAPTER TWO

APOLLO SAVAS DIDN’T entertain daydreams. He was a man of practicality and action. When he wanted something, he didn’t sit around fantasizing about it, he took it.

That was the only reason he knew that it was no hallucination that Elle St. James, his stepsister and mortal enemy, was currently stripping his clothes off, her eyes bright, glittering with rage and desire.

He had resisted her, this, for years. Resisted her. Out of deference to the man he considered a father. Out of respect for all he’d been given.

But all of it had proven to be false, had proven to be a lie. And still he had roped Elle off. Had kept her separate—in many ways—from his plans for revenge.

And David St. James had known he would. Because whether she knew it or not, he had always protected Elle. She had always mattered.

But things had changed. And now she was tugging at his tie. And he was tired of restraint.

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her hands still. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice a growl.

She looked up at him, her green eyes round, those soft, sassy pink lips shaped into a perfect O. “I...” Color flooded her face.

“If you were thinking you were going to take my shirt off, either stop now and walk out that door, or keep going and understand that I will have you flat on your back and screaming my name in a very different way before you can protest.”

Her color deepened, her eyes growing even wider. He thought she would run. Because Elle was a good girl, by the standards of her father. Though, she was stone-cold, aloof and fancied herself far above him.

It had made him want to destroy that facade from the first. He hadn’t. Because he knew that she was innocent. Knew that she was nothing more than a cosseted rich girl who would be completely out of her depth with a man like him. A man who had grown up on the streets in Athens, who had learned the hard truths about life early on. About loss. About the true nature of people.

He had known that if he ever touched her it would violate the trust he had built with her father.

But if she was going to touch him now, if she was going to remove that barrier that had always loomed between them, then he wasn’t going to put a stop to it.

Apollo Savas was a man who took what he wanted.

With one exception.

Elle.

He had wanted her from the moment she’d transformed from a girl to a woman. A haughty, rude woman who walked by him with her nose in the air half the time. Perversely, it had always made him want to have her even more.

She thought his hands were dirty. Thought he was beneath her. It made him want to put his filthy hands all over her. Made him want to pull her right down with him.

His biggest betrayal had never been buying St. James Corp’s most valuable assets and breaking them off piece by piece.

No, his biggest betrayal had started long before he’d discovered David St. James’s true nature. It had begun long before he’d discovered the dark secrets surrounding just why he and his mother had been brought into the St. James home.

His first betrayal had been in the way he’d looked at Elle.

But everything was shot to hell now anyway. Every allegiance broken with his “family.” Why not this, too? Why not slaughter the last sacred cow?

He had destroyed everything else. He might as well destroy this, too. And he would relish it.

Her hand was still frozen, holding on to his tie. Then, her eyes took on a determined glitter, her lips curling into a snarl as she yanked hard on the silken fabric, pulling it free from its knot.

He growled, grabbing ahold of that sleek high ponytail that had been taunting him from the moment he had walked into the boardroom today. He wrapped his fingers around her coppery hair and pulled hard, tilting her head backward. Her nostrils flared slightly, her lips parting.

They held their positions for a moment, staring at each other, clearly waiting to see what the next move was.

He had waited too long. He was not waiting another moment.

He would have her now. Strip away every prim and proper layer. Punish her with his kiss as he should have done that day she’d dared him at the pool. The only time the anger between them had given way and revealed the layer beneath.

Of course, she had acted as though nothing had happened after. And so had he.

But he would make sure this time she would not be able to act unscathed after he was through with her.

He wrapped his arm around her slender waist, drawing her up against his body as he backed them both toward the wall. It stopped their progress ruthlessly, her shoulder blades pressed firmly against the hard surface. He bent his head, kissing her neck, his teeth scraping her skin.

The sound that escaped her lips was raw and desperate, her hands clutching his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin through the fabric of his suit jacket. Then she slid her palms down flat, grabbing hold of the front of his shirt and tugging hard, sending buttons flying as she wrenched it open. She pushed his jacket from his shoulders, grabbing hold of his shirt and shoving it down, too. He unbuttoned the cuffs, helping her and her progress, and untucking it from his pants and throwing it down onto the floor.

She looked completely shocked, and wholly satisfied by her actions as she regarded his body. Then she pressed her palms to his chest and slid her fingers down to his stomach, her fingernails scraping him lightly as she did. She grabbed hold of his belt, making quick work of that, as well.

“Greedy,” he said, taking hold of her wrists and drawing her arms up over her head, holding her there with one hand as he set to work on the buttons of her silk blouse with the other.

She fought against him, the color in her cheeks deepening, her breasts rising and falling with the shallow gasps of her breath. He chuckled when her shirt fell open, revealing an insubstantial red lace bra and he imagined she thought it made her seem daring.

