The Greek's Nine-Month Redemption

He had wanted to impress upon Elle the importance of her complying with his plan. When he had left her after... After the appalling lack of control that had occurred in his hotel room, he had formulated a plan to try to improve things for her company. A foolish thing, perhaps. He didn’t know why he should care about the fate of her magazine. Beyond the fact that it was a potential profit machine for him.

Perhaps it was the fact that she had become collateral damage in a war he’d never intended to bring her into. But David had placed her in direct line of the firing squad.

Apollo wasn’t a kind man. At least, no one ever accused him of being so. And he had never made it a goal to be seen that way. He had cared about very few people growing up, and it had turned out those he had cared about most had betrayed him long ago.

And so he had stolen his stepfather’s empire, started dismantling it. But he had left Elle at Matte. God knew why. He’d known in the end he would destroy it, destroy her.

Perhaps it was because he knew what it was to be caught in the consequences of the sins of the father. Hers and his. Perhaps because he knew that—whether or not Elle had been kind to him when they were younger—she was innocent here.

But now...now it was as though a veil had been stripped away from his eyes. He would have to use her. There was no other choice. There was no preserving her. That much had been made clear when he’d taken her against the wall.

It had been symbolic in many ways of that protection being destroyed. That desire to keep her safe from himself being completely and utterly ripped away.

He could no longer ignore Elle. Could no longer dance around the fact that he would have to destroy her along with her father.

He would use her. And he would discard her.

It had nothing to do with his desire to strip her naked again. To watch her pale skin flush with pleasure once more. It had nothing at all to do with that, because he was not going to allow himself the indulgence.

Indulgence was unacceptable. But revenge? That was sweet.

“Perhaps you would like to give me a tour of the rest of the department, Elle?” he asked, ruthlessly cutting off his train of thought.

“Of course.”

They moved away from where they had been standing, and she continued on down the role of desks. “Just don’t talk to anyone,” she said, her voice hushed.

“Why is it that you think you can tell me what to do when I am in my own company?”

“Because I am the boss,” she said, her tone sounding slightly petulant. “That has to count for something somewhere.”

“Sadly for you, I am your boss. Being boss of a lot of other people doesn’t give you extra clout. I am the final word. So let it be written, et cetera.”

She swept through the little space quickly. “There you have it. And now, I expect you want to be going.”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’ll head back up to your office floor and set up for a few hours, get a few things done. I do like to familiarize myself with my acquisitions.”

Elle looked livid. Her jaw set, her lips in a flat line. “Can’t you do that in your hotel room?”

The mention of his hotel room brought back illicit memories. “I could. But I want to get a greater sense for how things are running here. It is in your best interest to keep me around. I might grow attached. I might yet see the importance of this team you keep talking about.”

She said nothing, but her expression took on a rather long-suffering edge. They walked back through the office space and toward the elevators again. She pushed the button, then pushed it again when the elevator didn’t immediately appear.

“If I didn’t know better I would say you were in a hurry to escape my presence.”

“I am,” she said, flashing a smile. One he very much wanted to kiss right off her pretty face. But he was still calculating. When. Where. What. He wouldn’t touch her until he made those decisions.

If he touched her at all.

“I do admire your honesty,” he said, instead of kissing her.

“What is taking so long?” She scowled, hitting the button again. Then suddenly, the doors slid open.

“Tenth time’s the charm,” he said, stepping inside.

She gave him a withering glance before moving inside after him.

The doors slid shut and he had the impression that all the air had been sucked out of the space.

The tension between them was unlike anything he had ever known before. Likely because she was the only woman he had ever bothered to resist. He could remember well the first time he had noticed her as a woman, rather than a girl. Sometime after her seventeenth birthday, when all of her snubs and cutting comments had begun to arouse even as they enraged.

When they’d given way to fantasies of him showing her how base and beneath her he truly was.

His attraction, swift, sudden and abhorrent to him, had hit him low and fast in the gut, so quickly he had not had the chance to guard against it. He had not expected to have to guard against an attraction to his chilly younger stepsister.

He had nearly acted on it back then.

He could well remember the time he’d come home from university to see her getting out of the pool. Sleek curves barely concealed by a hot pink bikini that should have clashed terribly with her red hair, but rather was all the more enticing for how incongruous it was.

And he’d gone over to her, and she’d said something snotty, as she usually did. Then he’d grabbed hold of her arm, and pulled her to him. Her green eyes had gone wide, those pink lips parting gently. Begging to be kissed.

But he hadn’t. He’d watched the water drops roll over her bare skin, over her breasts, had imagined lowering his head and slicking up the slow-rolling water. But he hadn’t done that, either.

He’d waited. Waited until her eyes had darkened with desire. Until he’d seen her breath speed up, the pulse in her neck beating at a rapid rate. He had held her arm until he’d been sure he’d turned her on. Until he’d been sure the little ice princess was hot all over.

Then he’d let her go, and turned away, hard as iron and fantasizing about what he might have had.

And now... Well, now he’d had her, hadn’t he? He had answered the question he’d never meant to ask.

He looked at her now, at the sleek ponytail that begged for him to grab hold of it, to wrap it around his hand. Her long, elegant neck. The soft curve of her pale lips. His stomach tightened. Clearly, his lust for her was not so easily dealt with via one quick screw up against the wall.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said, pressing the button that would take them to the floor that housed her office.

“Do what?”

“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me.”

“I’m trying to unlock the mysteries of your mind,” he said. “Or rather, I’m attempting to remember what you look like underneath your clothes.” He knew that taunting her was the wrong decision. Knew that it would only push them back to the place he was so desperate to stay away from.

You don’t want to stay away. You want her naked and panting in your arms again.

“Stop it,” she said.

“You’re so desperate to forget what happened between us.”

“Nobody likes to remember rock bottom, Apollo. I consider having sex with you my own personal walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

“I’m honored, I’m sure.”