Contractually Wed

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

S HE LOOKED LIKE a wraith, sweaty and feverish, amidst a cloud of navy-blue bedsheets. Stilling at the entrance to their bedroom, Apollo tried to work through the turmoil that had gripped him ever since she’d fallen sick.

In a mere two weeks since she’d fainted at work midday, Jia had already lost weight.

It didn’t matter that the team of doctors he’d summoned had reassured him that it was a very bad case of chest infection. Or that his mother and sisters took turns tending to her and feeding her when Apollo had to leave her side. Which, to be honest, hadn’t been much.

He wasn’t the best person to nurse someone in such fragile health but the thought of deserting her when she was weak and vulnerable didn’t even merit consideration. At least, Mama had convinced him to let the nurse he’d hired check on Jia every few hours, in case he missed any turn for the worse.

For the first time in his adult life, he was behind on deadlines for two different projects, his two assistants were constantly reminding him about the things he was pushing back, and one billionaire client, and an old friend, had jokingly threatened to cancel when Apollo had told him that he had no bandwidth to look at his design modifications. Apollo’s reaction to that had been telling on many levels.

It felt like a personal affront to Apollo that she would fall this sick under his care. He and his entire family were all healthy as oxen so where had Jia caught this illness? Had he driven her too hard by having her work long hours with his team so soon after taking her away from her family? Had he demanded too much of her at work and in bed? Had she been unhappy? Shouldn’t he have seen the signs that she was unwell long before she’d fainted at work?

When he sat by her, he felt restless, useless...and worse, helpless. Which he’d never been good at abiding. Still, a strange, horrible fear that she would slip away if he left had kept him glued to her side, night and day.

He didn’t require a degree in psychology to understand that it reminded him of the time that Papa had started taking to bed at all hours of the day.

He had been crushed by Jay’s deceit, devastated by having to sell most of their assets to pay off overdue bank loans. Had hated the fact that they’d all had to move back in with their grandparents. Nothing they’d done had stirred him from the fugue.

Mama had urged Apollo to concentrate on his own studies, that whatever Papa was going through was a temporary thing. The small malaise had lasted for months. Until one day, Apollo had found him lying still on his bed, his face pale and all his vitality gone, overdosed on painkillers.

And he, Apollo, had done nothing to help him. Which had set him on a path he hadn’t budged from in two decades.

“Why do you look so angry?” The whisper-thin question from the bed jerked Apollo into the present.

Sweaty hair sticking to her forehead, Jia looked small and pale, as if the infection was doing its best to dim her. Except her eyes, which finally had that sparkle back. She raised her arm, smelled herself and then fell back against the sheets with a sigh. “You can come closer. I don’t stink.”

Despite the volatile mix of emotions churning through his gut, his mouth twitched. This was the spirit he had missed in two weeks, the Jia he was coming to see as the prize for all his struggle. The only prize worth winning and having and keeping.

Only a month and a half of marriage, and she had embedded herself under his skin, and he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to pull her out. He’d blindly and arrogantly stumbled onto the best thing in his life and for a man who reached his goals on his own merit and strategy, it was unsettling as hell. Because what was the guarantee that it wouldn’t be snatched away from him? Especially, since he’d done nothing to deserve her.

“Who do I have to thank for the latest sponge bath? I smell like my favorite red roses.”

Without answering her, he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. She was damp and sticky. “I think your fever’s finally broken.” His hand shook as he reached for the water glass, so great was his relief. In its wake, exhaustion hit him like a full body assault. Grabbing a straw, he dunked it into the water and pulled her up a little so she could drink it.

Her eyes stayed on his face as she sipped. Dios mio , how he had missed that playful, challenging, sometimes downright angry gaze on his skin...and sometimes so addictively open in its wanting.

Unable to help himself, he tucked a thick lock of damp strands behind her ear. He wiped a drop of water from the corner of her mouth, feeling his heart finally settle into a normal pace.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?” he said, settling near her legs.

With a rough exhale, she pushed off the sheets, and looked down. The cotton top stuck to her skin and her shorts had ridden up all the way. Sitting up, she adjusted her clothes. “Who gave me the last sponge bath?”

He wrapped his fingers around her ankle, his gaze caught on a small red heart tattoo there. “How did I miss this one?” he muttered to himself.

“You’re way too focused on my breasts. And another spot further south.”

When he looked up, she was grinning. It sparked a chain reaction in his chest, some feelings known and acceptable, and some...downright debilitating.

“You owe me two answers,” she said, her gaze sweeping over his face intently.

