His for a Price

Ouch.

“The tabloids claim you’ve stolen me away and married me without Chase’s permission, because you’re business rivals fighting over the company like a couple of wild dogs.” She eyed him. “Making me the bone in this scenario.”

The old Nicodemus would have smirked at that. This one didn’t bother, and Mattie hated that she felt it like an acid inside her, eating away at her. Leaving nothing but gaping holes and a kind of hollowness behind.

“They also claim you’ve been secretly in love with me for years.” He kept typing whatever it was he was typing, ruling his world from a distance and not sparing her a single glance as he spoke. “That your father opposed our relationship and only now can we be together, the Romeo and Juliet of the business world. Or that you’re actually the conniving power behind Chase, and this union     was all your idea to throw off your father’s creditors. I’m not sure which version I find more laughable.”

HAS MATTIE BEEN FAKING IT ALL ALONG? screeched one article, which had hypothesized that Mattie was actually some kind of corporate Mata Hari, slithering from one rich man to the next while hiding herself in plain sight as a vapid tabloid train wreck. She thought that one might actually be the most insulting of them all.

“I thought the witnesses to our wedding were household staff with the odd smartphone camera,” she continued, changing the subject slightly from the obnoxious headlines that showed no signs of abating as the days passed. “Imagine my surprise to discover that one was a photographer so talented he made that sad little exercise look like a romantic moment.”

“You’re a far better actress than I ever gave you credit for,” Nicodemus said, and he did glance over at her then, but she saw nothing on that fiercely beautiful face of his but impatience. “But then, why shouldn’t you be? It’s not like you know anything about reality.”

“Like you do, you mean,” she retorted, and waved a hand around them to indicate the sprawling villa and the stunning views in all directions. “Because this is reality.”

“The difference is that I earned this.” His cell phone buzzed and he frowned at it but didn’t answer, and Mattie hated how she clung to that. Like it meant something. “I built this. I came from nothing and believe me, I remember what it was like to have no reason to live but dreams that someday, it might be better. I don’t imagine you can say the same.”

“Everybody’s had to fight, Nicodemus,” she said, and she was horrified at what she heard in her voice. That rawness. That telling darkness. The memories that came with it, and then the guilt. Always the guilt. “Everyone. Even someone you find as useless as me.”

He looked at her then, but it was different—so damned different—from the way he’d studied her all these years. She didn’t understand why it made a clawing panic rise inside her, making her chest tight and her throat hurt. She didn’t understand any of this. She only knew that she’d played her best weapon and won—but lost something, too. Something she hadn’t realized she could lose. Something she certainly hadn’t realized she’d miss.

And suddenly, she was afraid to hear what he might say next.

“Is it in your grand plans that I continue to work?” she asked languidly, as if she wasn’t affected by any of this at all. “When we get back to New York, I mean. Does your great and glorious male dignity demand that I become some kind of housewife, instead? I read an article that claimed you’ve abducted me against my will and hypnotized me to force me to act against my brother. Just FYI. There could be questions if I don’t turn up at the office.”

“I don’t believe you possess any of the skills I might require in a housewife,” Nicodemus said, and there was the faintest hint of his dry humor there. It made Mattie’s heart kick at her. “Can you cook? Clean? Do a single thing you’re told?”

She settled back against the couch. “A man of your wealth has a housekeeper for all that, surely.”

“Yes, and my housekeeper obeys me. She is a gem without price.”

“So am I to perch on your arm and be decorative?” Mattie asked. “That sounds delightful. Very intellectually stimulating, I’m sure. What will we tell the tabloids? What new stories will they create? That you took me to Greece to lobotomize me?”

He ran his hand over his face and for a moment—just a moment—looked tired. Sad, even. It reminded her of that unguarded moment she’d stumbled upon that day in the kitchen, and, like then, she didn’t know what to make of it. Or of her own response, which was outsized and strange. Unwieldy.