She arched her back, thrusting her breasts into greater prominence. He tightened his hold on her, pressing her hands more firmly against the wall. “You don’t get to set the terms,” he said. “Not in the boardroom, not in the bedroom. I am in charge in all things.”

“Always a competition with you, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Oh, agape, it has never been a competition. How can it be when I always win?”

For the first time, he saw a slight flicker of doubt in her eyes. But it was quickly replaced by a challenge. “So insecure that you have to exert your dominance in such a cliché fashion? You are exactly the same here as you are in the office.”

He leaned in, his lips a whisper away from hers. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“I hope this isn’t an empty threat, Apollo,” she said, the words throaty, enticing. “You seem to be full of those.”

He closed the distance between them, closing his teeth around her bottom lip and biting her. She gasped and he pulled away. The flush in her cheeks had spread to her neck, had down to the full swell of her breasts. She might be angry, but she was aroused, too.

“One thing you need to learn, agape, is that my threats are never empty. It’s simply that the consequences might be delayed in coming.”

She looked down, then back up. “I do hope the coming isn’t terribly delayed today.”

Those words, coming from Elle’s lips, seemed shocking. From any other woman it might have been commonplace dirty talk. Not even all that dirty when it came down to it. But from Elle? It had the desired effect.

He was so hard he thought he was going to burst through the zipper on his pants. His heart was raging, his hand shaking as he undid the last button on her blouse and pulled it from her shoulders.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him in such a way. If one ever had. But then, he had never been in a situation quite like this. His partner had never looked at him with lust and rage burning from her eyes all at the same time. She’d never looked quite like she wanted to strangle him and have her way with him in the same moment.

And, he had never been with Elle.

“I didn’t realize you were a dirty talker, Elle.” He scraped the edge of her ear with his teeth. “If you had been negotiating this way all along you might have been a lot more successful.”

“You’re a bastard,” she bit out, turning her head and tracing the line of his jaw with the edge of her tongue. “A complete and utter—”

“And you want me,” he said, releasing his hold on her and drawing his face back, pressing the tip of his nose against hers and meeting her fierce gaze. “So what does that say about you?”

“Oh, I know that all of this is the final nail in the coffin of my decency.” She grabbed the end of his belt buckle and yanked it through the loops, then set about working on the closure of his slacks.

“Go out with style, I say.” He slid his hands down her slender waist, to the full curve of her hip, and down farther, gripping the hem of her skirt and shoving it up roughly over her hips. No surprise, her panties were the same red lace as the bra.

Not that he was complaining.

“I took you for a white cotton kind of girl,” he said. “Who knew that you had so many secrets?”

“You’re never going to know my secrets, Apollo,” she said.

“So venomous,” he said, his lips touching hers now as he spoke the words. “And yet, you’re dying to have me.”

She put her hand between them, pressing her palm against his hardened arousal. “Same goes.”

“I’m tired of talking.”

And then, he crushed his mouth to hers, claiming the kiss he should have taken years ago.

* * *

Elle had no idea what she was thinking. She wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. Feeling everything. Rage, need, arousal like she had never known existed.

She would like to be confused about this. About how this could happen. About how she could be doing this with a man she hated so very much. But lust and anger had always been twisted up together where Apollo was concerned. Well, maybe not always. But in the past few years. And that was when her desire for him had turned from a girlish crush into a woman’s need.

She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She knew what men and women did in the dark. She didn’t need her own hands-on experience to be aware.

But somewhere, during all of that, Apollo had gone from being someone she trusted and admired—a member of the St. James family—to their bitterest enemy. And somewhere, as that change had taken place, her desire for him had changed, as well.

And now it was this strange, twisted thing that she couldn’t begin to untangle. And there was no other man who made her feel anything near what he made her feel.

It didn’t matter that it was sick. It didn’t matter that it was wrong. What Apollo made her feel was pure adrenaline. Pure excitement. Even if it wasn’t all good.

He made every other man she had ever gone out with seem like a bland, beige substitute.

That was why this was happening. Really, it was why it needed to happen. When this was over, she would finally be cleansed.

Her need for him would go down in one fiery ball of pleasure and rage. And when she looked at him she would feel...nothing.

Oh, she wanted that more than anything.

She kissed him back with all of that. All of the anger, all of the lust. His tongue swept against hers, his hold on her hips firm, blunt fingertips digging into her skin. Then he shifted his position, putting his hands between her thighs, stroking his fingers over the thin lace that concealed her desire for him.

She gasped, everything inside of her shaking. She had never been this intimate with a man before, and yet she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t experiencing any virginal nerves. She was more than ready for this. It was the combination of years of fantasies. An explosion of... Well, of everything.

His fingers slipped beneath the fabric, gliding through her slick flesh. If he’d had any doubt about how much she wanted him, he couldn’t doubt it now.

“Yes,” he said, the word a growl.

