by Abby Green
She was glad she was sitting down because she was pretty sure she would have collapsed otherwise. ‘I… I told you I was pregnant. But I wasn’t?’
He nodded. His face was impossibly grim.
She tried to make sense of it all, and also the gut-wrenching knowledge that he hadn’t come after her, because she’d been the one to go to him in the end. ‘But why would I do such a thing?’
His mouth went thin. ‘You really have to ask that question? We slept together and you saw an opportunity.’
He indicated with a hand. ‘Look around you. You hungered for a better life and you were going to use me to get it.’
A moment ago Sasha had felt as if her legs wouldn’t support her but now she stood again, too agitated to keep sitting. She paced back and forth. ‘But that’s…’ She stopped. ‘That’s an awful thing to do.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he agreed.
She struggled to recall any hint of what might have led her to do such a drastic thing but her mind stayed annoyingly blank.
‘Maybe I believed I was pregnant? Did we…use protection?’
His whole body bristled. ‘Of course. I would never be so lax. But I will admit that I didn’t check afterwards. There’s always a possibility of failure and you capitalised on that, sowing the seed of doubt in my mind.’
‘But how were you so sure I’d lied about the pregnancy?’
‘I had my suspicions when you showed no signs of pregnancy and then after an…incident you admitted it was a lie.’
‘An incident…?’
He nodded and paced away from her, turned back. ‘I was in London on business and came back after a panicked call from Rhea. You were hosting a party with some new-found friends.’
The way Apollo’s lip curled on friends told her what he’d thought of them. ‘I found you snorting cocaine and drinking. When you’d sobered up you admitted it had been a lie to trap me.’
Sasha went back to the chair and sat down again. Reeling. She felt cold and wrapped her arms around herself.
She forced herself to look at Apollo. She felt deep in her bones that she wouldn’t have done such heinous things—lying about being pregnant, taking drugs—couldn’t have. And yet why would he lie? This explained his antipathy and also the way Rhea and Kara had looked at her like an unexploded bomb on her return from the hospital.
She went even colder as she absorbed the full extent of everything he’d told her. ‘You didn’t want to marry me.’
His jaw tightened. ‘No.’ Just that. No.
Why not? trembled on her lips but she didn’t have to ask that question. He hadn’t been interested in her after their night together in London. Her innocence must have been a huge turn-off.
Desperately trying to salvage something positive, she said, ‘But in London you took me for dinner…to your apartment… You liked me then?’ She hated how insecure she sounded.
A sense of exposure hit Apollo again. His voice was taut with self-recrimination. ‘You captivated me. Briefly. You were different.’
‘Different from what?’
Sasha looked so guileless. Pale. Eyes huge.
Was she really faking this amnesia? Was it too convenient that she was remembering snippets but not everything? Was she laughing at him? Forcing him to articulate why he’d wanted her?
But something uneasy in his gut told him that she couldn’t be faking it. She looked too tortured.
He said, ‘Different from everyone else. Other women.’
Twin flags of pink made her cheeks flush and for a moment Apollo was rewarded with a flashback to watching her face flush with pleasure as she’d moved under him, around him.
She said tightly, ‘You mean I wasn’t as sophisticated.’
Apollo had to use every atom of his control to counter the rush of desire. Damn her. ‘You caught my eye. You were refreshingly unaffected. Open. Friendly. But it was all a lie.’
Sasha remembered feeling invisible that night. Until he’d looked directly at her, and the flash of pure heat that had gone through her body. Her tray of drinks had wobbled precariously and he’d stepped forward and steadied it. His lazy, charming smile.
‘Promise to meet me for a drink and I’ll give the tray back.’
She couldn’t remember sleeping with him or the aftermath, but she could imagine all too easily how he would have laid it out. Telling her not to expect more. A man like this would have been used to such scenarios with women. Had she been so desperate that she’d begged for more? She felt ashamed for herself.
In a way now Sasha was glad she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. This was humiliating enough without recalling in excruciating detail how banal the experience must have been for a man of the world like him. To sleep with a virgin. She’d obviously been a novelty for a jaded billionaire and her appeal hadn’t lasted long.
Her head was starting to throb faintly. ‘What happens now?’
‘Nothing. Until you’ve recovered fully. Then we can discuss the future.’
The future.
Sasha felt slightly hysterical. She couldn’t recall much of the past, never mind the future.
She stood up. ‘I’m getting a headache. I think I’ll go to bed.’
Apollo watched as she turned and walked out. She was the colour of pale parchment. Maybe it had been too soon to tell her the unvarnished truth? No matter how much she’d insisted she wanted to know.
He felt an impulse to go after her and make sure she was okay but he told himself he was being ridiculous. The woman who had engineered a fake pregnancy to trap him into marriage was no delicate soul. Accident or no accident.
He poured himself another shot of whisky and downed it in one. It burned his throat. But he couldn’t get her pale face and huge shocked eyes out of his mind. He had to admit that he was finding it hard to continue suspecting that she was faking the amnesia. Sasha would never have been able to play this far more innocent incarnation for so long without cracking.
