There was something vulnerable about her soft mouth then, a darker sheen to her golden eyes, but her chin edged high and she didn’t drop her gaze from his.
“Is this a little bit of friendly, husbandly interest?” she asked. “Or are you merely gathering ammunition?”
She wasn’t at all what he’d expected. That turned in him like heat. Like need.
“Everything is ammunition, Zara. But only if you’re at war.”
A ghost of a smile flirted with her mouth then, and was gone in the next instant. “And we, of course, are not at war.”
“This is our wedding night, is it not?”
She studied him for a moment, and he wished that things were different. That he was, to start. That she was anyone other than who she was. An Elliott and his wife.
“I’m writing a master’s thesis in English Literature,” she said after a moment. “My field of study is Gothic novels in popular culture. It’s my father’s opinion that I’d be better served getting a degree in something that made for better cocktail party conversation. Everybody has an opinion about Romeo and Juliet, for example. Why not study that instead of stupid books only hysterical women read?”
Chase was sidetracked from his own dark thoughts. “Your father has an objection to advanced degrees? Surely most parents would be proud.” His own, for example.
“Academia is the refuge of the ugly and boring,” she said, obviously quoting her father, and remarkably cool about it. It spoke to a long familiarity with Amos’s insulting opinions, and Chase found he didn’t like the idea of that at all. “While he acknowledges that it is thus a perfectly appropriate place for the likes of me, the fact remains that I’m his daughter. I ought to be a better bargaining chip. The kind of frat boy investment bankers he’d like to throw my way, because of who their fathers are and how such connections could benefit him, have no patience for women who think that much.”
Chase could only stare at her.
Zara smiled, and it was even icier than before. “I’m paraphrasing.”
He shook his head. “You must know that you are none of those things.”
He didn’t know why he’d said that. This wasn’t a therapy session, and he was the last person who should have been offering advice to anyone. Zara’s eyes chilled.
“I love being patronized,” she said. “I really do. But I find it goes down a whole lot smoother with food.”
And the fact was, this was war, and Zara was ammunition. That Amos Elliott was horrible to his own child shouldn’t have surprised Chase at all. It didn’t.
He had to stop pretending he was any different. That he was some kind of hero who could save anyone from anything. He already knew better, didn’t he? He already knew exactly what he was. Murderer.
But this was about the future, not the past.
Chase rang for their dinner. Then he beckoned his enemy’s daughter to the small table, took his own seat across from her and began the war in earnest.
* * *
“What are you doing in here?”
Zara jumped at the sound of Chase’s voice, whirling around so the bookshelf was at her back and the mad beating of her heart as it tried to fly from her chest might not knock her down to the floor. She didn’t know how she didn’t scream—and then she saw him.
He stood a few feet away, dressed in the jeans, bare feet and casually buttoned shirt she’d learned he preferred, the messiness of his dark hair the only hint that it was an hour of the night when most people were asleep. He should have looked rumpled, but this was Chase Whitaker, so he looked lethal instead.
And the way he looked at her made everything inside of her roll up into a knot and pulse. She couldn’t have screamed if she’d wanted to. She was too busy trying her best not to purr—and the fact that it didn’t make sense that she should have this kind of reaction to a man she’d resolved she’d merely tolerate didn’t make that knotted, pulsing thing ease.
If anything, it made it that much worse.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Zara said.
Unnecessarily, as her presence in the house’s spacious, book-jammed library this long after midnight made that abundantly clear on its own. But it was better than surrendering to her traitorous body and making like a cat.
A December storm howled around the old stone house tonight, rattling the windows and making the floorboards creak ominously. Zara might have decided to keep her overactive imagination in check while she had to stay in this place but there was no sleeping through all of that.
So she’d crawled out of the soft, warm bed, pulled on the long, lush wool sweater she used as a kind of bathrobe, and padded down through the dark house to the library, where the fire was always blazing and the storm at the French doors made her feel cozy instead of vulnerable.
Quite the opposite of how her husband made her feel.
He studied her in that hooded way of his that made her feel like prey. And much too unreasonably warm for a night this close to full winter in upstate New York. In a drafty old stone house that might or might not have been haunted, the way old stone houses often were. In your imagination, not in reality, she reminded herself sharply—though it was the kind of two o’clock in the morning that blurred those lines.
Zara swallowed hard as she moved away from the bookshelf, clutching the thick, eighteenth-century novel she’d selected to her chest as she made her way back to one of the deep, comfortable leather armchairs that sat before the fireplace. She curled herself up in it, her legs tucked up beneath her, and told herself she felt better no matter what racket her heart was making.
She wasn’t surprised when Chase followed, settling himself across from her with that curious grace of his that she was certain could hypnotize her, if she let it. Could and would. And then he fixed her with that same, unwavering blue stare of his that made every hair on her body dance in instinctive response.
It had been a strange week.