The way he said that, the absolute, incontrovertible evidence of how much he wanted her in return radiated through her. Spurred her on. She grabbed hold of the waistband of his pants and underwear, tugging them down his lean hips. There was no place for tenderness here, no place for hesitation.

She reached between their bodies, wrapping her hand around his hardened length. It was her turn to shudder, her turn to growl. She had never touched a man like this. She had no idea he would be so very big. She was nearly weak with wanting him. This was why she felt hollow. This was what she needed to be filled.

He slipped one finger inside of her and her breath hissed through her teeth, the unfamiliar invasion shocking and immensely pleasurable.

She took hold of his arms, clinging onto his rock hard biceps as he continued to tease her with a preview of what she really wanted.

She looked up at him, her heart hammering in her chest. He was beautiful. There was no question. And she wanted him. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life. It was important that she know it was him. As if it could be anyone else. As if anyone else could ever make her feel this way. This exhilarating mixture of destructive anger and impossible need.

She kissed the corner of his mouth, tracing his lower lip with the tip of her tongue. He moved his hand from between her thighs, lifting it, grabbed hold of her bra and pulled it down, revealing her breasts to his gaze. He lowered his head, drawing one tightened nipple deep into his mouth.

Sensation shot through her like an arrow, hitting her low and deep. A low, harsh sound escaped her lips and she let her head fall back as she laced her fingers through his hair, tugging hard as he continued to pleasure her.

“Please,” she whimpered, “please.”

He moved away from her, then bent down grabbing ahold of his pants, pulling his wallet out of the pocket before producing a condom.

Her breath gathered up in her chest like a ball and held there, a heavy weight she couldn’t move. She could only watch him. Look her fill at his beautiful, masculine form. He was even more beautiful than she had imagined.

He returned to her, his bare chest pressing against hers as he flattened her against the wall. She looked at his face, his gorgeous, thoroughly despised, utterly beloved face.

She grabbed hold of him, bracketing his face with her hands and tugging him forward, kissing him hard and deep. He put his hand back between her thighs, this time pushing two fingers into her, stretching her gently. She was so ready for him. Beyond ready.

“Do it,” she said against his lips.

He moved his hand, gripping hold of her hips, sliding one hand down her thigh and lifting her leg, opening her to him. He tested her slick entrance with the blunt head of his arousal. Then he thrust deep inside.

The pain was sharp, swift. Tears stung her eyes, and she shut them quickly because she didn’t want him to see. She didn’t want him to know. She had felt powerful a few moments ago, but this made her feel a lot more vulnerable. Vulnerable was not what she wanted. She wanted pleasure, she wanted her desire satisfied. She wanted to rid herself of this toxic, intense feeling she had for him once and for all.

But, she hadn’t anticipated this. Not just the pain, but the feeling that she was breaking apart. The feeling that they were connected, closer than she had ever been with anyone.

Somehow, she had imagined the fact that she hated him might buffer against any other emotions.

But it didn’t.

So she kept her eyes closed.

If Apollo noticed, he didn’t comment. Instead, he fused his mouth to hers and flexed his hips, a flash of pleasure slowly overtaking the pain.

Slowly, all the discomfort began to recede. And she just wanted him. There was nothing else. There was no ugly history between them, there was no anger, no hatred. Nothing but an intense, burning need to be satisfied. She clung to him, to his shoulders, her lips pressed to his as he established a steady rhythm, pushing them both toward the brink.

He thrust hard and she let out a hoarse cry, raking her nails down his back. He growled, his rhythm faltering. And then, there was no more steadiness. There was nothing but a frantic race to the finish, his movements rough, intense. And she took it all. Every last bit.

He gripped her chin, tilting her face up, forcing her to meet his gaze. And she did. She didn’t look away, unwilling to flinch in the face of his challenge. She shivered, tension growing more and more intense in the pit of her stomach, her internal muscles gripping him tight as her orgasm began to build.

He slowed his movement suddenly, withdrawing slowly before pushing back in hard. White light broke out behind her eyes, release exploding inside her like a bomb, a wild burst of aftershocks radiating through her, leaving her shaken, weak. And then he followed, his entire body going stiff as he shuddered out his own release.

He lowered his head, his teeth digging into her collarbone. She let her head fall back against the wall, a sigh escaping her lips.

They stood like that, for just a moment. And then slowly, reality started to creep in.

She had done it. She had given her virginity to Apollo Savas.

And suddenly, horrifically, all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry.

She pushed at his shoulders, and he withdrew. She began to look around at the ground, realizing that only her shirt had been entirely discarded. Everything else was simply askew. That was—frankly—slightly more embarrassing than the alternative. She hadn’t even waited for him to undress her completely.

He would think she was completely desperate. He would think that she had been yearning after him for years.

It was the truth. Which was what made it particularly horrifying.

