She hated that. He’d started using that on her sometime when she was in high school. Just to make her angry. And some small part of her grabbed hold of it every time, holding it near. Love.
Oh, what a ridiculous, stupid...
She really hated her hormones.
“Why else would you mention cuts?” she asked, keeping her tone sweet.
The doors slid shut and she had the uncomfortable feeling of being trapped in a closed-in space again.
“Because you need the money. Matte needs the money. In a digital world your print publication is lagging and while you have certainly come up with innovative ways to compete, you haven’t leveled out yet.”
“But if you have enough—”
He chuckled. “I don’t run a charity. I run a business. My corporation turns profits. That’s what it does. I make money hand over fist, and I’m comfortable admitting that. I’m proud of it. But that won’t continue if I don’t refine my assets. Refining is a hot and painful process. It takes fire. And people being fired.”
“Ha-ha. You’re far too funny for your own good.”
He frowned. “Was that funny? It wasn’t meant to be.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened on a narrow hallway. Apollo stepped out and walked down a few doors, pausing to open it. “Come in,” he said.
She very much had the feeling of being a small, vulnerable creature invited into the lair of a predator.
You are not a wildebeest. You are just as scary as he is. You are a lioness.
She stepped over the threshold and into the room. It was lovely, he was right. Ornate moldings and trim framing the space, the windows looking out over Central Park.
There was a large seating area with a bar, and off to the left an open door that she could see led to a bedroom with a very large, dramatic bed.
She imagined, as tall as he was, he took up most of the mattress. That thought made her picture him—long, tanned limbs sprawled out on the bed. Would he look more relaxed in sleep? Would he seem less...lethal out of that custom-fit black suit that conformed to every line, every muscle in his body?
He closed the door behind her with a finality that made her jump.
“My team is the best there is,” she said. “They have some of the most creative minds in this—or any—industry. You have to admit the fact that the Matte Guidebooks have been hugely successful. And the makeup guide actually helped to increase sales of the cosmetics. It was specific to the brand and that—”
“Again you are telling me things I already know. I didn’t get to this position in life without paying attention. I understand that your team is important to you. But if I don’t do what must be done, if I don’t make the hard cuts, none of you will have a job.”
“But I—”
“You seem to be under the impression that this is a democracy, Elle. Be assured, absolutely, that this is a dictatorship. I am not negotiating with you. And it is only by my good graces that your pretty ass remains in the CEO’s office.”
Heat and fury washed over Elle in a fiery baptism. “And here I thought it was because I’m good at my job.”
“You are,” he said, taking a step toward her. “But there are a great many people who would be good at your job. People who didn’t get handed their position from their daddy.”
“Oh, that’s hilarious, Apollo. As if you didn’t get a leg up from my father, you Judas.” She took a step toward him, rage propelling her now. “My father treated you like one of his own children. He put you through school.”
“And I excelled on my own.”
“Then you stabbed him in the back.”
“I bought him out for much more than thirty pieces of silver, little girl. Perhaps what really hurts is the fact that you were betrayed by your father, not by me. He put you in this position knowing you would fail.”
She gritted her teeth, doing her best to shake off his words. To not allow them to take hold. All of this reached down deep. To old wounds. To the way she’d felt she couldn’t measure up to Apollo, the son her father had always wanted. To her own fears of being eternally inadequate. And he knew it.
She would not let him win so easily. “He trusted you. When you offered to help he didn’t imagine you dismantling everything.”
Apollo lifted one broad shoulder. “He made a mistake in trusting me.”
“Clearly. You would betray not only the man who set you on the path to success, but your own mother.”
“She’s fine. Your father is hardly financially ruined. She continues to enjoy her status as his wife. And again, Elle, need I remind you your father sold Matte, and some of his other holdings, to me of his own free will.”
“You had him in a position where he couldn’t say no.”
Apollo took another step toward her. He was so close now that she could see his eyes weren’t completely black. She could see a faint ring of gold that faded to copper, then to deep brown. Could see the dark stubble beginning to grow in at his jawline.
Could smell the scent of his aftershave and skin.
“Interesting you put it like that. If dire financial straits take away choice you could argue my mother had little choice in marrying your father in the first place.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Elle said. “She wanted to.”
“Did she?”
“Of course.”
“A cleaning lady offered the chance to live in luxury after years barely making it in the US? After years of homeless poverty in Greece?”
“That isn’t... It has nothing to do with this.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe the point is that you can always say no, Elle.” He leaned in. “Always.”
She could barely breathe, her head swimming, her entire body on high alert. She was almost certain she had no blood in her veins, not anymore. It was molten lava now, heating her from her core.
She remembered so clearly feeling this way every time he brushed past her in the halls of the family estate. Every time she caught sight of him at the pool—his lean, muscular body so fascinating to the girl she’d been.
Only once had they ever come so close to each other. Only one other time had she ever thought he might feel the same forbidden desire that she’d felt from the moment she’d set eyes on him.
Apollo is going to be your new stepbrother.
Everything in her had rebelled at that, immediately. Because she had seen him and wanted him in a way she knew would be wrong once their parents were married. So she had distanced him. She had been...well, sometimes she’d
