by Nikki Sloane
I moaned, as low and deeply as I had then. The heat building inside me intensified.
What about the memory of what I considered our first time? In the wine cellar, he’d pulled me down into his lap, and I’d ridden him to a blistering orgasm. I could still remember how he’d kissed me afterward on the couch, our sweaty, naked bodies still connected.
Tingling pinpricks scurried over my skin as the orgasm approached, and I squirmed on top of Macalister’s bed, my left hand balling the bedcover into a fist.
After all the times Royce and I had been together, still no memory compared to that first night in the library. When he’d pushed me against that bookcase, shoved his hand up my dress, and said I was his now.
I’d never stop being his.
The orgasm crashed into me. It broke like waves over a reef, the pleasure hitting me so hard it drove me into the mattress. The ecstasy made me contract and writhe like a wild, untamed thing, who fought against the heat ripping through her body.
When it finally diminished, I inhaled slowly and pushed to sit up.
Macalister’s mouth hung open, looking like he’d just uttered the word fuck and been frozen like that. My clothes were on the floor by his feet. Perhaps he’d dropped them in surprise. Beneath his suit coat, his upper body was tense, his hands fisted at his sides. He’d had to stand perfectly still to maintain control over himself.
The power had flipped between us, as had everything else. His gaze put out heat, but mine was icy cold. I was deliberate in my movements while he stood awkwardly. As I dressed, I stared him down, defiance dripping from my expression.
“I was in your bed,” I told him after I finished tugging up the zipper on the back of my dress. “I hope you enjoyed it, because that will never, ever happen again.”
EIGHTEEN
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I spent it planning, unable to go to Royce until I had something to soften the blow that his father had figured out his master plan, and how I’d come by that information.
Years of effort were just . . . gone.
It was the weekend, so for once I was showered and dressed before he was even awake. I stood at the edge of his bed and looked at him sleeping peacefully, not wanting to shatter it. After today, I doubted he’d sleep much for a while. And he looked so good with his tan skin against the white sheets.
He stirred when I sat beside him and his eyes blinked open, hazy with sleep. They gazed at me, and it only took a moment for them to sharpen with recognition. He slid back, propping himself up on his pillow.
“Hey,” he said, looking happy to see me.
I did it like ripping off a bandage. “Your father knows.”
Resignation washed down his face. “That I signed my shares over to you? I figured he’d find out.”
“No.” The lump in my throat made it difficult to talk. “He knows about the fraud at Ascension and your plan to call for a vote of no-confidence. He’s already told the board.”
“What?” Royce sat upright and stared at me with disbelief, his chest moving rapidly to keep up with his furious heart. As the words soaked in, his gaze drifted away from me. He was distracted, deep in thought and working the problem. “He told you this?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why would he do that?”
I’d thought about that quite a bit last night and come up with two reasons. “Because he’s either hoping to scare you out of calling the vote, or because he thinks he’s already won, and it doesn’t matter.”
He considered both for a long moment, then abruptly threw off the covers and climbed out of the bed.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
His expression was as hard as stone and fire burned in his eyes. “Fight,” Ares answered.
My heart picked up, matching the rhythm of his war drums. This was what I’d expected he’d say. “He told them you knew about Ascension and stayed quiet. He’s been campaigning against you for weeks already.”
“Yeah? It won’t fucking matter when the stock is in freefall. There’s only one person responsible for that, and the shareholders won’t accept anything other than his removal.”
Excitement made me rise from the bed and join him. “You only need four votes, and I think I can get you Scoffield.”
He paused. “What?”
“You wanted to know how Emily found out about the initiation. It was Mrs. Scoffield.” The rules were strict about this. Just like I’d signed an agreement to never talk about it, so had she. “If you tell him you have proof she violated her NDA, he’ll side with you.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Who else? Burrows? Geffen?”
“Burrows, maybe. Geffen will be . . . tough. I don’t know him like my dad does.”
“We won’t be able to get Lynch.” He was Macalister’s right hand and would follow his boss to the ends of the earth. “What about Powell?”
Royce made a face as he considered HBHC’s chief operating officer. “Doubtful.”
“That leaves Shaunessy and Vanderburgh,” I said. “You can get them.”
It wasn’t lost on me I’d spent weeks learning about the men, so I could prove my loyalty and respect for the board, and now I was using it to try to topple it from the inside.
If Royce was unsure, none of it showed. He looked confident and ready for battle.
But a thought leapt into his mind, making him wrap an arm around my waist and draw me in. “Marist.” His eyes searched mine, and he turned serious. “What did you have to do to get him to tell you this?”
“I was worried he’d figured your plan out, but I had to be sure, so I did what I had to.” I sucked in a preparatory breath. “It was win at all costs, so I made a deal.”
Royce’s nostrils flared with alarm. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I said on a broken voice, “but I can’t tell you what it was—not today. I love you, and I promise I will tell you everything, but you need to trust me. If you’re going to beat him, right now you can’t worry about me. You have to focus.”
Royce’s eyes went wider than the Wall Street bell. “Marist, what did he do?”