She straightened her clothes, tucking her skirt back into place, fixing her bra as she pulled her blouse back on. He said nothing. He simply watched her with those dark, unreadable eyes.

She smoothed her hand over her hair.

“Too little too late, agape,” he said.

She froze, her hand still poised over her undoubtedly wrecked ponytail. “Excellent,” she said, her voice so brittle she thought it might break.

“I am leaving in the morning.”

“All right,” she said, the words hollow, echoing in her head.

“I will not see you. I will not make any decisions about staffing changes until the next time we meet.”

“I’m relieved to hear that.”

“I’ll be back in town on the twentieth. Make sure you keep your calendar clear.”

With that, she could see she was dismissed. With no more fanfare than if they had simply finished a meeting.

And he was still naked. It was absurd. But she wasn’t going to highlight the absurdity. Not when she simply wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible so she could have a complete and total meltdown.

“Then I’ll see you on the twentieth.”

She collected her purse, drawing the strap over her shoulder and clinging tightly to it. To keep herself from... Slapping him? Kissing him again? She wasn’t certain.

“Excellent. Should I call you a cab?”

“No,” she said, checking her watch. “It’s... It’s only three o’clock. I have to go back to work.”

She had to go back to work like this. With the impression of his hands still on her skin, her cheeks burning from the brush of his whiskers against them.

“So it is.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

He tilted his head. “Goodbye, Elle.”

CHAPTER THREE

ANTICIPATING THE TWENTIETH had become something of a reverse Christmas countdown. In that she hoped it would never come. It might have been nice to have an Apollo Advent calendar though. So that every time she thought about him arriving she could eat a piece of chocolate to try to deal with her stress.

When she arrived at the office that morning it was with an industrial-strength coffee, a bottle of ibuprofen and a very fake smile plastered to her lips.

Because Apollo was due to arrive—who knew when—to start handing down edicts from his high horse. And she was going to have to face him for the first time since they had... Since that day in his hotel room.

The very thought of that made humiliating color wash through her face. That day had been an aberration. Something that would never be repeated. She had, after all, gone the first twenty-six years of her life without sex. She should be able to happily get through another few weeks. Then, maybe when everything settled down, when Apollo stopped coming in and poking at her employees, reshuffling her business and in general upending her life, she would contend with the fact that she needed to find a relationship.

That was the problem. She had simply waited too long. She had allowed Apollo and her desire for him to become so large in her mind that nothing else could compare.

Well, now she’d had sex. With Apollo, as it happened. So, question answered, tension diffused.

She was a modern woman. She wasn’t going to allow him to make her feel ashamed about her actions. Even though, considering he was a relic of a man, he would attempt to make her feel ashamed. If for no other reason than he would be actively attempting to assert his dominance over her.

Well, no thank you. She was...indomitable.

She gritted her teeth, opening the door to her office and nearly dropping the coffee in her hand when she saw who was already sitting at her desk. “That’s my seat,” she said, the words coming out crisp and harsh.

“It’s lovely to see you too, agape.”

“Now, Apollo,” she said, deciding that she was going to be the one to address the elephant in the room before he got a chance. It was there, she might as well be the one to name it. “Don’t try to sweet-talk me just because we had sex.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, his lips tipping up into a smile.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. That would require you to know how to sweet-talk.”

“You rocked my world. I saw God. You have ruined me for all other women.”

She gritted her teeth against the strange, ridiculous warmth that flooded her when he spoke. He was being a jerk, and she knew it. So his words shouldn’t make her...anything. She took a fortifying breath.

“What you said,” she said, waving her hand. “Substitute ‘men’ for ‘women’, ‘slightly disorganized’ for ‘rocked’, and ‘God’ for... I don’t know, maybe ‘a really good cheesecake’? Not exactly divine, but adequate.”

“You are in typical form today.”

“I try for consistency, Apollo. It’s part of my charm.”

“I have rarely seen evidence of your charm. Your charms perhaps, but I’m not really speaking of your personality.”

“Right, well, for some reason things have been especially difficult between us lately, haven’t they? Though, I imagine not as difficult as things have been between you and my father. Have you spoken to him since you rammed that knife into his back?”

“Oh, yes. Of course we have.”

“You’re sick. How could you do that to your own—”

“He is not my own anything. I am not your blood, agape. And a good thing to or what happened between us would be off-limits. Both in the past and in the future.”

She gritted her teeth, trying not to blush. She was definitely playing at being slightly more blasé and experienced than she was. But he hadn’t called her on it yet. So she was going to carry on. “I would rather run my new Jimmy Choos through the shredder, thanks.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days? I admit, that doesn’t sound very sexy.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Right. Tell me, Elle, how is my mother?” he asked.

Elle arched a brow. “How long has it been since you’ve spoken to Mariam?”

He shrugged. “Months? She doesn’t approve of my betrayal any more than you or your father do.”