“I was the one who gave you all the sponge baths. You were docile as a lamb, for the most part. Though I can tell you I prefer you as you usually are.”

“Mistrustful and argumentative?” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Rearing to take me on,” he added, running his thumb over the tattoo.

“Wait.” Color flushed her sharp cheeks and it was a welcome sight. “You were present...when I couldn’t walk to the bathroom, and the other day when I threw up...”

“All me.”

She buried her face in her hands, groaning. Then she lowered her fingers. “And when I had that really bad dream and woke up thrashing?”

“I got into bed with you.” And he had stayed with her for the rest of the night.

“You were here the entire time? The whole time,” she said, her chest rising and falling as if she’d reached some impossible conclusion.

He felt insulted that she found it shocking he would look after her. What did she think he meant by commitment ? And what did it mean that he couldn’t make himself leave her side?

“Your fever was too high and you were delirious. The doctor said someone should be with you every minute. Plus, you’ve got your fingers stuck in half the firm’s projects, so there wasn’t really a point in me harassing the rest of the team for progress.”

Pushing her hair away from her face, she sighed. “So you’re angry that everything’s backed up at work? That was quite the ferocious expression you had earlier.”

It was the perfect out for Apollo to take. But then, he’d never harbored self-delusion. “I was frustrated. And I’m not the greatest at sitting patiently doing nothing.”

“That’s quite shocking to know,” she said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Why frustrated though?”

“No one can tell me, apparently, why you got so sick.”

Her mouth slackened. And then she smiled. And Apollo felt as if his entire world had turned upside down. “Apollo, there can be a hundred reasons why I got sick. And—”

“Yes, but the rest of us are well. Only you got sick. I don’t like it. Nor was the speed at which you’ve been recovering to my liking.”

“Oh, I’m sorry that I’m not recovering fast enough to please Your Grumpy Highness.” And then, because she was Jia, she tossed a throw pillow at him. It hit him in the chest and dropped to the floor.

“Now I know you’re truly on the mend,” he said, getting up and walking toward the door. She’d need more than the broth she’d been surviving on to recover. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, his entire workload slammed into his brain, claiming his attention.

“Wait, Apollo.”

He turned to find her combing her fingers through her hair and pulling it into a knot. The action pushed her breasts upward, her nipples poking through the silk top. Her stomach looked even leaner than before. The desire to hold her gripped him like a vise but it wasn’t just the base lust to claim, own and find that delicious edge. It was more.

Whatever she saw in his gaze, a flush climbed up her chest and neck. Like a newborn calf testing its legs, she got off the bed gingerly.

Apollo went to her just as she stumbled and she fell against him with a huff. And then her hands went around his waist, and she clung to him. “Thank you for taking care of me. Even if I cost you thousands.”

“Millions, Tornado,” he said, his voice strange to his own ears.

She dragged her teeth against his chest roughly, teasing and provoking him. And he realized a great big thing that he’d overlooked all this time. Willingly enough, she’d given him everything she’d had ever since walking into his penthouse.

Except now, he wanted the thing she thought she didn’t have.

He held her loosely, sudden itching to get away from her. From himself in this state. But she was soft and warm and sweaty in his arms and he had missed her lithe body, her tart comments and how hard she made it to gain an inch of her trust but when she did...

“I take my vows seriously, Jia,” he said, pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then walked out.

Jia stood under the double-jet shower after Apollo left and tried to make sense out of her knotted thoughts. Before they turned into feelings and wishes and hopes and foolish dreams.

But she was afraid that she was already too late.

The fact that Apollo hadn’t left her to herself, the energy and hours he’d put into looking after her...she didn’t know what to make of it.

He was a billionaire...he could have given her care over to any number of staff. Even his frustration that she wasn’t getting better fast enough...had cloaked something far deeper. She was sure of that, even as she warned herself not to make it into a big deal.

Her mind spun in circles as she stepped out of the shower and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d lost weight just in two weeks and looked even more angular than usual. But her eyes, even sunken, held a glow, as if a small flicker of joy had been lit up within. Work life where she was noticed and respected, a family that offered unconditional acceptance and care, and a man who respected her and challenged her and then turned her inside out with his demands at night...

Wiping the steam from the mirror, Jia let herself speak and see the truth. For all that she’d been sick, she was happy within. A kernel of hope had taken root in her heart and it was already changing her. And she knew she could get addicted to the illusion of this happiness with Apollo. That if she wasn’t careful, she’d fall into the trap of wanting more and more.

