Why not enjoy his gifts? The fruits of their labor, his father had said. The evidence of just how good their product was. It wasn’t the first time he’d sampled the drugs. He was human, a young man with endless access to excess, and he’d taken it. But not the variety or amount he’d had the night of his birthday.
And his father had encouraged him to sample their other product. Women. Yes, he’d dabbled with the prostitutes that were around the mansion before. But never the women his father had taken into human trafficking. He’d barely seen any of those women before.
You can break her in, boy. A virgin, I think. A gift for you. She might say no, but she doesn’t mean it. I’ve paid her well to spread her legs. She’ll give it up whether she wants to or not.
He pulled back from Leah and took a deep breath. He didn’t want to think about that. Not now. Not ever. He’d atoned for that particular sin, or he’d at least done his best to make it right. He could still remember, though. Her face. Her fear. The tears. But as soon as he’d realized...as soon as he’d gotten a moment of clarity...
And then they’d both escaped. He’d seen her back to her family, mostly untouched. The only scars on her, the only man to try to do anything to her had been him. Her scars were created by his hand. But at least...at least he’d stopped.
Control had won in the end. And he had to see that it always did.
Leah was his wife. Leah had made vows. Leah wanted to be here. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She hadn’t been sold.
Wasn’t she? For shares in her own company? For the ownership of Holt?
No. It wasn’t the same.
It wasn’t.
“Tell me you want me,” he ground out, his voice rougher than intended. “Tell me.”
Her eyes opened, her expression dazed. “I want you.”
“With my name.” He was desperate to hear it. Consent was essential. Not consent under duress. Not consent that was heavy with the weight of duty. He required desire.
She touched his face. “I want you, Ajax. What other man would I want?”
“Why did you marry me?”
“For Holt. For my business. And for you, because you worked too hard to lose it all.”
“But you made the decision. You wanted to.”
“No one forced me. You were there. My father was there. He would never have made me do it. No one even hinted about me marrying you. I did. It was my idea.” She put her finger on his lip, traced it as he’d done to her. “And if you’ll recall, I demanded intimacy as a part of my terms and conditions.”
“I do. But why?”
“Women have hormones, too, Ajax, and I don’t want to go satisfying things with someone who isn’t my husband. If this marriage is real, we honor our vows.”
“Something we agree on.”
“You’ll be faithful to me, too?”
“Of course.”
“No matter what?”
“Who would I break my vows with?”
She let out a shuddering breath. “All my life, Ajax, I have felt like I was just behind her. Everyone who’s compared us has found me lacking next to her. And you preferred her, too. You said you loved her.”
He was going to say something about emotion. About how he wasn’t sure he’d ever had any. He’d directed everything he had at loving Rachel because marrying her had seemed like such a good idea. But he wasn’t sure he’d truly loved her. Once she was taken away as a goal, his feelings had gone, too.
He was sure he hadn’t loved her. He felt nothing when he thought of her now, not a twinge in his heart, not even a tug of lust. He felt more when he thought of that girl with the tear-streaked face from seventeen years earlier than he did when he thought of the woman he’d meant to marry just a few short weeks ago.
And he started to tell her that. But it wasn’t what came out. “You are not sharing my body with any other woman.”
Something in her expression turned feral, fierce. “Damn right I’m not. You’re married to me.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Why was he saying this now? It didn’t matter. If he explained, he would have to give hints about his past. But it had been so long, and this was different. A few rushed, youthful couplings that had left him feeling dirty were nothing like this. “I have not been with a woman since I was fifteen.”
Her mouth dropped open, her lips rounded into an O. “What?”
“So it’s closer to eighteen years, in truth.”