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His head reared back in an infinitesimal manner—like a predator cocking his head for one moment, as if surprised by the prey’s attack. She tensed, wondering if he would mock her use of the wordheart, remind her that they were only bound by the contract. But the silence only stretched, gaining weight with each passing second.
In the end, he nodded, encouraging her to go on.
Mira breathed in deep and brought down another wall she’d built around her own heart. “If it’s hard for me to rely on you financially, it’s near impossible for me to bare my...insecurities. Emotionally. That night in your office when I saw you two... It was easier for me to run away, easier to assume you were cheating on me—” she forced herself to say the ghastly words, half choking on them “—instead of showing you how hurt I was, showing you how much I...had begun to care about our stupid arrangement.”
His hands clasped her face, his forehead bent to hers in a nuzzle that made her heart expand. God, she’d been starved for his touch. “And you’re telling me this now because...”
“Because I want something from you.”
He laughed then, his eyes full of that wicked humor she’d missed so much. “I should’ve known.”
“Also because I promised myself that I’d stop acting out of fear.”
He stared at her, his hand reaching for hers. “And once you decide something, nothing and no one can stand in your way, can they?” Something almost like admiration glinted in his eyes, the first hint of true emotion in weeks.
He brought her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them one by one. Rewarding her for what she’d shared, she knew. Could it be that simple? Could she have the old Aristos back if she simply kept her thoughts and feelings open, her heart open?
His gray gaze held hers, leaving her no quarter to hide. “What is bothering you, Mira?”
“Your PA... I don’t want her near you.”
He uncoiled from his lazy stance, some dark emotion flashing across those starkly beautiful features. “And why is that?”
“Why do you always send the sullen, morose Nikos to guard me when I go to that little café to study? Why not that stud Boris?”
“Boris flirts with you.”
“You and her... It’s probably the longest you’ve kept a woman in your life,ne?” she said, saying it like he did when he challenged her. “I’m supposed to simply tolerate her devouring you with her eyes, hoping your shrew of a wife would disappear so that she could have a chance?”
“Christos, Mira! You don’t pack your punches when you are ready to fight, do you?”
“You won’t let Boris near me because he’s talkative, Aristos.”
“Stop mentioning him.”
“You’re taking a huge risk by allowing her to...undermine my confidence in us. Inus, not you. Do you hear the distinction?”
“Yes.” Color crested his too-sharp cheekbones. “It was once, a long time ago, after you left. I was in a bad place and I stopped it before it could...”
Mira pressed her hand to his mouth, loath to hear more. The very idea of him with that woman...even years ago, made her want to bleach her eyes. Now she wished she’d thrown the woman out herself.
He grabbed her wrist, gently moving her hand but holding on to it. “What you saw a few months ago, I stopped it immediately and told her she’d crossed a line. I thought she got the message.”
Beneath everything else, hurt pierced Mira.
They had wanted their first time together—both their firsts—to be special. But she’d run away after what she’d seen and heard that night after their engagement. She’d thrown herself into her studies, into preparing for medical school, banished him and that night from her thoughts until she felt absolutely nothing. Until she wasn’t hurting anymore.
And yet... He had so easily admitted that he’d been in a bad place after she left. That he’d made a mistake by letting it get even that far with Elena. But what his cousin Kairos had shown her that night at the party he’d thrown for Aristos... Was that not the truth? How could it not be when she’d seen Aristos and heard his words?
Would they ever be able to leave the past behind? Or would it haunt them forever?
One thing was for sure. This time, she wasn’t going to let her own fears throw away what was hers. “It’s not because I don’t trust you, but I just can’t...have her near you. I don’t care if that makes me an insecure, jealous wife.You’re mine, Aristos. Only mine.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
THENAKEDEMOTIONdancing across Mira’s gaze... Aristos felt the tightness of weeks in his chest relent just a little. There was conviction and something else in her words that soothed him, that he’d wanted to hear for a long time. And while a part of him wanted to reject those words, reject the deeper emotion ringing through them, he resisted the urge.
If she was trying to act away from a place of fear, he, it seemed, was cursed to forever act out of some deep wound. He wanted to be selfish and demand why she’d suddenly decided that the tenor of their relationship had to change.
