After The Billionaire's Wedding Vows…
He winced in acknowledgment. “I slipped once too often and realized I needed to use it all the time, for consistency.”
The other option of course would have been for him to never use it. For consistency. And because Polly had made it clear that was what she wanted. But then, when had Polly’s wants, or even needs, ever trumped his mother’s? Never, that was when.
Their daughter demanded he
r father’s attention right then, and Polly was grateful for it. She was done with this weird walk down memory lane.
No one could change the path their marriage had taken, because she’d realized way too late that she’d married a man programmed to hurt her.
Because, despite a few claims to the contrary, usually when she’d done something that made him really happy, like giving birth, he did not love her.
No man who loved her would treat her the way that Alexandros had since their marriage and her move to Greece. The very fact he’d insisted on moving into his family home, one they had had to share with the two wicked witches, showed just how little her feelings had mattered to him.
He knew from the beginning that Athena had wanted him to marry an entirely different type of woman. It had taken Polly longer to see the contempt behind the smile.
Even so, Alexandros would be so annoyed if he knew she thought of his mother and sister in those terms.
But Polly’s thoughts were her own and even her had to be in charge husband could not police them.
They put their daughter down for her nap together, and Polly enjoyed the family togetherness so much, moisture burned the back of her eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked as they left their daughter’s bedroom together.
“I’m fine.” She didn’t consider that two-word answer deception.
She simply said what he expected to hear.
Suddenly she found herself in his arms and being carried past the staircase that would have taken them back downstairs, down the hall and to their bedroom.
“It’s the middle of the day, Alexandros!”
“When has that ever stopped me?”
It was true that some weekends they utilized the time during their daughter’s naps to enjoy marital intimacy, but since he was never home during the day during the week, and not always on the weekends, it was something very new.
“Don’t you have to get back to the office?” she asked in wonder as he laid her down on their bed, his expression harsh with need that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Or maybe it had been and she just hadn’t let herself notice it.
“The office can wait.” He removed his jacket and tie in rapid succession, his nimble fingers already working the buttons of his shirt open.
She gasped, her shock was so great at that unprecedented statement.
CHAPTER THREE
ALEXANDROS IMPATIENTLY TUGGED his shirt over his head with only the cuffs and a few buttons undone. Shock turned to passion as the body she loved touching so much was revealed to her hungry gaze.
He unhooked his leather belt and didn’t even bother taking it from the loops as he usually did before undoing his slacks to push them down his hips.
“They’re going to get wrinkled like that.”
“Do you care?” he asked lazily.
She shook her head, her gaze glued to his now-naked body.
“I love the way you look at me. In the bedroom.” There was something strange in his expression she couldn’t read though. Like something about what he’d said bothered him.
Polly leaned up on her elbows, confident in this, as she was in no other area of their relationship. In this area, there could be no denying they were entirely simpatico.