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His hands on her wrists tightened, his grip just on the edge of pain. ‘Why?’
She swallowed, her mouth dry, her heartbeat like a drum in her head. But when she spoke, her voice was steady. ‘To blackmail you with, of course.’
There was no point pretending any more, and in a way it was a relief that finally the moment was here. In fact, she was almost proud of herself. She’d come a long way in six months and her plan had ended up being wildly successful, and soon the awful mistake she’d made would be fixed.
The look on Galen’s face was terrible. ‘Blackmail me for what? Money? Power?’
‘No.’ Solace held tight to her own rage. The rage that had dragged her out of that pit and put her feet on the path that had led here. ‘I couldn’t care less about money or power. What I want, Galen Kouros, is my son.’
Galen heard the words, but they didn’t mean anything to him. He was so angry he could barely think. Some of his anger was for her, that she thought she could blackmailhim,but most of it was reserved for himself and his own monumental stupidity.
He’d allowed his groin to do his thinking for him the night before, and he hadn’t done any of the things he should have, such as waited for his security staff to a) do a background check and b) search her person for anything that could be a security risk, such as phones.
But no, he’d decided he was going to allow himself a night of no restraint and so he’d rushed her from the limo straight into his bedroom, no thought in his head but to have her naked beneath him as quickly as possible.
When will you learn? Ten years a king and you still haven’t mastered yourself. Alexandros was right about you.
Perhaps. Certainly Leo existed because he hadn’t mastered himself, and, while he’d never regret his son, Leo’s existence had also complicated his life to an impossible extent.
Now he’d complicated it even further.
‘Your son?’ he snapped, fury burning in his veins like wildfire. ‘What are you talking about?’
She seemed very calm for a woman in the process of blackmailing him. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’
The familiarity that had tugged at him, their chemistry, the sounds she’d made as he’d pushed inside her... He remembered those sounds. They’d haunted his dreams for over an entire year. They’d haunted him last night, in this very bed, while he’d touched and tasted every inch of her curvy little body.
She was warm beneath him, but he could feel the tension in her, could see it too in the line of her stubborn jaw. Her gaze was dark, and she didn’t look away this time, not the way she had the night before.
He let go of her hands and smoothed back her silky pale hair, flattening it tight to her skull. She made no move to stop him, her eyes glittering with defiance.
He stared, studying the lines of her face. It was difficult to tell without the mask, but... No, it couldn’t be her. She’d had grey eyes.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded, the fury in him burning hotter, higher. ‘Tell me.’
‘You already know who I am.’ Her voice was flat, yet he could hear the edge of anger in it.
It’s her, you know it is. You knew it the moment you saw her.
Cold washed over him, freezing his anger, chasing away the last remains of the pleasant warmth and satiation he’d woken up with. Before he’d become aware of her lowering her hand and wondered why she was holding a phone.
Before it had penetrated that there could be only one reason.
It was her, it had to be. The woman he’d met at the masquerade ball.
He searched her face, still holding her hair back, and sure enough, there was the line of her lower lip that he hadn’t been able to stop himself from licking and nipping, so full and soft. And her eyes looking up into his, full of defiance now, but last night they’d been full of desire. Full of want.
Just beyond the edge of her iris he could see a faint line. Contacts.
His rage leapt, but, with a massive effort of will, he forced it away. If this morning had taught him anything at all, it was that he could not afford to indulge inanyof his weaknesses. He wasn’t a child throwing a tantrum as he had been during his time at Oxford. These last ten years he’d learned how to behave like a king and now he was one. Down to his bones.
Galen let her go and shoved back the sheets, getting out of bed and striding over to where his clothes lay in a heap by the door. He began to dress, pulling on his underwear and then his trousers.
‘You will delete the photos,’ he ordered as he zipped up his fly. ‘And then you will answer every single one of my questions.’
She sat up, wrapping a sheet around her lush curves, her silky white-blonde hair falling around her shoulders. ‘It’s too late. They’re in the cloud. It’ll only take me a minute to put them up on social media.’
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her pale skin, his body already hardening at the sight of her, but he forced the hunger away. It had no place here. It was sex that had led him into this situation, the physical chemistry that had exploded between them, and he would not let it master him again.
