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“Well, you’re both smart, driven, confident to a fault,” she remarked, sitting back in her chair.
“You’re all those things,” he responded, taking the serving spoon and easily tripling on his own plate what she’d served herself.
“Hardly!” She refuted, but clamped her lips together before she could make a self-deprecating comment on her own intelligence, or lack thereof.
“I think we’re different. Apollo and me,” he clarified. “More than we are alike.”
“Perhaps you can’t see it clearly because you’re too close to the subject matter.”
“I am your husband and he is your brother – do you claim to have the requisite distance to be objective?”
She frowned. “He’s my half-brother,” she corrected thoughtfully. “And you are…”
“Yes?” He waited for her to finish.
“Not my husband in the traditional sense.”
He arched a brow. “I was in the Hallam when we said our vows. I was also there when we signed the contract, and when we were bound together by the ancient threads of halisham. How are we not a traditional couple?”
Chloe was glad then that she didn’t easily blush. “You know what I mean.”
He lifted his wine glass and sipped it thoughtfully. “Why did you agree to this?”
“To marry you?” She fixed him with a cool stare that hid any emotion easily.
“Your father was traditional,” he answered his own question. “And my father’s dearest friend. But you were raised in America. By all reports --,”
She interrupted him. “You mean, according to Apollo?”
He dipped his head forward in silent concession. “You were raised by your mother. You are American. You are independently wealthy. I cannot see why you agreed to this.”
“Does it matter?”
He expelled a sigh. “You are the only person in my life who does not answer me when I ask a question.”
“And you don’t like it.”
His frown was just a flick of his lips. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Chloe laughed. “I would. You hate that I don’t fit into the box you think I ought to.”
“And what box is that?” He leaned forward, arresting her with the strength of his gaze. “Don’t tell me. You said last night. Submissive. Quiet…”
“Yes. You think I should do what you say, not have a mind of my own, a brain of my own.”
“When have I ever given you that impression?” He asked with a softness that his political opponents would have known to fear.
“Do you even need to ask?” She demanded fiercely. “Last night you tried to make me beg for you, just to prove you could. What does that say, except that you’re outrageously egotistical?”
He stared at her for several beats before sipping his wine once more. “Or,” he placed the glass down. “What if I value our arguing. Like it, even. But want you to let me teach your body what pleasures it’s capable of?”
Her breath hitched in her throat, but she wasn’t going to be silenced by her inexperience. “And for that I have to be demeaned? Humiliated? Made to beg as though my right to pleasure is something only you can grant?”
He expelled a breath, frustration evident in his features. “I was wrong last night, and for that I apologise.”
“You apologise?”
He nodded. “Now, stand up.”