“And yet you don’t feel any guilt over it?”

“I have my reasons,” he said, his tone so cold and hard it could cut glass.

“I’m sure you do, but none of them are compelling enough for me or my family. I don’t care what your reasons are. And your mother is well,” she said. “I just talked to her last night.”

It had been difficult to talk to her stepmother when memories of what had passed between her and Apollo had lingered so persistently. She had felt...guilty and completely transparent. Thankfully, Mariam had her own topics to discuss and hadn’t seemed to notice Elle’s general silence.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “as charming as this little detour has been, let’s get down to business.”

He reached up, touching the knot on his tie. “Oh, you meant actual business.”

“You’re a pig.”

“I’m wounded. Now, I’ve been going over projections for the quarter. You have to either increase profits soon or you need to start cutting expenses. I can guarantee one, but I can’t guarantee the other.” He stood, placing his hands on the desk. Her desk.

She tried to cling to her anger. Anger that would hopefully be much more powerful than the attraction that was still surging through her. What was her problem? She was supposed to be cured. She was supposed to have inoculated herself to all future Apollo encounters. Cure yourself from a snakebite with snake venom, and all that. But she didn’t feel cured. She did not feel at all inoculated. In fact, she felt a little bit dizzy.

“Of course you can’t,” she said, the words coming out harsh. “No one can guarantee a profit increase. But trust me, if we keep on going in this new direction—”

“This isn’t about trust. It’s about the bottom line. I have a great deal more experience in business than you do, Elle.”

Those words rankled. In part because they were true. In part because they dug beneath the suit of armor she had worked so hard to put into place today. It hit the wound beneath it that twinged every day. That she was her father’s second choice through and through. When she failed at this, she would prove that she never should have been here in the first place. That if her father had had his way he would have put someone else in her position. That if Apollo weren’t too important for it, if Apollo hadn’t turned against them, it would likely have been him.

You decided failure be damned, remember?

Yes. She had. But it was difficult to feel committed to that now.

“But I care about this company.”

“As do I. It’s a part of my bottom line, and there is nothing I care about more than my bottom line.”

“Well, Matte is only part of your bottom line because you set out to acquire it when you saw that it was floundering. You knew what you were getting.”

“And without my influence this company would probably already be six feet under. Like the rest of the holdings I bought from your father.”

“You fired the final shot into them.”

“A mercy killing,” he said, his tone hard. “Don’t oppose me, Elle. I am not doing this for my own amusement. If I succeed, you will succeed along with me. I am not the enemy that you set me up to be.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Except, it was a disagreement they were not going to settle. Not without blood anyway. “Yes, but you said you were standing there ready to pull the plug, so let’s be honest. You aren’t a savior, either.”

“I never claimed to be.”

“Well, don’t stand there and pretend that you aren’t the villain.”

“Oh, did you think that’s what I was doing? You’re wrong there. I know full well that I’m the villain here, agape. If I had a mustache I would twirl it. Alas. You will have to settle for the assurance that I know full well where I stand in this little play. However, we do not have to oppose each other. I know that my presence is sinister. However, there is nothing you can do to fight it. But understand I will save Matte if it’s at all possible.”

“You’re here to announce cuts today, aren’t you?”

“Surprisingly, no. But I did come to discuss something with you.”

“What?” she asked, feeling suspicious.

“I would like for you to come to my European headquarters. To get a little bit of an idea for how things run, to attend to some meetings there, and to attend a certain number of charity events.”

“What?”

“What I would like to do is help revitalize the image of Matte. I would like to bring you into the public eye. Have you as the public face, so to speak. With a little bit of help you could provide a facelift all on your own. And then, maybe we would be able to avoid cuts.”

She hadn’t expected this. She was, in fact, struck dumb by the fact that he was extending a hand out. That he was offering her a chance to not only save the company, but to do it in such a public way.

She had been prepared to be the one left standing in the ashes. A phoenix who was not poised to rise. She had been prepared to go down in flames, with her hands on Apollo’s naked body.

And now...now he was changing things. Again.

“You just expect me to pick up and go to Europe with you?”

“Yes. And I don’t exactly expect you to have a major issue with being asked to spend some time in Greece with me.”

“Your headquarters are in Greece still? Are you the last remaining corporation in the country?”

“I am successful. Worldwide. It would be a poor thanks to my homeland to remove the jobs and revenue I provide simply because there’s been some unrest.”

“Please, don’t tell me you have a heart. Only a moment ago you were telling me that your decisions were based on the bottom line.”

“I don’t have a heart. I simply have a strong liking for dolmas and ouzo.”

“That I can believe.”

He smiled, and for a moment, she felt like she was looking back at the boy he had been. The boy she had known all those years ago. The one who had captivated her from the first moment she had laid eyes on him.

