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My eyes narrowed on his face. “That’s a joke, right? You underestimated him before, and you would underestimate him again? Do you ever learn your lesson?” I never spoke to my father this way, but I’d lost my sense after he asked me for this asinine favor.
“It’s just an option if the marriage is unsuitable to you.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. But I can’t do it.”
He gave a slight nod, his eyes full of disappointment. “I understand.”
I could feel his emotion in his words, feel the sadness my answer caused. I shouldn’t feel guilty for rejecting the proposal, but I did. “Let me think about it.”
Slowly, life returned to his eyes, and a glimmer of a smile emerged on his face. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
It’d been six months since I’d last visited his place.
When he’d tried to dump me, I came to his apartment and rode him on the couch, fighting for my man because I’d become so attached that I never wanted to let him go. He’d given me joy no other man would ever give me, and the thought of losing him had made me beside myself. But my art of seduction hadn’t worked—because he was getting pussy elsewhere.
I couldn’t believe I was back.
I almost chickened out and left when I stared at the gate.
But my father had laid out ridiculous terms to get our business back, and I had to verify their truths because there was no way that Axel wanted to marry me. There was no way that after six months of radio silence, he’d suddenly realized what he’d lost without saying a word to me.
I checked in with the guard then parked in his underground garage. News had probably traveled up the chain of command, and if Axel was home, he probably knew I’d parked beside his Maserati.
After I took a heavy breath, I stepped into the elevator then rose to the next level. My heart was like a drum in my chest, and my palms became so slippery that if I were holding my phone, it would probably drop.
The doors opened to the entryway, the round table with the beautiful flowers in the center. When I stepped onto the tile, my heels tapped and echoed. The place looked and smelled exactly the same, elegant but with masculine tones that made it clear a bachelor lived here.
His butler appeared. “I’ll escort you to the parlor. Mr. Moreau is waiting for you.”
Shit, this is happening. “Thank you.”
He led the way, taking me to a part of the house I’d never been before. We moved through a couple hallways and passed a few windows before we entered the parlor, a sitting room with couches and armchairs in front of a fireplace on a nice rug. The coffee table had a bottle of wine and two glasses. The window in the rear showed the raindrops that were still stuck to the glass.
Axel sat in the armchair that faced me, in nothing but his sweatpants.
I hesitated as I stared at him, knowing he looked exactly as he had before, but maybe a little more cut. He used to walk around like that in my apartment, his ass tight under the fabric, his pants hanging low and showing off that sexy V formed by his hips.
I cleared my throat and took the seat across from him, the coffee table between us and the fire on my right.
The butler uncorked the wine and poured two glasses before he silently dismissed himself from the room.
Axel sat with his knees apart, one elbow propped on the armrest, his closed knuckles tucked underneath his hard chin. His eyes were so blue in that room full of mahogany and maroon with accents of gold and spots of gray. They stood out like a summer sky on a winter day. He didn’t greet me with a single word or his signature smile.
I’d come all the way down here to speak to him, but now the words fell out of my head.
He remained quiet, his stomach flat and hard, his pecs still slabs of concrete. His arms were bulky with all the different muscles, and the cords that moved along his forearms, over his biceps, and then up his neck were so flexed, they looked like rivers on a 3-D map.
“My father told me you would give him back the business if I married you.” I decided just to be candid about it, because I didn’t know how to be diplomatic or strategic with this man, with this stranger, the mastermind who’d played my father for a fool. “Is that true?”
“I said I would give him back a part of the business, but yes.”
Emotion constricted my chest because I didn’t believe this could actually be true. My father must have misinterpreted the terms or even flat-out lied, because that seemed more believable than Axel actually wanting to marry me. But I guessed it was true. “Why?”