“Did you hear what I just said?” I gripped his face in my hands. “Please. We have to make him think he’s won. You want to destroy him? This is how we do it.”
“Jesus, just tell me.”
But I couldn’t. It was Pandora’s Box. “It’s over. Done. All knowing would do is distract you, which is exactly what he wants.”
His hands abandoned me so they could ball into fists, and he stomped toward the door, growling it with pure malice. “Fine. I’ll go ask him.”
“Stop,” I cried. “First off, you’re not even dressed. And second, you can’t.”
He turned in place, giving me a defiant look, and since he was only wearing a tight pair of gray underwear, I saw him in all his glory. Anger corded his muscular chest and twisted the tendons of his arms. He was more beautiful and perfect than a statue of Adonis.
But he wasn’t Adonis, he was Ares, and his tone was loaded with aggression and indignation. “What do you mean, I can’t?”
“He won’t tell you. And if you go after him, he’ll say he has cause to pull you off the board.”
And it would be impossible to call for a vote then.
There was rage flowing through his blood, but as the cold realization fell on him, I watched that fury become caged inside his stiff body. He yearned for reckless battle, but the strategic side of him was stronger.
“I know you want war,” I said, “and I promise you it’s coming, but we have to strike when it’s right.”
“So, I’m not supposed to do anything? Just sit around in the fucking dark?”
“I know all too well that it’s not easy,” I said. “You put me through that once. But believe me, I will tell you when it’s all over and this is for the best. Trust me.” Could he see how important this was? “And know that I’m yours, completely. I didn’t give him what he wanted, Royc
e.”
Anxiety twisted on his face. The desire to know was fierce, but I was determined to blot it out with a different desire.
I grabbed the hem of my dress and lifted, stretched it up over my head, and tossed it away. “I have some ideas on what to do while we wait.”
With the dress gone, I stood before him in the most expensive French lingerie I’d ever owned, purchased for our honeymoon. The mesh and lace were a creamy beige color and the exact shade of my skin tone. It hid nothing, not the dusty color of my nipples or the bare slit between my legs. It was like an optical illusion. Only the faint outlines and the pattern of the lace showed on the bra and panties. I looked naked otherwise.
Yearning flooded through me, and I hoped at least a fraction of it showed on my face. “I need you to do all the things to me only my husband can.”
My request gave his anger a place to go, and it channeled eagerly toward release. Royce’s swift approach was accompanied by a dark, intense look that announced he’d vanquish anyone who stood in the way of what he wanted—and the thing he wanted most right now was me.
He crushed his lips to mine in a kiss that didn’t care if I liked it or not. He licked into my mouth with a harsh, dominating tongue and filled his rough hands with my flesh. God, there wasn’t anything else like it. He treated me as an opponent. One who he’d show no mercy.
All the frustration he had at not being able to strike back at his father funneled into the way he picked me up and hurled me onto the bed. I landed on the mattress with a hard bounce, but I didn’t scramble out of the way when he threw himself on top of me. He bit a path down the side of my neck, creating a line of fire, and the stubble across his jaw burned as it abraded my skin.
I moaned my satisfaction darkly.
As his mouth continued to carve a trail along the edge of my bra, he shifted and moved to one side of me, giving himself room so he could shove a hand between my thighs. With the whisper-thin panties, his touch felt like there was nothing between us, and each caress of his hand sharpened my need like the stroke of a whetstone on a blade.
I wanted him to feel the same painful need I did. When his mouth closed around my nipple and sucked at me through the lace, I jammed a hand beneath the waistband of his underwear and closed a fist around the hot, hard length of him.
“Oh,” I groaned, my body bowing off the mattress as he clamped his teeth down and pulled the distended nipple away from my body. It hurt, but in a good way. Pleasure tugged deep in my belly as his tongue fluttered over the pinched skin.
I was only able to pump my fist on him a few times before he released my nipple and rolled away onto his back, hooking his thumbs under his underwear and yanking it down his strong legs. When I tried to follow his lead and take off my bra, he grunted his disapproval. He climbed on top of me, straddling my hips and pinning my wrists to the bed.
Being trapped beneath him was exciting. His cock was hard and heavy on my stomach, and I squirmed, trying to wriggle upward so he could rub it lower between my thighs. The ache for him was relentless, the craving for him to be inside me brutal.
But I wasn’t just caught under Royce’s hands. His powerful gaze held me down like gravity. He leaned in, tracing the tip of his nose at the corner of my mouth and brushing his open lips over mine. It mercilessly teased his kiss. When I chased him, he was ready for it. His bottom lip swept over my top lip. Contact, but not connection.
It only made me more insatiable.
“Why’d you do it?” Accusation hinted his tone. He was angry with the situation I’d put him in and struggling hard not to show it. “Why’d you go to him?”
“Because I want you to win.” I tried to kiss him, but he held himself back, just beyond my range. “This is what you’ve wanted all of your life. You said everything you did was to get to this point, and I love you. I want you to have it.”
Gone was his anger. The heat in his eyes morphed into something deeper as he stilled. “Ask me again why I gave you my shares.”
