Page 31 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

But it had been there. This whole time. Which meant her grief was there, just as her anger and frustration were.

As her desire might be.

He moved closer to her, lured by the idea. Desire. That kiss on their wedding night. What might lurk underneath her carefully curated surface?

“Did I mention that you look beautiful tonight? Ethereal.” And she did. He’d found himself losing the thread of conversation more than once when he’d caught sight of her smiling at Henry or taking a delicate bite of the food she’d made herself. The sound of her gentle laugh had knocked into him like a blow on more than one occasion.

It all suited their purposes. Made him look in love with her. Which was all that mattered. At least, when they were around people connected with AC.

Now they were alone. And nothing mattered except what he wanted to matter.

He moved closer still. “I could hardly focus on the task at hand.”

“Stop that,” she snapped.

“What?”

“We are husband and wife in name only. It’s fine enough to pretend for an audience, but I don’t want to hear… I don’t need your compliments, Athan.”

He liked the way she said his name all clipped, reproachful. “Need? Of course not. But you don’t want to hear that I think you’re beautiful? That I spent just as much time considering the angles of how to win Henry over to our side as I did the precise spot on your neck I’d like to put my mouth.”

Her eyes widened for a moment—and perhaps it was arrogance, but he liked to think it was a moment of anticipation—before her eyes narrowed.

“I amnotgoing to be your plaything.”

“Oh, it isn’tplay,omorfiá mou, I assure you.”

She shook her head, made a fed-up kind of noise, then hefted a stack of dishes and tried to sail past him. But he knew her well enough or was getting there. He knew just what to say to stop her in her tracks.

“Why are you running, Lynna?”

She didn’t take another step. She stopped abruptly, shoulders straightening. “I am not running. I have dishes to do.”

“Lynna. Come now. Surely you can come up with a better excuse than that.”

She whirled to face him, temper flaring, the stack of plates wobbling dangerously in her arms. “I have held up my end of the bargain this evening. I did an impeccable job.”

“You did.”

“So. There is no need, there is no…place for this…whatever game you’re trying to play.”

“It couldn’t be as simple as finding you attractive, being married to you, and wanting to taste you again. It has to be a game?”

The plates clattered, but she firmed her grip. “I don’t know what would ever give you the impression that I’d want you to touch me—”

“Perhaps our wedding when you kissed me back.” He smiled at her. “You liked it when I kissed you.”

Temper was heightening her color. Maybe he would have liked to find a different emotion to coax out of her, but at least anger wassomething. She didn’t cut that one off abruptly, and he wanted more.

Because he wasn’t a selfless man, and in this moment, he didn’t even want to be.

“We all have temporary bouts of insanity now and then,” she said acidly.

But it did nothing to dim his smile. Her barbs were always so well-placed, sofunny, even if she wasn’t trying to be. “Insanity or no, that is not saying you didn’t like it.”

“Perhaps I’d like kissing a frog,” she returned archly.

It made him want to laugh. It made him want to put his mouth on her. To undo the twist of her hair. To see what she was hiding under all those layers.

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