“Have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”
“Uh, sure.” I ran my hands under my skirt as I sat and crossed my legs at the ankles. Tension kept my back straight and my body at the edge of my seat.
He didn’t give me options to see what I would like. Instead, he went to the far side of the room and opened a paneled cabinet, revealing a small fridge. He pulled out the green bottle with a golden label, retrieved a glass and a small towel from the counter, and stalked toward me.
My pulse tumbled and raced faster. He was carrying a bottle of Dom Perignon. “Champagne?”
He leaned over me to set the flute on the table, straightened, and went to work peeling off the foil and cage. “The occasion calls for it.” He put the towel over the cork and began to twist. “I’m happy we’re playing chess again.”
When the loud pop of the cork rang out, I flinched.
“You seem nervous.” He folded the towel, set it and the cork on the table, and picked up the glass.
“I am nervous.”
As he poured, his gaze was on the bubbles, but his focus was on me. “Why? We’ve played many times before.”
“I’m not nervous about the game. It’s what happens after.”
He handed the glass to me but paused and didn’t release it. Even the god Zeus was a slave to his male desires, and lust coiled in his eyes. “Is something going to happen after I defeat you?”
“You’ve already defeated me.”
I’m here, aren’t I? I hoped I said with a look.
He let go of the glass, and I held his stare for a beat too long, letting my double meaning settle on him before casting a hand toward the board. “You’ll take my queen in two moves, and then I’m just running after that.”
His pleased expression was insidious. As he set the bottle down, I turned toward the mirror and watched his reflection as he unbuttoned his suit coat and sat in the chair opposite mine.
“I’d like to know,” he said, “why you wanted to play here tonight rather than the library.” Macalister was smart. He didn’t trust me and knew I had an agenda.
My chest was uncomfortably tight. I had to be careful and loaded my statement with as much truth as possible. “Royce wouldn’t like it if he saw us playing together.”
The smile on his lips was faint, but an evil grin threatened the edges of his mouth. “I see,” he said. “In that case, it’s your move.”
I took a sip of the chilled champagne. It was manipulative on every level. Not just the obvious, where the alcohol would lower my inhibitions, but it was seductive. This felt distinctly different from any other time we’d played. His gaze zeroed in on my lips as they were pressed to the glass, and my throat when it dipped in a swallow.
Had the staff found it strange when Macalister asked for champagne? He only drank once a year, and preferred scotch.
For the first time ever, I didn’t care if I won or lost the match. The outcome was irrelevant. We were playing a more intricate game with higher stakes, and that was where my focus lay. As we moved our dwindling pieces around the board, anticipation drifted in the air as an invisible fog.
“Your tattoo is Medusa,” he said when we entered the endgame, “but I see you more as Nyx.”
That gave me pause. Nyx was the goddess of night and wasn’t mentioned much in mythology, which I found interesting given how she was one of the most powerful gods. She had spawned the dark things in life—strife, pain, sleep, and death.
“Why is that?” I asked.
His eyes teemed with carnal desire. “She’s the only one Zeus feared.”
The best myth featuring Nyx was the one where Hera convinced Hypnos to put Zeus to sleep so she could scheme behind his back. When her husband woke, he was furious and chased after Hypnos. But the sleep god darted into his mother Nyx’s cave, and Zeus wouldn’t dare step inside. He was terrified of her wrath.
Was Macalister saying he feared me? I didn’t believe him for a second. I finished my glass of champagne and moved my knight, knowing this farce of a game was about to be over and we’d move into the middlegame of the one that mattered.
His gaze lingered on my right hand. “You’re wearing the ring I gave you. It looks nice.” Finally, he moved his bishop. “Checkmate.” He leaned back in his seat, rested his elbows on the armrests, and steepled his fingers together. “Do you want to play again?”
“No. I’m interested in something else.”
He looked at me with cautious eyes, like what I was saying was too good to be true. “Which is?”
“I’d like to negotiate.” Hopefully, the last negotiations I’d ever have to do with him. “I want you to be honest with me.”