She needed to stay strong, like she had during her mother’s illness even as she had realized finally why she fit differently into her own family. All her life, Mama had loved her, but the cost had been being good, being quiet, being the best daughter and sister Jia could be because Mama hadn’t wanted her father to find fault with Jia. She had let it dictate every action and numbed the whispers of her heart.

Her arms shook as she pulled on sweatpants and she tried the warning in her head again. Like everyone else in her life, Apollo’s approval and affection for her came with a cost. And yet, neither her heart nor her body believed it one bit.

A few days later, Apollo was finishing breakfast when Jia came down the stairs, her phone pressed to her cheek. It was cowardly but once he had known that she was on the mend, he’d fled to Athens and stayed at his penthouse. He’d dropped by this morning with the convenient lie that he needed her to look over some designs.

Now, her eyes blazed with anger when they met his, and her throat moved on a swallow.

Irritation flared through Apollo and it took all the willpower he possessed to not grab the phone from Jia and smash it into so many bits. He had no doubt who the caller was for he had dealt with the matter only last night. His wife’s spineless sister, Rina.

The very idea that he had almost married her made bile rise through him. If not for Jia’s fierce loyalty and courage, his life, right now, would have been very different. The realization grated on him.

“You...insensitive, lying bastard!” Jia said, running down the last two steps, fury dancing on her face.

Apollo shot to his feet and caught her as she tripped on a video game console and almost took to the floor. Christos , she felt breakable in his hands, all crackling fury and no substance beneath. Around him, his mother and sisters came to attention.

“Jia—”

“You promised you’d leave it alone, Apollo,” she was yelling now, pushing at his chest with her fists. “It’s the wish you granted me. But even that’s not sacred to you. To think I was actually beginning to believe you and trust you—”

“Stop it, Jia.” Apollo grabbed her hands before she could beat at his chest again. Tears filled her eyes. Alarm rang through him, making his words sharp. “You’re going to make yourself sick. You’ve barely recovered and—”

A bitter laugh escaped her mouth as she roughly wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Oh, please, don’t pretend as if you care.”

“Jia, listen to me—”

“Apollo! What did you do?” his mother said, joining in.

Apollo gritted his teeth and prayed for patience he didn’t have. The last person he wanted to discuss Jia’s family with was his mother. She’d never understood his drive for reparation, his madness for revenge as she called it. He definitely didn’t want her to know the particulars of his and Jia’s marriage or all the ways in which her family used her.

It might have started as a business deal but their relationship had already morphed into something else, which he’d been struggling to make peace with. Damned if he was going to let his family see their marriage differently, see him differently, just when he was beginning to see the error of his ways.

“This is between Jia and me,” he said, hoping they would take the hint.

When none of them budged, he met his mother’s gaze. She looked miserable, as if Jia’s pain was her own. All his sisters, even Camilla and his rowdy nephews, glared at him, ready to take him on if Jia only gave them the word. “Please,” he said, addressing Mama, “trust me.”

And this too felt like a rite of fire because he could see Mama struggle. Had he fallen so far in her estimation that she assumed he would hurt his wife on purpose?

Finally, she nodded and herded the rest of them out of the living room. He wrapped his arms around Jia and thanked the saints he didn’t believe in that she didn’t push him away.

“You promised you’d leave it alone,” she repeated, subdued and stiff. “Instead, you had cops haul Vik away. You’re ruining my family and I’ve lost the last chance with my father to...” She sighed.

So that’s what had sent her into such a...temper? Had her father somehow pinned Apollo’s actions on Jia? How did he think she would control a powerful man like him?

His chest felt tight, a painful kind of powerlessness clutching him in its hold. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to get rid of this hold her father seemed to have on her but he couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to stop the damage done to his father and it felt like he was in the same boat again.

This time, the obstacle was an invisible, intangible thing and if he pushed the matter, he would hurt the only innocent in all this.

“Your blasted brother nearly took your eye out. You shouldn’t be protecting him.”

“He just lost his temper,” Jia said, pulling back. “He was...drunk and upset that I married you without telling them. We got into an argument and he was stumbling and pushed me. I fell against the edge of a table. That’s the truth.”

“He’s a twenty-eight-year-old man,” Apollo bit out. Just the image of her brother pushing her was enough to send him into a rage. “He should have better control of his temper.”

“Maybe yes, but he doesn’t deserve to go to jail for it and—”

“Did Rina tell you he pushed her too last week?”

“What?” Jia said, blinking hard. “She was crying and my father was yelling in the background—”

“He pushed her. They had to bring her to the hospital—”

“Is she hurt?”

“No, she insisted on going because apparently she’s pregnant and wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“She told you all this?”

“Last night, between sobs,” he said, dryly.

