CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gavriil

N IGHT HAS FULLY settled over Paris. The last sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower fade.

Midnight. The witching hour.

I’ve never given much credence to the concept of magic. But after my dinner with Juliette, I now understand the meaning of the word bewitched . Only magic could have made me confess what I did tonight. Some details, like the rats, I’ve never shared with another living soul.

Magic or lust. It has to be one of the two that made me reveal what I did.

Or guilt , I amend.

I knew as soon as she belted her robe this morning and went back into her room after she’d come apart in my arms that I had made not one, but two horrible mistakes. The first had been accusing her of using our marriage to further her career. No, she shouldn’t have looked. Yet I caught her doing what anyone would have done in that situation; glancing at a piece of paper laid out on the table. She hadn’t rifled through private papers or even opened a closed folder. I had still jumped to the worst possible conclusion. Then, just minutes later, I’d let my need to keep myself emotionally removed trump kindness when I made light of the intimacy we had shared.

I was already tense from our interlude this morning and my pervading guilt when she’d come out tonight looking like a goddess in that dress and her damned heels. When she shared what she had about her father, it had awakened something inside me. The need to not only show her she wasn’t alone, but to reach out to someone, just for a moment, who understood what it was like to lose a parent you loved and despised in equal measure.

I hadn’t thought about that noise in a long time. The scratches in the wall, the softness almost worse, making me strain to hear if they’d infiltrated the barren room my mother and I shared. The occasional heavy weight on my legs as the bolder ones scurried across in search of food.

The one time one had bit me on the leg and I’d cried out. My mother had sobbed that night when she’d seen the tiny red welts, the blood staining the dirty sheet. The weight of her guilt had still not been heavy enough to spur her to action.

Well, hell.

Not the way I pictured spending the third night of my honeymoon. Remembering some of the worst moments of my childhood. This is what came from giving into one’s emotions. It took those cracks one had worked so long to patch up and wrenched them wide open. Plenty of room to let old hurts and insecurities crash back through.

Intimacy complicates that, although I was the one who had pushed that button this morning. I enjoy sex. I enjoy women. Never have I felt more like a god than I did when Juliette’s cries filled my mind, when the barest of touches pushed her over the edge into uninhabited pleasure.

But it was that sweet smile on her face, that touch of innocence mixed with womanly sensuality as I’d laid her back on the couch that had reached into my chest and wrapped its fingers around my heart. Never once did I think about that physical passion coming with the claws of feeling something more than casual affection for her.

It was there, though. No matter how much I wanted to pretend otherwise. The admiration I felt when she had stood up to me, the regret of knowing I caused her pain with my senseless attempt to put distance between us.

And respect. Respect for how she continued on through the worst of circumstances. I don’t know which is worse—having the love of a parent and then having it wrenched away? Or growing up and watching those who have it with envy? Envy and the ever-present question of what you did wrong to not at least have a little taste of that love.

At least one good thing had come out of that. I’d channeled that envy into the motivation I needed to climb out of the hellhole my mother had thrown me into, the same hole my father had then tried to bury me in. I fought my way to the top and finally achieved what others could only imagine: incredible wealth, an international reputation that opened doors wherever I went, and the envy of some of the richest people in the world, who never would have glanced twice at a street urchin from the slums of Santorini.

I’d given Juliette a piece of power tonight. No one, not even Rafe, knew the depths of what I’d suffered those first few years.

But Juliette hadn’t looked at me with pity or disgust. No, it had been empathy, compassion, understanding for the dichotomy of emotions I’d hinted at when it came to my mother. I saw a different side of the reporter, the side that made someone feel heard as they shared the harsh circumstances inflicted on them by people like my father.

Even though I had hated the attention her report had brought to Drakos Development, I’d always admired her for facing down the devil and appreciated that her work had finally removed an obstacle from my path. Learning the reason why, the true depths of what her family had suffered simply because my father had decided he wanted to play Realtor for a day and buy a house for a mistress who eventually became a wife, had added yet another layer.

Unlike many people, Juliette had played quite fair when it came to taking her revenge on my father, going after him for the sins he’d committed. She’d shown more strength and resilience than most people I’ve met.

They were all reasons for why I should never touch her again, all reasons that made me want to let down my guard for the first time in decades. If that hadn’t been enough, her nonchalant words at dinner had been the final clue to the puzzle I’d been trying to solve since she added her own financial stipulations to the marriage contract.

Dessie. She had loved and supported Juliette in her time of need. And now Juliette was doing the same, selling herself to me to get Grey House back and provide a home for a woman who, despite being an incredible person, had nowhere else to go. My suspicions had been confirmed during a quick text conversation with my investigator on the ride back to the hotel. Dessie had been living with Juliette in that little cottage for over a year now. Or rather, up until her illness had relapsed and she’d gone to live at Catherine’s facility. I’d bet my company that Juliette was footing the bill for it all.

The only question left unanswered was the amount of money she had spent on our wedding. Although I now had a pretty good guess what had happened there. The woman is a fighter. I can easily picture her taking my order to turn it into the wedding of the century and deciding to spend as lavishly as she knew how as pure revenge. It makes me like her even more.

