show you, and that’s all.”
“My mistake. If you will excuse me, I’m going to get ready for this evening. And I have a bit of work to catch up on.”
“You worked the entire time we were on the plane.”
“Impatient for me?”
She swallowed hard. She swallowed her honest answer, which was most definitely yes. “Just concerned you’re going to fall over at the age of twenty-nine from high blood pressure or something.”
“Your concern is touching. I will see you this evening for the charity gala.”
He turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
She turned and looked out the window, gazing at the view. For some reason, this time, she had the feeling of being inside of a terrarium, but it didn’t feel quite so open. Once that thought entered her mind she felt as if she were some kind of creature he was keeping in a cage until he was ready to take her out and play with her.
Somehow, back in New York this had all felt equal, like they were in the same space, wanting the same things. But not now. Silly, because he owned her company. She should not have felt equal with him in the workplace. Should not have felt like they were on the same footing at all. And yet, for some reason—her pride, her intense dedication to her business persona—she had felt like they were.
But not here. In his house, in this show of his incredible wealth, she felt vulnerable. Powerless. She was in his home country, a place where she didn’t even speak the language, trapped in his house on the hill.
She wondered, for a moment, if this was what he had felt. Walking into her family home as a teenager, his mother engaged to a powerful man so far above her station. And he had been greeted by a stepsister so consumed with her own feelings, her own issues, that she’d been nothing but horrible. Had done nothing but try to make him feel completely unequal to the place.
She blinked, pushing back an unwanted wave of sympathy. That was in the past. What she’d done had been out of girlish fear of the strength of her feelings.
Apollo was not acting as a boy, reacting to fear. He wasn’t reacting at all. He was a man on the warpath, and God help her if she got in his way.
WHEN ELLE APPEARED at the top of the stairs that evening wearing the silk gown that he’d had sent up to the room earlier, Apollo wasn’t sure he had the strength to attend the gala. No, most of him wanted to grab hold of her and drag her straight into her bedroom and strip it off her.
The emerald green silk gown seemed almost demure in the front. It had a high neckline, the delicate, shiny fabric skimming her curves. It rippled when she walked down the stairs, flowing over her body like water.
But it was the back he couldn’t wait to see. He had selected the dress for that very reason. True to his word, he was intent on raising her profile in the company. All the better to make her family’s humiliation more apparent. If no one knew who the St. James family were, if they were only aware of the companies, while the family itself remained faceless, his disgrace of them would not carry the impact he required.
In a few weeks he would cut ties completely. He would let her drown along with her father and the rest of the St. James family.
It was cruel. But what David St. James had done to Apollo’s father, the way he had manipulated Apollo’s mother...
He forced himself to smile at her. To practice some form of charm. He did possess it, after all. Though he didn’t often exercise it when dealing with Elle. He could have any woman he wanted, and had, even before he had become the man he was now.
The girls he had associated with from nearby all-girls institutes back when he had been a teenager had found him fascinating. None of them had ever intended on taking him home to meet their parents. But a great many of them had taken him to nearby gazebos, backseats of cars and vacant dorm rooms. He might not be the kind of man they could proudly claim, but they had certainly found him attractive enough for certain uses.
Of course, Elle had already proven she had no issues using him for her physical satisfaction while she despised him on a personal level. So, he supposed that there was no point in attempting to be charming now.
All thoughts of charm or anything else were completely emptied from his mind when he saw the side of the gown as she reached the bottom of the stairs. He could think of nothing more than the possibility of stripping it from her body now.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice hard.
“Why?” she asked, turning to face him, her hands clasped in front of her, demure, as though she had no idea what she was doing to him.
“Turn around,” he said, deciding that he would forgo charm completely.
A flash of color spread up her neck, into her cheeks. Clearly, even if it made her angry, she quite enjoyed it when he gave orders. She turned slowly, teasing him by taking her time. And when she revealed her back fully, his stomach tightened, his blood pooling in his groin.
The back of the dress was a deep V ending just above the curve of her rear, exposing her entire back, the edges glittering with delicate beadwork. The seams over the silken material served to enhance the round shape of her backside, creating an even more dramatic shape to her curves.
He wanted to take her back upstairs, not just so he could have his way with her, but so he could keep any other man from laying eyes on what he thought of as his.
“It does not matter how many men have come before me,” he said, not realizing he was speaking the words out loud until they had already escaped his mouth. “You are mine now. You have always been mine, Elle.” The words were more raw, more real than he’d intended.
But then, this feeling was more raw, more real than anything that had ever come before it.
He saw attachments for what they were. Saw clearly how easily feelings could be manipulated. But what he felt for Elle was beyond him. It could never be distilled into one neat emotion. Could hardly ever be defined.
He needed it gone. Needed to burn it out. So that in the end he could walk away from the St. James family and never look back.
Walk away from her.
She turned to face him, her signature red ponytail swinging along with the movement. “That’s quite possessive,” she said.
“I’m kind of a bastard. You have agreed to be my mistress until such time as we have burned out the attraction between us. That means you are mine. And mine alone.”
“I hardly make a habit of overlapping lovers.”
He took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. He wrapped his arm around her waist, planting his hand firmly at the center of her back and drawing her close to him. “I would not permit it.”
“You might own my company, Apollo,” she said, her voice low, sultry, “but you do not own me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, I think,” he said, sliding his hand up the