“She’s...pregnant?”

“Yes. Which is why she shamelessly pushed you toward me. What little courage she might have, she used it up telling me she’d have just married me anyway if you hadn’t interfered, and it felt awful that she’d let you take her place and, oh, please would I help her because your father was going to throw her out, and she found out from you that I wasn’t the horrible monster she thought I was.”

Jia rubbed her hands over her face, a ghastly calm taking place of the frenzy from before. “Vik...he adores her. He shouldn’t—”

“Why is it okay for him to push you around but not your older sister who’s supposed to look after you?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jia replied and turned away, but not before he missed her flinch. All her fury was spent and he could see her withdrawing into herself, as clearly as if she was setting up brick walls around her.

“No, Jia,” he said, grabbing her around the waist until she looked at him. “You started this, agapi , and I demand that you finish it. You and I both know Vik needs to learn a lesson, before he does something worse than getting drunk and pushing his sisters around. If your father had any kind of sense, he would let him rot in the cell and fear the consequences.”

“Fine. I agree.”

“Then please, kindly answer my question,” he said, unable to keep his temper out of his tone.

“It’s a ridiculous assumption.”

“Jia—”

“How does it matter who looks after whom? You’re the youngest but you take care of all of them, don’t you?”

“My sisters don’t take advantage of me. Mama hates everything I have done for the last decade but she would never sell me out to some stranger who might or might not—”

“My mom asked me to look after them, okay?” Jia burst out, her eyes flashing. “To keep them together. All my life, she begged me to be good and quiet and capable and strong...stronger than any of them. She said it was her fault that my father had become so hardened and soulless and she couldn’t desert him and I shouldn’t either.”

“What weakness?”

Something like pure anguish danced in her eyes. It stole the breath from his lungs.

“She...she had an affair and I was the result. When she found out she was pregnant with me, she confessed everything. My father...loved her enough that he agreed to raise me as his own.”

“So Rina would’ve followed in her footsteps if you hadn’t saved her?”

She glared at him but didn’t argue. Apollo wondered if that was progress. “I didn’t...know until I was thirteen, when Mom fell sick. I finally understood why he was so...strict and unbending, especially with me. I promised her that I would be strong, that I would take on her responsibilities in her absence.”

Suddenly, Apollo had a blueprint to every little thing that had thrown him about her from day one. The emerging picture only served to anger him. “So you’ll forgive them anything? Forgive your father because he raised you as his own, even though, clearly, he expects you to pay for it?”

“He’s never asked me for anything.” She pushed her fingers through her hair, her gaze far off for a moment. “I... I did it willingly. And not everything is black-and-white, Apollo. Would you forgive me if I cheated on you?”

The very idea made him want to howl like a deranged person. “I’m not answering that because I know you won’t.” He had no idea where his faith came from. But it was there, unwavering and real, as solid as the house they were standing in. Stronger than any conviction he’d ever had before.

“The fact is he loved her enough to raise me as his. He gave me a home, an education, a family.”

“But he continues to punish you for it.”

“He’s never said one unkind word to me my entire life.”

“He pawned off your work as your brother’s—”

“Because Vik was about to lose his job. We agreed that it would be a one-time thing. Even the black eye,” she said softly. “He didn’t know that Vik pushed me. I never told him that Vik loses his temper when he gets drunk. You can’t blame him for something he’s not aware of.”

“Ahh...you have such little expectations of the people around you, matia mou . By that measure, our marriage should hopefully last a hundred years.”

“At least he met my expectations, little as they were,” she said, tilting her chin. “Unlike you.”

Her silken thrust found a raw spot, one he wasn’t aware existed. To be compared to that man with no morals and to come away wanting...felt like the worst kind of defeat.

But then, he was discovering a lot of things hadn’t existed for him before this woman. And yes, some were to be expected because he had never been married before. But he was also aware of doubts where there was only certainty before and of a hundred little changes in his thoughts, in his actions.

He raised a brow, refusing to let her see his dilemma. Needing for her to come to him, to ask him for what she wanted. She unbalanced him so easily, that he was always looking for leverage in their relationship. He hated losing in the slightest, and the stakes were only increasing.

“You gave me three wishes. You broke the third one.”

“What would you have of me, pethi mou ?”

A flicker of warmth shone in her eyes before she rubbed her eyes with her fingers. The action reminded him of how painfully young she was. “Will you help Rina out please? For me?”

He sighed, even as he felt a contracting tightness in his chest. As if his heart was too big or his body too small to contain these...feelings she evoked. He couldn’t explain it or banish it. Because he had tried to, when she lay in bed, all of her fierce vitality doused.