My heart stumbled, running faster than the rest of me, making me go breathless. “Why’d you do it?”
“Because I love you.” He declared it without hesitation. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was powerful. “Whatever you want, it’s yours, Marist. I’d give up everything I have just to be with you, and that includes my name.” His expression was devastatingly beautiful, full of love and adoration. “You don’t have to stay with me out of obligation. You can walk away from all of this . . . I just ask that—fuck—you take me with you.”
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. I couldn’t manage anything else. Tears sprung into my eyes and blurred my vision, but I blinked them back, determined not to miss the moment he gave me his heart.
I never would have believed the prince of Cape Hill knew how to plead, or that he’d be willing to renounce his throne for me, but it was the most honest and real I’d ever seen him.
I was going to tell him I loved him, and he didn’t have to give anything up. When he’d proposed, he’d told me he was an ambitious man, and eventually he was going to want it all. We could have it, I wanted to say. But I didn’t get a chance because he let go of my wrists, cased my head in his hands, and delivered a kiss that flipped my world upside-down.
Which made sense.
He wasn’t Ares now, this was Hades, the king of the underworld. I was Persephone, the mortal girl he’d stolen and dragged into his world. He’d made her fall in love with him, and now she was happy to rule at his side.
Everything else faded away until it was just us. The anger, the shame, the lies we’d had to tell each other were obliterated in the heat of this kiss. Our lips only broke long enough for us both to yank at my underwear and get it out of our way, the threads ripping.
It felt like I was going to die if we didn’t connect in every way possible, and I sighed with relief as he pushed inside my body. He was trembling, or I was shaking badly enough for both of us, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, holding on so nothing could ever take him away now that I had him completely.
If someone had said to me a year ago Royce Hale would be the love of my life, I would have told them to go to hell. But it was true. We were each other’s first and only loves.
That morning, he told me he loved me with not only his words, but with his beautiful body. He held my face in his hands as he claimed me over and over, stealing my breath and making my legs go boneless.
And when the pleasure became too much, I gave a soft cry, and he chased me over the edge, because wherever I went, he wanted to follow.
Royce and I continued to sleep in separate bedrooms, to keep up the lie Macalister had divided us. It was a Tuesday morning, so I wasn’t with him when the story broke that the SEC had opened an investigation into Ascension. I sat cross-legged on my bed in my room, the mythology book in my lap ignored, my eyes glued to the television as I watched the stock ticker scroll.
Every time HALE rolled past, it was down another half point.
I could feel the rumbling dissent of the HBHC shareholders like an approaching storm and pictured the churning chaos their headquarters must be right now. The Hale men would be in conference rooms with the heads of each department, mapping out a strategy to calm fears.
When the markets closed, HBHC stock was the lowest it had been in five years, and the commentators used words like disaster and catastrophe. It pivoted immediately to an interview with the chairman and CEO of Hale Banking and Holding.
He must have taken the helicopter to the city and done damage control at the New York branch of his bank, before going to the studio. I blinked as Macalister appeared on screen. He looked calm and collected as he sat in a red chair opposite the female broadcaster and answered her questions, even as she needled him. He was cold, indifferent, and untouchable. Maybe it would inspire confidence in the shareholders, but it might also spark irritation. With his enormous ego, he came off flippant.
Which was good for Royce.
; When the interview concluded, I expected Royce to text me. We hadn’t spoken all day. I didn’t want to bother him, and he was clearly busy, but when my phone rang, I nearly dropped it. This wasn’t the Hale I was expecting. He’d only been off the air for five minutes, and now he was calling me?
“Hello?”
Macalister didn’t give me a greeting, he just barked out his order. “Tomorrow, you’ll accompany me to the office.”
In the background, side conversations went in and out around him. He was on the move, and I pictured him striding toward the studio exit and the car likely waiting for him. Would he have more interviews to give, or head back to the helipad?
“Why is that?” I asked, although it was rhetorical. I knew exactly why he wanted me to go with him. It was to strip Royce of my support and rub salt in the wound after he lost the vote. I faked innocence. “Is something happening tomorrow?”
“Royce called for an emergency meeting of the board.” Wind whipped through the phone, then died away as a car door slammed shut. “I’m rather surprised. I’d heard he was having difficulty finding time to speak with the directors. Their schedules have been quite full.”
Once Royce started his campaign, Macalister had done everything in his power to hinder it. It was another game for him to play, and one he enjoyed immensely.
I said nothing, not wanting to give my position away or make a mistake.
His tone was harsh and impatient. “Are you there?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’ll go with you tomorrow.”
“Excellent.” He paused, as if he were reluctant to say anything else, but it felt calculated. “He doesn’t have the votes, Marist. I know he thinks he does, but anyone who promised him their vote was doing what he does best—lying.”
I bit my tongue from telling him we’d find out who was lying tomorrow.
“He’s walking into a slaughter,” Macalister added. Was he nervous? Overcompensating with bravado? “You’ll wait for me in my office until it’s done, and then we can discuss arrangements on what happens next.”