The boy she had proceeded to snipe at and torture with flippant remarks every chance she got. Reminding him that he wasn’t really a St. James. Because she’d been nothing more than a little girl with a crush and she’d handled it like they were on the playground.

But though things had never been easy between Apollo and her, he’d been very close with her father. But as close as Apollo and her father had once been, they were just as distant now.

And she had been thrown into the middle of that divide. Tossed into a storm she could never hope to weather. Between two alpha males locking horns. One defending his turf, the other intent on destroying it.

So take control. Do this.

“Well, I’m not going to complain about a free vacation,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. She wasn’t going to show her hand. Not to him. Wasn’t going to let him see that this mattered to her. That she was going to use this—whatever it was to him—to gain a handle on things again.

To redeem herself.

“Oh, this isn’t going to be a vacation,” he said, rounding the desk and making his way toward the door. “We will go to Greece and work. Additionally, there is a charity event in Athens that we will attend together.”

“As business associates,” she said, “I assume.”

She couldn’t even imagine her father’s reaction. If he had any idea that she and Apollo— He would be furious. Disgusted.

The idea of disappointing him like that...of losing him altogether, was something she couldn’t fathom.

Her mother had left when she’d been a child. She could barely remember her. But she remembered the hole left behind, because it was still there.

She couldn’t go through that again.

Apollo gave her a dismissive glance. “What else would we be? The entire idea is to strengthen the brand. Should there be any suspicion that the two of us had—”

“There’s no need to keep bringing it up.”

“You’re the one who seems to persist in bringing it up.”

Elle crossed her arms, shaking her head, her ponytail swinging back and forth. His eyes followed the motion.

“You should wear your hair down,” he said.

She abruptly stopped shaking her head. “I didn’t ask you for fashion advice.”

“And yet, I’m giving it. Because you desperately need it.” He looked at her, his expression critical. “Yes, you need a slightly younger look. One that isn’t quite so...ironed.”

“Well, my clothes are ironed. Would you have them look rumpled?”

“I would have you look slightly less like a matron.”

She frowned. “I do not look matronly. I have a very classic sense of style. It’s chic.”

“You certainly know how to flatter your figure.” He didn’t bother to hide that he was looking. “But you need more than that to be the kind of brand that people remember.”

“I’m not a...brand,” she sputtered, “I’m a woman. Where are you going?” He had walked past her, heading for the door.

“I thought I might go and speak to some of the staff.”

“No,” she said, hurrying after him. “I do not wish to unleash you on them. I don’t want you talking about how their jobs may be in jeopardy when you make final decisions.”

“Their jobs may well not be in jeopardy if you don’t fight me every step of the way. People like a public face. You can provide that. You can be strongly associated with the brand, and in effect, become a brand yourself. A young, professional woman. Brilliant, fashionable. You can be that woman.”

She rolled her eyes. “That does not sound like—”

“It isn’t a negotiation. Either you comply with my plan, or you are subject to Plan B, which is making sweeping cuts and doing my best to lift profit margins that way.”

She made an exasperated sound, following him down the hall. “I wish you wouldn’t keep walking away from me.”

“I have places to be. I want to take a look at the different departments. Get a body count. So to speak.”

“We are talking.” She scampered after him. “Of course I will agree to go.”

He pushed the button for the elevator. “I’m glad to hear that. I get the feeling sometimes you’re just opposing me for the sake of it.”

“And I get the feeling that you’re an ass to me just because you enjoy it.”

He chuckled and she stepped in just as the doors began to close. “Well, you are possibly correct in that assessment. Anyway, you spent a great many years being an ass to me simply because you enjoyed it.”

She let out a harsh breath and watched the numbers on the elevator as it moved. Suddenly, she was very aware of the fact that she and Apollo were alone again. She looked at him, just a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. She tried to ignore the restless feeling between her thighs. Tried to ignore the restless feeling in her body.

After what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened again, and they were on the floor that housed the marketing department. He stepped out of the elevator and began to sweep his way through the space like a destructive wind. As he whipped by, heads turned, expressions went from relaxed to terrified.

“See that? Your mere presence lowers morale. I hope you’re happy.”

“I don’t care about morale.” He paused by one of the desks. “Hello,” he said, clearly attempting to be charming. “My name is Apollo Savas. I’m the owner of this company. What is it you do?”

The girl, a blonde who could barely be twenty-five, blinked rather owlishly. She seemed to be struck dumb by his presence. Either by the fact that he was the owner of the company, or by the fact that he was just so damn good-looking. Truly, it was a problem. Elle felt a moment of sympathy for her.

“I’m on the marketing team for the makeup line,” she said, looking a little bit thunderstruck.

“Have you been satisfied with the performance of those products?”