“I have,” he said, loathe to make her beg when it came to her damned family. “Her lover has a job with the New York branch.”

“Already?”

“You keep forgetting that I know you now, Jia. Maybe better than anyone else.”

Something soft and vulnerable sparked in her eyes before she chased it away.

“Your third condition is for you to use,” he said, knowing he was playing a very dangerous game. But then, he was a man who had taken big risks for the things he wanted. It was how he’d made a name for himself and millions for his family, how he’d risen to the top and become powerful enough to take on the man who had ruined his father. And this...this game he was playing with his wife and her as the prize, it was the biggest battle of his life. “ For you, Jia . Not for anyone else.”

“Good to know,” she said, digging her teeth into her lower lip. She scooted closer, her fingers fisting his shirt in a possessive gesture that made his blood pound. “Although, anything I want from you for myself, I have a feeling you’ll give it freely.”

“Such faith,” he said, gathering her to him. She was even more slender than before and yet, somehow, if he closed his eyes, he knew he would only see her gap-toothed smile, and her vibrant attitude and the soft vulnerability she rarely showed. But he was getting little slivers of it now. “You have to do something for me in return.”

“What?”

“Get back to bed.”

“I’ve just spent two and a half weeks there. And this recovery period is worse. I’m lonely—” faint color dusted her cheeks “—and I have all this sudden energy.”

She looked so sparkly and cheerful that Apollo didn’t have the heart to point out that it was because he had agreed to help her lying, cheating coward of a sister. If she let them, her family would suck the marrow out of her. “I’ll ask Christina to join you and keep you company.”

“No.”

“Camilla, then.”

“God, no. She’ll make me drink that awful bone broth again.”

“You need it.”

“I know what I need.”

“What?”

“You, in bed, with me.” When he only watched her without replying, she pouted. “I mean, I adore your family, yes, but I want you.”

His mouth twitched, despite his resolve not to give in. But he was angry and disgruntled enough with her, disturbed enough by her revelation about her mother and her father that he wanted to be persuaded. Seduced. Wanted. He’d never before in his goddamned life wanted to be wanted.

“Please, Apollo. You can bring me up to speed on that eco-resort in the Philippines.”

“If I get in bed with you, we will not be discussing architecture. I doubt we will be talking at all and you’re too weak for that kind of activity.”

“Of course I’m not weak. Especially if I let you do all the work,” she said, wriggling her feathery brows. “I know you long for a wife who will willingly put up with whatever you do to her.”

“That sounds like your fantasy, pethi mou . Not mine.”

“What do you think I’m trying to tell you without actually saying it?”

“Maybe I won’t understand until you beg me.”

“You’re mean.”

“You’re the one who called me names in front of my family. Now even they believe I’m a villain.”

He didn’t add that his mother already thought so. It hurt him, this unspoken rift between him and his mother, but he had no idea how to fix it. Until recently, he hadn’t even wanted to. Though now, he saw that his restlessness of the past few years stemmed also from this disconnection between him and them.

Mama didn’t understand his point of view and he definitely didn’t understand hers. Neither did he forget that, in Mama’s eyes, marrying Jia without knowing his nefarious intentions, which he was now glad Jia hid from her, was the only right thing he had done in his adult life.

“I’m sorry for that,” Jia said, flushing. Rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “I...overreacted. I’ll explain it to them. I’ll tell them the antibiotics made my brain wonky. I’ll tell them you’re the best husband I could’ve ever asked for, that you keep me well stocked in orgasms. At least, until two weeks ago.”

His destruction, he’d never thought, could come in the form of a woman. Or that he would willingly walk toward it. “Not enough,” he said, bracing himself against her warmth as she pressed a kiss on his chest.

She stomped her foot and blew impatiently at a lock of hair that dared to caress her cheek. “I miss you, Apollo. Won’t you please keep me company?”

He tucked his hands into his pockets, to stop himself from reaching for her. “Not nearly enough.”

She exhaled roughly. “I miss...talking with you about work and our vision for the future and I... I miss your kisses and how you let me use you as a squishy when I’m deep in sleep and I’m horny for you and only you. I kept having these feverish dreams where I’m caught under you and I’m not even trying to get away as you have your way with me and those weird dreams were the only thing that made it worth staying in bed. So, my dear husband, won’t you please pin me under you and have your wicked way with me?”

Apollo had no idea if she’d said anything past that or if he’d replied at all, because all he could hear was the thundering whoosh of his desire in his ears and all he could feel was the weight of her slender body in his arms as he carried her up to their bedroom.