Which meant…this news was as shocking to her now as it had been to him when he’d first heard it.
Apollo cursed and put down the glass. He went upstairs and stood outside Sasha’s bedroom door for a long moment. He heard no sounds.
He knocked lightly but again there was no sound. He opened the door and went in. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. He could see no shape in the bed. And then he saw her, standing outside on the balcony.
She must have heard him because she turned around. She’d changed. She was wearing a diaphanous robe over what looked like a short negligée. From where he stood, Apollo could see the outline of her body. All slender curves and pale skin.
His blood surged, and he realised in that moment that he shouldn’t have come up here. Sasha stepped into the room. ‘Is something wrong?’
But instead of leaving, Apollo moved towards her as if drawn by a magnet. The moon was behind her, low in the sky. A perfect crescent. The milky glow made her look ethereal, adding a silver tinge to her rose-gold hair. It was down again, falling in soft waves over her shoulders.
He had an urge to touch her to make sure she was, in fact, real. He stopped a couple of feet away. Her scent reached him—lemon, underlain with something more tantalisingly exotic. But soft, not overpowering.
Different.
‘You said you had a headache.’
She touched her head. ‘It’s okay now, thank you. I think it was just taking in all that information…’
Sasha wasn’t sure that she wasn’t hallucinating right now. Was Apollo really standing in her room, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before?
But then, at that moment, he said, ‘I just wanted to check you were okay,’ and then turned around as if to leave.
Sasha acted on an impulse, reaching out with her hand. ‘Wait.’
He stopped. Turned around.
Sasha wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say. And then she did. She dropped her outstretched hand. ‘I don’t remember anything of what you said… It doesn’t feel like something I would do but then how do I know?’
She bit her lip. ‘Did you even care about the baby?’
Apollo had to school his expression in case she saw something he didn’t want to reveal. The pain of losing his entire family over a period of a few years had been so acute that he’d always vowed to avoid such pain again by not having a family of his own.
But, to his surprise, after the initial shock and anger at Sasha’s pregnancy news had abated, he’d found that the thought of a baby he could protect and nurture had softened something inside him. And had restored a broken sense of hope, optimism.
But then, the fact that she’d lied about it and roused those feelings had made a cruel mockery of the defences he’d built up over the years. They hadn’t been strong after all. Now, though, they were ironclad. Not that he would ever reveal to her what she’d done to him. She’d revealed a weakness, and reopened a wound and he would never forgive her for that.
‘I had never intended on having a relationship or becoming a father. Not after losing my entire family. But of course I would have cared for any child of mine. I’m not a monster.’
Sasha’s eyes were huge. Full of emotion. Exposure prickled over his skin just as she said huskily, ‘I’m sorry…for what happened. I don’t know why I pretended to be pregnant but I’d like to think I had good reasons.’
He fought against the image she was projecting of someone compassionate, who cared. He should move back, out of her dangerous orbit, but instead he found himself moving closer. All he could see was her. Looking impossibly innocent. Impossibly because she hadn’t been innocent at all. Or had she? Physically perhaps, at least.
He had an intensely erotic memory of how it had felt to thrust deep into that silken embrace. Her muscles had clamped so tightly around him he’d seen stars.
Angry at his lack of control, he asked curtly, ‘Are you really sorry, though? Or is this just an elaborate showcase of your acting skills to entice me back into your bed so you can try to get pregnant for real?’
Horror at his relentless cynicism made Sasha take a step back. ‘No. How can you say such a thing?’
Apollo’s mouth was a thin line. ‘Very easily, because you did it before, countless times, including the memorable occasion when I came home to find you naked in my bed.’
Shock and disbelief made Sasha take another step back. She shook her head. ‘No, there is no way I would have ever done such a thing.’
Apollo just arched a brow. ‘Why would I lie? You have to agree it made sense. After all, you weren’t pregnant so you needed to get pregnant. Fast.’
Sasha swallowed. Had that really been her? So desperate? Conniving? She struggled to defend herself when she felt as if everything inside her was crumbling. ‘But it’s obvious you don’t want me—why would I have humiliated myself like that?’
Apollo was looking at her so intensely she could scarcely breathe.
He said something under his breath then, a word she didn’t understand, and then said, almost as if to himself, ‘I thought I didn’t want you any more, but now it’s all I can think about. What kind of sorcery is this?’
Sasha’s heart slammed to a stop, and then started again in an erratic rhythm. She suddenly became very aware of her flimsy garments. The silky thigh-skimming negligée and floaty dressing gown. Garments she didn’t feel particularly comfortable in, but apparently she hadn’t favoured comfort over style.
She tried to speak. ‘I don’t… There’s no sorcery.’
His gaze raked her up and down and she trembled under its force. Her breasts felt heavy, their tips tightening into hard points, pressing against the silky material. Her body remembered this man. His touch. But she didn’t. Frustration coursed through her. She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth, the firm sculpted lines.
Apollo barely heard Sasha’s denial. He knew this was madness. That he shouldn’t have come to her bedroom. But rational thought was fast dissolving in a haze of lust. He reached out and caught a loose tendril of silky hair, winding it around his finger, tugging her gently towards him.
