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“It was the lowest point of my life. I had lost everything after Serena left, and to be knocked back like that...it made me question everything.
“If it wasn’t for Rocco and Christian and Zayed anchoring me, if it wasn’t for the fact that my father had always taught me to stand up after one of life’s knocks, that would have been me.”
“I’m so sorry for your friend, Stefan. But that would never be you. God, I can’t even bear the thought.”
“I have to stop him, Clio.”
Nodding, she wiped her cheeks roughly. “We will, Stefan. I promise.”
Just as his arms relaxed around her, just as he found the knot in his gut loosening, she stepped away from him. “I’ll...I will leave you alone. See you later.”
“Running away again, bella?” he asked with a mocking smile. “For days now, you have avoided meeting my gaze. You touch me, you smile at me, you kiss me when we are in public and the moment it’s just us, you...can’t wait to run away. How long are we going to continue like this, Clio?”
Her steps faltered and she looked around.
“I won’t let you turn sex into a transaction, Stefan. I won’t join the leagues of women who have slid into this slot you have for them. And you and me...”
“What about you and me, cara?”
“I let one man lock me in a relationship for everything but the right reason. Wanting you, being near you, not touching you, it’s a lesson in itself,” she said, shocking him with her honesty.
Her gaze glittered with a power he hadn’t seen. The way she looked at him—all consuming and without hiding anything—knocked his breath again and in a completely different way. A wave of desire, laced with something else, buckled him.
“But I can’t give in, Stefan. I can’t just have sex with you and pretend like nothing has changed between us.”
Stefan watched in rising fascination and frustration as she walked away without looking back.
Something had changed in her, and something had changed between them.
He didn’t know what. Only that he couldn’t hide from the truth she had so neatly pointed out.
Turning away, he stared into the dark night. He would never be able to reduce Clio into another nameless woman that satisfied his body.
He hadn’t even told the other three how defeated he had felt when he had lost what he had made because of Jackson. How close he had come to giving up and going home in shame to his parents.
Clio made it so easy to depend on her, to confide in her. Even her censure somehow changed him.
He was so desperate to touch her, to brand her, to claim her as his in the most intimate way possible. He couldn’t breathe in that cage without seeing her stamp everywhere.
To tangle with his wife would mean relearning himself because Clio wouldn’t leave him untouched. And that was a risk he couldn’t take.
CHAPTER TEN
THREE WEEKS AFTER their wedding, Stefan had the usual early-morning online meeting with most of his executives around the world. The scent of freshly brewed coffee, which Clio religiously picked up, dragged him into the kitchen as it did every day.
He poured himself a cup, took a sip and watched Clio at the dining table, poring over a bunch of documents and making notes.
A frown tied her brow, her face was rapt, reminding him of the time they had crammed for an exam together years ago.
Suddenly, he felt a burst of warmth in his chest at the sight of her, an almost forgotten sensation.
It had become a ritual—one among numerous others that they had fallen into when they returned to New York between trips around the world.
Sharing a cup of coffee, looking through Jackson’s financials, discussing new initiatives for the charity, and the best of them all for him personally—rediscovering all the little offbeat eateries in different corners of New York they had all used to favor back when they had been at university.
He frowned, suddenly seeing the pattern, the determination with which Clio had dragged him against his will the first couple of times. As if she wanted to erase all the bitterness of his love affair with Serena, the bitterness he had let corrupt his memories of New York and the happy years he had spent here, the aversion he had developed to settling down in one place or making meaningful connections with anyone.
As if she wanted to remind him of his true nature, of the parts of himself he had destroyed to move on in life.
That he hadn’t recognized her intentions until now showed how deep he was into their farce of a relationship.