“Well,” she said, shuffling the papers on her desk around, “we have seen an increase in revenue this past quarter. And our relationships with vendors—”

“How do you plan to continue the increase? What do you think attracts consumers to this product? Why should they buy this instead of say...any other brand of lipstick? I am a man, I know, but I’m not certain why one sort of cosmetic might be more attractive than another.”

“I... I...”

“Enough,” Elle said. “You do not need to prod at my staff.”

He turned toward her, an amused expression on his face, and suddenly she felt like they were the only two people in the room. That little blonde might as well have evaporated into thin air.

There was no question, she was not remotely as immune to Apollo and she would like to be.

* * *

Apollo would question the purity of his motives if his motives were—in fact—ever pure. They weren’t, so he was certain there was something self-serving and wretched behind them now. Even if he didn’t know precisely what.

He had wanted to impress upon Elle the importance of her complying with his plan. When he had left her after... After the appalling lack of control that had occurred in his hotel room, he had formulated a plan to try to improve things for her company. A foolish thing, perhaps. He didn’t know why he should care about the fate of her magazine. Beyond the fact that it was a potential profit machine for him.

Perhaps it was the fact that she had become collateral damage in a war he’d never intended to bring her into. But David had placed her in direct line of the firing squad.

Apollo wasn’t a kind man. At least, no one ever accused him of being so. And he had never made it a goal to be seen that way. He had cared about very few people growing up, and it had turned out those he had cared about most had betrayed him long ago.

And so he had stolen his stepfather’s empire, started dismantling it. But he had left Elle at Matte. God knew why. He’d known in the end he would destroy it, destroy her.

Perhaps it was because he knew what it was to be caught in the consequences of the sins of the father. Hers and his. Perhaps because he knew that—whether or not Elle had been kind to him when they were younger—she was innocent here.

But now...now it was as though a veil had been stripped away from his eyes. He would have to use her. There was no other choice. There was no preserving her. That much had been made clear when he’d taken her against the wall.

It had been symbolic in many ways of that protection being destroyed. That desire to keep her safe from himself being completely and utterly ripped away.

He could no longer ignore Elle. Could no longer dance around the fact that he would have to destroy her along with her father.

He would use her. And he would discard her.

It had nothing to do with his desire to strip her naked again. To watch her pale skin flush with pleasure once more. It had nothing at all to do with that, because he was not going to allow himself the indulgence.

Indulgence was unacceptable. But revenge? That was sweet.

“Perhaps you would like to give me a tour of the rest of the department, Elle?” he asked, ruthlessly cutting off his train of thought.

“Of course.”

They moved away from where they had been standing, and she continued on down the role of desks. “Just don’t talk to anyone,” she said, her voice hushed.

“Why is it that you think you can tell me what to do when I am in my own company?”

“Because I am the boss,” she said, her tone sounding slightly petulant. “That has to count for something somewhere.”

“Sadly for you, I am your boss. Being boss of a lot of other people doesn’t give you extra clout. I am the final word. So let it be written, et cetera.”

She swept through the little space quickly. “There you have it. And now, I expect you want to be going.”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’ll head back up to your office floor and set up for a few hours, get a few things done. I do like to familiarize myself with my acquisitions.”

Elle looked livid. Her jaw set, her lips in a flat line. “Can’t you do that in your hotel room?”

The mention of his hotel room brought back illicit memories. “I could. But I want to get a greater sense for how things are running here. It is in your best interest to keep me around. I might grow attached. I might yet see the importance of this team you keep talking about.”

She said nothing, but her expression took on a rather long-suffering edge. They walked back through the office space and toward the elevators again. She pushed the button, then pushed it again when the elevator didn’t immediately appear.

“If I didn’t know better I would say you were in a hurry to escape my presence.”

“I am,” she said, flashing a smile. One he very much wanted to kiss right off her pretty face. But he was still calculating. When. Where. What. He wouldn’t touch her until he made those decisions.

If he touched her at all.

“I do admire your honesty,” he said, instead of kissing her.

“What is taking so long?” She scowled, hitting the button again. Then suddenly, the doors slid open.

“Tenth time’s the charm,” he said, stepping inside.

She gave him a withering glance before moving inside after him.

The doors slid shut and he had the impression that all the air had been sucked out of the space.

The tension between them was unlike anything he had ever known before. Likely because she was the only woman he had ever bothered to resist. He could remember well the first time he had noticed her as a woman, rather than a girl. Sometime after her seventeenth birthday, when all of her snubs and cutting comments had begun to arouse even as they enraged.

When they’d given way to fantasies of him showing her how base and beneath her he truly was.

His attraction, swift, sudden and abhorrent to him, had hit him low and fast in the gut, so quickly he had not had the chance to guard against it. He had not expected to have to guard against an attraction to his chilly younger stepsister.

He had nearly acted on it back then.

