wrong end of it then? Please don’t tell me you weren’t already experienced or I truly will hang myself for being so foolish that I didn’t have you.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
He didn’t know. He damn well had no clue. All he knew was that he was enraged. Over tonight. The other men who’d touched her. The orders she was refusing to obey. Over his behavior nine years ago. Over his behavior now. “Why are you refusing to wear the lingerie I provided for you?”
“Because I will not be one of your whores,” she said. “Because I was a virgin when you had me at your hotel room. Your jealousy is misplaced while mine is certainly not.”
Her words hit him like a punch to the gut. “A virgin?”
“Apparently it matters to you. Apparently you are quite proprietary and possessive, though you have not earned the right to be.”
He growled, pulling her into his arms, grabbing hold of the sides of the delicate fabric of the dress and wrenching it down over her shoulders, tugging the bodice down low, revealing her breasts to his hungry gaze. “I am the only man to ever have you?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice breathless.
“This pleases me much more than it should,” he said, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilting her face up to him. “All during the ride back to the villa I was contemplating the different ways I could kill each and every man who danced with you. In my mind, they had become your previous lovers. And I discovered that I felt rather violent about them. About the missed opportunity I’d had. You see, I wanted to be the one to teach you about pleasure.”
She bit her lip, as though she were holding back a litany of words. Either curses, or the confirmation that he had indeed been the one to teach her about pleasure. He had a feeling she neither wanted to yell at him at this moment nor give him anything pleasant to latch onto.
“I did teach you about pleasure, didn’t I? Against the wall in a hotel room. Dammit, Elle, you didn’t tell me.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
No. It made no difference at all. Not to anything. Not to what had gone before, and not to what he must do now. The fact that Elle had been a virgin changed nothing. She had been innocent of the wrongdoings of her father before he knew that, and she was innocent of them now. The fact he was her only lover might fill him with a sense of masculine pride, a sense of conquest, but it didn’t change the fact that he would betray her in the end. That he would make an example of her and use her to wound her father.
The way her father had wounded his father. The way he had devastated his mother. The way he had devastated Apollo himself.
Whatever sins his father had committed, the rest of them had been nothing more than collateral damage. And so would Elle be. It was not fair. But none of this was fair.
It wasn’t about fairness. It was about justice in the way that only he could obtain it.
“Yes,” he lied. “It would have made a difference. I would have been much gentler with you.” Except he knew he would not have. He would not take that fiery encounter in the hotel room back for anything. When Elle had unleashed all her rage on him. All of her desire. It had been the most singular experience of his life. He would trade it for nothing. It was a moment that belonged to him, one that could not be stolen no matter how low he sunk.
He was a villain, and now, he was embracing it fully.
He leaned in, kissing her, keeping it soft, keeping it light. She grabbed hold of his face, deepening the kiss.
He picked her up, carrying her to the bed and laying her down on the soft mattress, tugging the gown from her body. There would be no more talking tonight.
If he had his way, there would be no more talking until he was through with her. And if that meant spending the next two weeks in bed, then they would spend the next two weeks in bed.
THE PAST TWO weeks at Apollo’s villa had gone surprisingly smoothly. It was strange to coexist with him and not fight. It actually reminded Elle of a different time. A simpler time. Back when they had actually liked each other. When she had looked up to him. When he had—apparently—had some sort of attraction to her that he had buried.
Of course, maybe they had coexisted so peacefully because their lives had been essentially separate. Unless they were making love. Which had not been confined to evenings, or to bed. She was certain that at this point, Apollo had taken her on every surface in the entire villa.
She was not complaining. It had been... Well, it had been the culmination of her most heated fantasies. It was strange. Like she was living a life borrowed, one that she could not possibly have in the long term, but one that was in many ways preferable to the one she had been living. She was still seeing to her responsibilities. Sometimes working in his office, sometimes from the office in his home while he was out.
She couldn’t complain about the vacation. Of course, it was also difficult to justify the fact that she was sleeping with the enemy. Though, not literally, since they didn’t sleep together. They had sex, and then he left.
“It’s how I do things, agape,” she said, amusing herself with her poor imitation of Apollo’s voice as she paced the length of her bedroom.
A knock on her bedroom door startled her. She wondered if she had summoned him just by thinking about him. But he had just gone out to work a couple of hours ago, so she doubted he was back already.
She opened the door, to see one of his servants, Maria, standing there holding a package. “This is for you, miss,” she said.
“Oh,” she said, her whole body getting warm when she realized what it was. “Thank you.”
After Maria left, she closed the door and opened the package hurriedly. Inside was a hot pink bikini. She had been planning this for the past few days. Maybe it was juvenile. But she wanted a chance to recapture the moment that both of them had missed. One that seemed to linger in both their minds.
She didn’t waste any time getting into it, examining herself in the full-length mirror, watching as her cheeks flooded with color. She didn’t make a habit out of wearing things that were so revealing. Though, honestly, after spending so much time naked with Apollo, she shouldn’t feel self-conscious.
Still, she did.
That was different. That all happened during the heat of the moment. This was...premeditated. She had never staged anything quite like a seduction with him. And that’s what this was. But she was aching for something, searching for something more. She couldn’t deny that what she felt for him wasn’t hatred at this point. It would be so much easier if it was.
She felt... Well, she felt a lot.
She took a deep breath, opening her bedroom door and heading down the hall, down the stairs and outside to the pool. She was intent on being there when he got back. Intent on giving him the chance to make a different decision this time when he saw her in the bathing suit.
She slipped beneath the warm water, paddling over to the edge of the infinity pool, looking
