She wasn’t going to expose herself to that kind of pain. The idea of letting him in, of putting herself out there and trying to make their marriage more than just a plan, had obviously been a stupid one.
She released her hold on the box and turned away from him. “I’m going to go back to my penthouse and try to make arrangements for my things.”
“Good. Be back at my house tonight.”
“Why?”
“Appearance, agape, why else?”
“Oh, no. Yeah. Of course.” She wanted to say something tart. To lash out at him. Certainly not so he could be with her. Or something like that. But her throat was too raw and her head hurt. And she wouldn’t risk revealing that to him. “See you later then. I’ll try to make some sort of big hand gesture and maybe do a pantomime of being trapped in a box so I get the paparazzi’s attention as I go back to the house. Wouldn’t want them to miss me being there. For appearances.”
“Whatever you feel you need to do.”
Yell at you until I forget how confused I am. “Great. See you later.”
Ajax watched Leah leave, a strange weight settling in his stomach. She’d looked...upset, and that was an understatement. But he hadn’t wanted to have a conversation with her about sex, not when his body still burned from their kiss.
And he hadn’t wanted to admit that he’d never slept with Rachel. Pride? He’d never thought he would suffer from male pride in quite that way. He’d made his choices. Very deliberately and he was hardly going to regret them now.
He looked down at his desk. It looked empty. Because Joseph Holt wasn’t here. He’d removed his presence, and Ajax found that he missed the presence of his mentor.
If there was ever a man he wanted to imitate, it was him.
Unlike his own father, Joseph Holt was a good man. He cared for his family, for people, his staff. He worked hard and found a reward in it. There was an honesty to him, a humanity that had been completely foreign to Ajax when he’d first shown up at the estate, a lost boy with scars inside that would never heal properly.
And Joseph Holt had taken him in and shown him there was another way to live, another way to act than the way he’d seen all of his life. Than the dirty, disgusting hell he’d been brought up in. A hell he’d nearly jumped into with both feet.
He sat down at the desk. His desk now. And he only hoped that with the absence of Joseph, and all of his things, he would still be able to be the man he’d taught him to be.
And then it suddenly hit him why his desk looked so empty. A strange memory from the past that seemed prominent now.
Leah hadn’t left him any candy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE DAYS IN New York were basically miserable. Leah avoided Ajax to the best of her ability. She spent time at her shop and her lab, experimenting with flavors.
She didn’t do a lot of hands-on candy creation, not at this stage in her career, but when she was feeling stressed it was a nice distraction.
But her two weeks was coming to an end. In just a few minutes. And that meant it was nearly honeymoon time. Romance time.
With a man she was barely speaking to. Yay. That was just freaking spiffy.
She was meeting him at the airport, because they’d both been too busy to get a car together. Well, no, that was a lie. She could have made time, but she’d lied and said she didn’t have it so she could avoid him for a few extra moments.
Now she was sitting there in the private lounge, waiting for him to come, with bags of candy wrapped in ribbon scattered around her feet. She always took the surplus stock, and this time she’d ended up with a bunch of irregular chocolate shoes thanks to the factory snafu.
It would be really nice if the honeymoon was severely depressing. Binge eating easily accessed. She honestly had no idea what to expect from Ajax, so she’d come prepared.
The door to the lounge opened, and Ajax walked in, looking unbelievably sexy in a black suit with a black tie. The man was buttoned up and knotted to perfection, short hair in place. Everything about him shouted control freak. And she had no idea what it was in her that found it so attractive. She just wanted to loosen that tie, undo his buttons and run her fingers through his hair and get it all messy.
She sucked in a sharp breath and bent down, trying to gather up her candy. “Hi,” she said, scooping the cellophane bags up, the packaging crinkling as she pulled them in tight to her chest. “I’m just... I got all this candy and I have to, get it now....” She picked up a few more bags and nearly lost one. He took a step toward her at the same time she took one toward him. “Here.” She dumped the bags into his arms. “Take. Please.” Then she bent down and grabbed the rest, and her purse. “Ready?”