When he looked down he could see her breasts rising and falling with her rapid breath, pale swells framed enticingly by lace, inviting him to touch, explore. Electricity hummed between them, thick and urgent.
He tipped her chin up with his forefinger and thumb. Her eyes were huge pools of blue. He had a flashback to the first time he’d kissed her, sitting in a discreet booth of the exclusive hotel bar where he’d taken her for a drink when she’d finished work on that first night.
It had been a rare novelty, waiting for her to emerge from a staff entrance of the hotel. He could remember the sensation of something loosening inside him. He’d been so focused for so long and suddenly he’d been diverted from that single-mindedness.
She’d been endearingly self-conscious in her black skirt, white shirt and black jacket. Flat shoes. Sheer tights.
He’d wanted her then and he wanted her now. He lowered his head, anticipation prickling across his skin. He’d thought he’d never kiss her again.
Hadn’t wanted to.
But he was being punished for that complacency now, because here he was, as consumed with lust as he had been the first time.
Tension was a tight coil inside Sasha as she waited for Apollo’s mouth to touch hers and she told herself desperately that he’d kissed her before—more than kissed her, so it shouldn’t come as a shock—but when his mouth touched hers, it was more than a shock. It was an earthquake, erupting from her solar plexus and spreading out to every nerve-ending, bringing with it thousands of volts of electricity.
She wasn’t even aware of her hands going to his shirt and clinging on for dear life. His hands were in her hair, angling her head, and their mouths were on fire. She tasted the whisky he’d been drinking and she felt molten and solid all at the same time. It was intoxicating, and nothing could have prepared her for this.
His chest was a steel wall against her breasts. She arched instinctively closer, seeking closer contact. One of his hands moved down, skimming over her arm, around to her back, pressing her even closer.
His arousal pressed against her lower belly and the flood of damp heat between her legs was almost embarrassing. She pressed her thighs together in a bid to stem the rising tide of desire but it was impossible.
But at that very moment Apollo pulled back. It was so sudden that Sasha went with him and he had to steady her, putting his hands on her arms. She opened her eyes, feeling dizzy. Stunned.
She was breathing as if she’d run a race. Her heart was hammering, and a hunger that was new and yet familiar at the same time pounded through her blood, demanding to be satisfied. She felt greedy. Needy.
It took a second for Apollo’s face to come back into focus and when she registered his harsh expression she pulled free of his hands, even though her legs still felt jittery.
He said, ‘That shouldn’t have happened. It was never part of this marriage deal. Go to bed, Sasha, it’s late.’
He turned and left the room and Sasha stared after the empty space for a long minute. She felt too shell-shocked to even be irritated that he’d spoken to her like a child, as if she’d walked into his room and kissed him.
Her skin felt seared alive, her heart was still racing and her whole body was crying out for a fulfilment it knew but couldn’t remember. Her breasts ached and she throbbed between her legs, and that was after just a kiss.
She moved on autopilot, closing the doors to the balcony, slipping out of the robe and under the covers of the bed. She eventually fell into a fitful sleep, with thoughts and dreams full of disjointed, disturbing images.
Apollo stood under the punishing spray of a cold shower for longer than he could almost
bear. Eventually he got out and hitched a towel around his waist, catching his reflection in the mirror above the sink.
He looked pained. And he knew it wasn’t from the cold shower. What the hell had he been thinking—going to Sasha’s room? Kissing her? He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.
It had taken every ounce of his restraint to pull back and not rip apart those flimsy garments, spreading her back on the bed so he could relive the night they’d shared in London. So that he could consummate this marriage.
This marriage was not about consummation or sleeping together. And while he hadn’t wanted her it had been all too easy to forget he had ever wanted her.
You never forgot.
He scowled at his reflection.
But now the floodgates were open. He’d tasted Sasha again and she was as potent as she had been the first time.
He wanted his wife.
But she was the last thing he should want. Especially not when she had the ability to reopen old wounds with just a look from those huge eyes. What he needed was to excise Sasha from his life once and for all.
And for that to happen she needed to regain her memory. The sooner that happened and she reverted to her duplicitous nature, the sooner Apollo could get on with his life and forget she’d ever existed.
What he needed to do now was provide every opportunity to nudge her memory in the right direction.
Sasha was trying to avoid looking at Apollo across the breakfast table on the outdoor terrace. She was still raw after that kiss and gritty-eyed after a mostly sleepless night, broken by disturbing dreams she was afraid to analyse.
The impulse to look, though, was too strong and she glanced his way to see him lifting a small coffee cup to his mouth, his gaze on the paper in his hand. To her intense irritation he looked as if nothing had happened last night. He was as cool and fresh as if he’d enjoyed the sleep of a baby.
He was clean-shaven and the memory of his stubble against her jaw made heat rise up through her body. For a breathless panicky moment she wondered if she’d, in fact, dreamt that kiss, but then he put his paper down and looked at her and the jolt of electricity that went straight to her solar plexus told her that kiss at least hadn’t been a dream. It was of little comfort.