CHAPTER THREE
1313 Words
Vera’s mouth wouldn’t work.
The room tilted at the edges—that strange feeling when your brain can’t quite catch up to what it’s hearing. When she finally spoke, the voice didn’t sound like hers.
“You’re asking me to be your mistress.”
The words came out dead. Flat. She’d gotten to her feet without meaning to—her body simply refusing to stay seated for whatever came next. Now she stood with her palms pressed hard against her thighs, trying to make sense of it.
It didn’t make sense.
“I prefer ‘arrangement,’” he said. “But yeah. Essentially.”
The casual way he said it—like he was discussing lunch plans—sent something hot and angry straight up her throat.
“You want me to leave my entire life. Get on a plane. Spend a month with you doing God knows what, thousands of miles from everyone I know.”
“That’s the offer.”
“There has to be another way.” Her voice came out tight, almost pleading, and she hated that. “A payment plan. Monthly installments. However long it takes—”
“I’m not interested in installments.”
“Then what the hell are you interested in?”
He let the silence sit there—just long enough that she felt it pressing against her chest. She was starting to realize he always did this. Like time was his to control, and everyone else just borrowed it when he allowed.
“Is this payback?” The question escaped before she’d finished thinking it through. “For four years ago. For walking out.”
Something passed across his face—there and gone before she could pin it down.
“This isn’t about four years ago.”
“Isn’t it?”
—
“A month away from what, exactly?” he said instead of answering. “A diner paycheck that doesn’t even touch your brother’s tuition? You’re behind. Two semesters now.”
Her stomach dropped. Then came the shame—fast and sharp, the sick feeling of being seen too clearly by someone who had no right to look that closely.
It wasn’t just that he knew. It was how he said it—like he was reading stock prices instead of the most humiliating part of her life. The overdue notices. The calculations she did at 2 a.m. that never added up. The constant weight of not being enough, laid bare by someone who had clearly gone digging for it.
“How do you—” Her voice broke. “How do you know that?”
“I make it a point to know who I’m dealing with.”
Not an apology. Not a denial. The answer said everything.
He’d gone through her life—systematically, thoroughly—and felt no need to feel bad about it.
Heat flooded her face. Not embarrassment. Something closer to violation.
“You had me investigated.”
He didn’t confirm or deny. Just watched her process it with the patience of someone who had already known this would happen.
“You’d be compensated,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Generously. Enough to clear everything you owe. With plenty left over.”
She stared at him. The anger and the practical part of her brain were doing the math at the same time, which made it worse.
“You think money fixes this?”
“I think money fixes most things,” he said. “I haven’t found an exception yet.”
“Well. Congratulations. You just did.”
The corner of his mouth twitched—not amusement, something colder. More interested.
“I doubt it,” he said.
—
“And I suppose,” she said, grasping for anything that might give her footing, “it hasn’t crossed your mind that I might have someone. A boyfriend. Someone who’d have thoughts about me vanishing to Greece with a stranger for a month.”
“You don’t.”
Not a question. A fact.
And the worst part—the part that made her want to break something—was that he was right.
“Think of it as a vacation if that helps,” he said. “A paid one.” His blue eyes locked on hers. “Besides—I’m pretty sure you want me just as much as I want you.”
Heat crawled up her neck that had nothing to do with anger.
“You’re wrong,” she said. “I don’t want you.”
The lie left her mouth clean and certain and completely false. She felt it immediately.
Because her body had already answered.
He looked at her the way he had four years ago across that ballroom—like he could see straight through her.
“You didn’t seem to feel that way four years ago.”
The memory hit before she could stop it—his mouth on hers in that hotel room, her hands twisted in his jacket, the way she hadn’t wanted it to end even when she knew it should.
She hadn’t thought about it in years.
Now she couldn’t think about anything else.
“You can deny it all you want,” he said. “Your body’s telling a different story.”
“That was four years ago.”
“Was it.”
He stood up from behind the desk.
—
She should’ve stepped back.
She didn’t.
She stayed where she was as he crossed the space between them, unhurried, certain—like he had never doubted a result in his life.
“Prove it, then,” he said quietly. “Prove you don’t want me.”
“I don’t have to prove—”
She never finished.
His mouth was on hers before the sentence could form.
This wasn’t like four years ago. That had been a question. This was a statement.
His hand found her jaw and tilted her face up with absolute control. His kiss was slow, deliberate, unhurried—like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
I’m not responding to this, she told herself.
She stayed rigid. Hands at her sides. Lips closed. Willpower.
His tongue traced her lower lip, patient, demanding nothing and everything at once.
The thought broke.
Just a second longer.
He didn’t stop.
His hand slid into her hair, tilting her exactly where he wanted her, deepening the kiss until every argument in her mind collapsed. A small sound escaped her.
She kissed him back.
She hated herself for it instantly.
Somewhere far away, her hands were in his shirt, pulling him closer.
He made a low sound against her mouth that she felt down her spine. His hand settled at her lower back, pulling her flush against him. Heat swallowed thought.
His mouth left hers, trailing along her jaw, beneath her ear. Her head tipped back without permission.
“Xandros—”
The name came out wrecked.
He returned to her mouth, deeper this time, one hand in her hair, the other at her back. The hunger between them was the same as four years ago—unchanged, undiminished.
When he finally pulled away, they were both breathing hard.
He looked at her.
Her eyes had darkened—grey shifting into slate. She could feel it in her own face, the way she had given herself away.
“And you don’t want me,” he said.
Not a question.
She didn’t answer.
There was nothing left to defend.
He stepped back, straightened his jacket with maddening composure, and returned to his desk like nothing had happened.
“Twenty-four hours,” he said. “You’ll have my number within the hour. Use it wisely.”
Vera picked up her bag with unsteady hands, walked to the door, and didn’t trust herself to look back.
- Writer