“Welcome to your honeymoon,” he’d said that first night in that little dining room where he insisted they take all their meals. He’d lounged there, pushing the shockingly good food around on his plate as if he was too restless to eat—or too drunk, she’d reminded herself sharply—and he’d watched her. He was always watching her. Looking for something she grew more and more sure she didn’t want to name, especially not after she’d allowed him to see her naked. Stop thinking about that, she’d ordered herself. Fruitlessly. “It will last the month. We’ll spend it here, in seclusion, as happily married new couples do.”
“All the happily married new couples I know spend their entire honeymoons on this or that social media platform, tirelessly documenting every moment of their bliss,” Zara had pointed out. “It’s a sign of the times.”
“It is not a sign of our times.” His gaze had gone even darker, if possible. “You will contact whoever you must to let them know that you’ll be out of touch for the remainder of December. Holidays included.”
“You mean my thesis advisor?” She hadn’t understood why she was responding to him as if he had the right to make declarations about how she’d spend her time, or where. Why she’d been pretending this was some kind of normal conversation when it was not. When the specter of her ill-conceived nudity had hung before them as if there had been another version of her lounging across the small table between them, as naked as she’d been in that bathtub. “There’s no need. The semester is nearly over and I completed all my coursework last week.”
She certainly hadn’t understood why she’d told him that. Why not go traipse around in dark alleys, while she was at it? Why not write victim in big, bold letters on her forehead? She’d then reminded herself that as she was not, in fact, a Gothic heroine, there was no need to worry what she told this man.
“And aren’t you lucky that I did,” she’d continued then, her annoyance at herself bleeding through into her voice, “or I’d have to tell you exactly what you could do with all your orders. I’m not your subordinate, Chase. I’m your wife.”
Zara had interpreted that as a slap. She’d told herself it was a good thing. Bracing and necessary. This man was much too tempting, and she didn’t need or want to be sympathetic to him. She didn’t need or want to want him, either. She only needed to survive this marriage long enough to make her point to her father, in so doing honoring her grandmother’s last wish. Sympathy for the likes of Chase Whitaker was unnecessary.
Lust was suicidal.
“Since you asked,” she’d said mildly, still holding that thrilling blue gaze of his, “I envision a marriage as a union of like-minded partners. In this case, we both seem to want the marriage to do something for us. How delightfully equal that makes us, don’t you think?”
His mouth had twitched. “Is that what you call it?”
“I don’t know what kind of arrangement you had with my sister,” she’d said, her chin rising, because she hadn’t wanted to know what agreements he and Ariella had come to—much less how they’d come to them. “But you should know that I don’t do very well with overbearing asses who try to dictate my every move.”
“Save your father.”
“One overbearing ass in a girl’s life is more than enough,” she’d said, and had even laughed as if she’d found the whole thing frothy and fun, like an adventure—when she adamantly did not. “And the sad truth is that I have a tendency toward seething rebellion. I’m telling you up front, so there are no surprises down the line should you decide to go all…” She’d waved a hand at him, encompassing that brooding, ruthless thing that spiked the air all around him. “Grouchy.”
And she’d have sworn on a stack of Bibles that was laughter in those wild blue eyes of his then, in that small curve of his intoxicating mouth.
“I don’t believe anyone has ever called me grouchy in all my life.”
Zara had smiled. “To your face.”
He’d sat there, looking as much discomfited as he’d looked amused, for what had felt like a very long time.
“There is a company holiday party of sorts on New Year’s Eve,” he’d told her, long after she’d decided he wasn’t going to speak again, that they’d simply sit in that pretty little room tucked away in that vast, echoing house until they’d turned to dust. “It’s an annual affair, though I haven’t attended very often in the past.”
Zara had nodded slowly, trying to work out his angle and seeing nothing but those unsettling blue eyes and all the secrets they held.
“I’ve been to it many times,” she’d said. And each time, her father had trotted Ariella out like she were the spoils of war while he’d either ignored Zara entirely or had made her feel like an interloper. And this is my younger daughter, he’d said one memorable year. She’s got a face for radio and spends most of her life with it in a book, anyway. Charming. She’d preferred the years her invitation had been “accidentally overlooked.” “I can’t believe you ever had something more exciting to do than waft about the Whitaker Industries offices all night, waiting for the year to end. You’ve been missing out.”
“I’ve no doubt.” He’d finally moved his gaze from hers, but only to toy with that ever-present glass of amber liquid before him, and it hadn’t helped. Zara had still felt caught. Held tight, like he was the spider and this was all a great web. “It will be our first appearance as husband and wife.”
“I’m sure the grateful masses will pay us an extraordinary tribute,” she’d said drily. “Particularly after our month of seclusion, the better to whet their appetites. We might as well be your British royalty.”
He’d raised his eyes to hers then, and it had amazed her, the force of them, the punch of all that blue, as if she hadn’t seen them a scant moment before. She’d wondered if she’d ever get used to it. Or if it would always be like that when she was near him. If he would always stun her.
“This time, wear something that fits you,” he’d said.
And she’d stopped thinking about his eyes.