He could well remember the time he’d come home from university to see her getting out of the pool. Sleek curves barely concealed by a hot pink bikini that should have clashed terribly with her red hair, but rather was all the more enticing for how incongruous it was.

And he’d gone over to her, and she’d said something snotty, as she usually did. Then he’d grabbed hold of her arm, and pulled her to him. Her green eyes had gone wide, those pink lips parting gently. Begging to be kissed.

But he hadn’t. He’d watched the water drops roll over her bare skin, over her breasts, had imagined lowering his head and slicking up the slow-rolling water. But he hadn’t done that, either.

He’d waited. Waited until her eyes had darkened with desire. Until he’d seen her breath speed up, the pulse in her neck beating at a rapid rate. He had held her arm until he’d been sure he’d turned her on. Until he’d been sure the little ice princess was hot all over.

Then he’d let her go, and turned away, hard as iron and fantasizing about what he might have had.

And now... Well, now he’d had her, hadn’t he? He had answered the question he’d never meant to ask.

He looked at her now, at the sleek ponytail that begged for him to grab hold of it, to wrap it around his hand. Her long, elegant neck. The soft curve of her pale lips. His stomach tightened. Clearly, his lust for her was not so easily dealt with via one quick screw up against the wall.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said, pressing the button that would take them to the floor that housed her office.

“Do what?”

“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me.”

“I’m trying to unlock the mysteries of your mind,” he said. “Or rather, I’m attempting to remember what you look like underneath your clothes.” He knew that taunting her was the wrong decision. Knew that it would only push them back to the place he was so desperate to stay away from.

You don’t want to stay away. You want her naked and panting in your arms again.

“Stop it,” she said.

“You’re so desperate to forget what happened between us.”

“Nobody likes to remember rock bottom, Apollo. I consider having sex with you my own personal walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

“I’m honored, I’m sure.”

“Honored isn’t what you’re supposed to be.” She arched one finely groomed brow, her lips twisted into a sneer. She was so self-righteous when she was just as guilty as he was. So sure she was above this attraction that burned between them when she was just as enslaved.

He wanted her. The angrier he got with her, the more he wanted her. Whatever this thing was, the sick, twisted desire that was exploding between them, he couldn’t measure it or assign a number to account for it. He couldn’t parse it the way he could a business acquisition. It wasn’t the simple desire he felt for the sort of woman he usually picked up to spend a few hours of fun with. It was much, much darker.

It was forbidden. Something he had told himself he couldn’t have.

Perhaps that was why it was coming to bite him in the ass now. He didn’t typically practice restraint. Maybe by creating forbidden fruit, by placing it in the middle of his personal garden and telling himself he could not eat it, neither could he touch it, he had created temptation.

That made the most sense. Since Elle looked like original sin. A brilliant, shining apple he wanted to bite into.

And why shouldn’t he? His reasoning for resisting her didn’t matter now. He didn’t want to honor her father. And he still wanted to kiss that puckered expression off her face. So why the hell not?

“You don’t like me,” he said, that darkness compelling him now. “And yet, you do want me.”

“Come now, Apollo, don’t tell me you like every single one of your bed partners. We both know that sex isn’t love,” she said, tilting her chin upward, a faint blush spreading across her cheekbones, adding a kind of dissonance to her bold words.

Elle was certainly playing the part of experienced woman. She had gone up in flames in his arms, an equal participant in the conflagration. And yet, it didn’t all ring true. Didn’t quite piece together in a way that made sense.

He wasn’t sure he cared to analyze it. It wouldn’t change his actions either way.

“Perhaps. But sex and hate don’t typically go together,” he said. “And you claim to hate me.”

“I do,” she said, green eyes flashing. “I hate you for what you’ve done to my father. To me.”

“Not enough to leave the company.”

“That would be abandoning it altogether. What he built. What he’s trying to keep hold of, in spite of you. I won’t do that.”

“I do admire your dedication. Your loyalty.”

“Why do you admire my loyalty? You don’t possess any of your own.”

“We admire the things in others we struggle with ourselves, do we not?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I certainly don’t admire anything in you.”

He chuckled, turning to face her, closing some of the distance between them. Her eyes widened and she backed against the wall. It reminded him a little bit too much of what had happened the last time they had been alone in an enclosed space together.

“I think there are a few things you admire about me,” he said, moving in a little bit closer. Her eyes widened, her pupils expanding, the green in her eyes reduced to a thin ring. Her mouth dropped open, soft and round, and begging to be kissed. To be explored. “You most certainly admire what I can do to your body. I think we both know that.”

“I do possess some restraint,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Do you?” he asked, his voice sounding rough, ragged even to his own ears. “Perhaps we should test it.”

He reached out and hit the stop button on the elevator, his stomach tightening, feeling as though a fist had closed around it.

He reached out and took hold of her arm, mimicking that day out by the pool.

“You want me,” he said. “Admit it.”

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