Which leaves me at a crossroads. I like my wife. I respect her. I want her. I want her so badly it’s a physical ache in my body, a compulsion that’s getting increasingly harder to ignore.

But unlike this morning, when all we’d shared was a halfway pleasant conversation over coffee, a bond has been forged between us. Fragile, but it’s there. Shared loss, overcoming adversity to succeed. Our mutual confessions reek of emotional intimacy. Something I want no part of, no matter how much I want Juliette in my bed.

Another sip of bourbon hits my tongue, the smoky flavor lingering as I stare out over the City of Lights. No one will negate my past, my inability to love. Three times I’ve risked caring for someone. My mother. My father. My brother. Being rejected time and time again could have left me like my mother: broken, defeated. That I not only survived but thrived is a miracle. I’m not risking it a fourth time.

Yes, Drakos Development is an anchor for me. It was the only thing I felt safe pouring myself into because whatever I invested, I and I alone was responsible for what came back. There was no trusting another person, no risking a change of feelings. No romance strained and then broken under the reality of parenthood, age and all the other surprises life dealt.

Her door opens behind me. I turn. My heart stops. She’s still wearing that dress. Conservative compared to many. But I know now what lies beneath. Small, pert breasts that I’ve touched with my lips, my tongue, my hands.

My gaze drifts lower to her narrow waist and slim hips. She doesn’t know the allure of her body, the sexiness of feeling the subtle muscle beneath her skin. I’ve never felt attracted to a woman before because of what she’s capable of, the hard work she puts into something. But with Juliette, everything entices me to go just a little deeper.

Not too deep , I remind myself as I step closer.

Just one more step. I’ve kept my emotions separate from sex for years. I can do it again now, resist the temptation to share any more of my past while I enjoy what’s building between us.

Except, I wonder as she joins me on the terrace, at what point will I take that one step too far and tumble over the edge?

“I didn’t think you’d still be up.”

“Not used to the change in times yet.”

A bald-faced lie. It’s not the travel keeping me up. It’s her. Her and the selfish need to take her, to take and give pleasure for as long as I have her, even knowing that I can’t give her anything but.

I hold up a glass. “Drink?”

She hesitates, and then smiles. Ever since I invited her to dinner and she surprised both of us with how much she opened up, she’s been more carefree, relaxed. The feistiness is still there, the strength. But she smiled more in the past few hours than she has in the past month. I saw more unabashed delight toward things I take for granted, from the dessert that could have been a work of art to the private champagne toast I arranged at the top of the Tower after dinner. It makes me remember a time in my life I’d mostly blocked out. The moments of wonderment as I’d adjusted to a life of luxury after being crushed under the weight of poverty. I had lost that awe.

Now, as I watch her, I wonder what else I’ve missed by becoming just like everybody else. Focused on money, reputation, power.

I pour her a glass and hand it to her. Our fingers brush. Her eyes flare and stay fixed on mine as she raises the glass to her lips. I turn away when I realize I’m jealous of a damn piece of barware.

“I can almost feel how hard you’re thinking.”

I smile but keep my gaze fixed on the city. “What does it feel like?”

“Like it hurts.”

I laugh. She joins in, the sound full yet silvery, a dash of bright against the night.

Silence falls. She gazes out over the city, her body relaxed, her face calm and serene like I’ve never seen her before.

“The two million you asked for.”

The glass freezes halfway to her lips. Her gaze slides away from mine as she takes another sip but doesn’t reply.

“It’s for Dessie.”

She hesitates, then nods once. I watch her, my eyes roaming over the hair falling freely now over her shoulders, then dipping down to her bare feet. The heels were sexy and gave me lurid daydreams of her wearing them and nothing else as I laid her out on the bed in my room.

But I like her this way too: natural, relaxed. She follows my gaze down to her feet.

“I did buy the dress. One set of shoes was for me.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

Another insensitive comment. I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been cruel to a woman before. I have no excuse. I was an ass.”

Juliette blows out a harsh breath.

“Thank you.”

The simplicity surprises me, as does the genuineness. I smile at her.

“No reassurances that it wasn’t that big of a deal?”

“No. You hurt me. Thank you for acknowledging it.”

How am I supposed to resist this? A woman who knows her own worth, who stands up for herself yet gives grace? Who uses money not to further her own agenda but to help someone else? Her actions make me look exactly what I accused her of being: greedy and selfish.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” I ask softly.

I close the distance between us and reach up, doing what I’ve imagined doing for so long and brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“Like I’m something good,” she whispers. “I’m selfish. I want her close. I want to do something to pay her back for everything she’s done for me.” She bites her lip. “And you were right. I’ve done a lot of good things with my work. But it wasn’t just a desire for justice that drove me. It was revenge, retribution.” A shudder moves through her as shadows shift in her eyes. “I don’t like who I’ve become.”

I think of the first eight years of my life, the most vulnerable and painful years I’ve ever experienced. I think of those first few years in Lucifer’s house, especially the initial days when I thought perhaps, just perhaps, I could turn myself into enough to gain my father’s love.

I want to give her a fraction of what she has given me tonight. But I can’t. The words become lodged in my throat. So instead of talking, instead of giving her trust and secrets, I give her the one thing I can.

I lean down and kiss her.