Now she sat there before him in all that brooding silence broken only by the crackle and pop of the fire within and the rush of the storm without, and Zara couldn’t take it. She didn’t like where her mind went when she was around him. She felt far too many things she didn’t want to feel. This had never been about him, after all. It had been something she’d let her father sweep her into because she’d thought it might solve things between them the way Grams had wanted. Or—because she was a realist, down there beneath the part of her that heard a creak in a floorboard and thought ghost—give her a better bargaining chip with him. Chase himself had been an afterthought.
Funny then, that she’d thought a great deal about Chase and not at all about her father since she’d arrived here a week ago.
“Have you rung your sister?” he asked now.
It sounded like such an idle question. But it was somewhere in the neighborhood of two-fifteen in the morning, and if Zara had learned anything from this week in Chase Whitaker’s presence, it was that he was very rarely idle. About anything. No matter the role he seemed to play in all the gossip columns.
“At this hour?” she asked. Stalling.
The twitch of his mouth indicated he knew exactly what she was doing.
“If I’m remembering your sister’s habits correctly, this would be an excellent time to reach her,” he pointed out. “She’s almost certainly awake and about.”
“Exactly how well do you know Ariella?” Zara asked.
Something like amusement, though it was too hard to be only that, gleamed in his blue eyes then, and she realized a bit too late that she’d sounded much too sharp. Sharp the way one might sound if she cared, when Zara knew full well she shouldn’t. She didn’t.
She wouldn’t let herself.
“That sounds a bit loaded, doesn’t it?” On another man, that might have been a smile. On Chase, it only made everything seem perilous. “I’m not sure that’s a question I should answer.”
“You’re very interested in whether or not I’ve spoken to her,” Zara pointed out, in a far more reasonably moderate tone of voice. “You ask me every day.”
“She did stand me up at an altar,” Chase said in that same deceptively casual voice, though Zara had to restrain her urge to shudder at the intensity beneath it. “That does tend to focus the attention. Or, at the very least, require some kind of discussion after the fact.”
He shifted in his chair, calling attention to that rangy, athletic body of his. He was simply too beautiful. His was a kind of savage elegance, evident despite the way he lounged there as if he was something other than ruthless. There wasn’t a single thing about him she trusted.
But she couldn’t seem to look away, either.
“I’m not one of Ariella’s priorities,” Zara said after a moment, ignoring that softly singing thing inside of her, the pitched heat that felt like a ruinous melody from deep beneath her skin. That awful longing she refused to acknowledge. “She hasn’t called me.”
He continued to study her for a long moment, then he shifted all of that brooding focus of his to the fire, leaving Zara feeling simultaneously released and bereft.
Ariella hadn’t called. Zara hadn’t lied.
But she hadn’t seen fit to mention that Ariella had responded to Zara’s texts and voice mails with a text of her own. In her own sweet time. She’d written the day before:
This is like a coup for you. You should enjoy it while you can. It’s not like there’s any other way you’d date someone like Chase, is there?
That was her explanation for disappearing on her own wedding morning. That was her apology for leaving Zara to clean up her mess, and it was her thanks, too.
That was the only response Zara had got.
It was so typical that Zara had screamed. Into one of her pillows, facedown on that fluffy bed that belonged to another woman too much like her sister, who would never have received a text like that from anyone, and who would never, the
refore, have had to deal with all its nasty undercurrents.
She’d told herself that she didn’t care. That Ariella’s obnoxious insinuations were designed to hurt her, which was precisely why she shouldn’t let them. She’d focused on her work instead, reading several of the books on critical theory she needed to incorporate into the current chapter of her thesis and working on her ever-expanding bibliography.
But it was very late on a very dark night now, Chase Whitaker was the most dangerously beautiful man Zara had ever been this close to and it was like Ariella was standing right behind her the way she’d done as a mean-spirited teenager, whispering her little poisons straight into Zara’s ear.
The arranged marriage Zara had been forced to undertake in Ariella’s stead was a coup, because Zara couldn’t expect to marry anyone under her own devices. Much less someone like Chase, who was obviously miles out of Zara’s league. Zara could hardly dream she’d ever date someone like him. Ariella thought she should enjoy it because, of course, this must be like a fantasy brought to life for sad, lonely, fat and ugly Zara.
It didn’t matter whether Zara believed these things. She was a twenty-six-year-old woman, not a sixteen-year-old, and she knew better than to listen to her nasty family members and their tired old refrains about who she was in their eyes. What mattered was that Ariella had become so much like their father that she’d felt comfortable spewing that kind of thing at her only sister in a text. Like she really and truly believed she’d done Zara a favor.
Zara realized she was scowling the same moment she felt the weight of Chase’s attention again.
“Why are you always barefoot?” she asked quickly, because she didn’t want to give him the opportunity to yank the truth from her. She hadn’t liked how it had felt when she’d told him her father’s feelings about her master’s degree. It was one thing to experience her own family in all their dysfunctional glory. It was worse, somehow, to share it. Especially with a man like him. It was impossible to imagine him putting up with the same kind of nonsense. From anyone. “Have you lost all feeling in your feet? It’s cold outside and this house is made primarily of old, drafty stone.”
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