Page 44 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

Niko hesitated, but only for a moment. After a sharp look from Athan, he turned and left the kitchen.

“Athan, perhaps you should stay here,” Lynna said. “Listen to Ophelia. She is your public relations manager for a reason.”

He looked at Lynna then. Really looked at her. She had something likeconcernin her expression, in the way she had her hands clasped together. And for a strange blinding second, he wanted to listen to her. He wanted to believe she was concerned, that she did care.

That someone could.

But he knew better, and so did Lynna.

Which left something sharp and painful lodging in his chest. So perhaps his words were more curt than they needed to be, but they needed to be said either way.

“You needn’t pretend you suddenly care simply because we slept together, Lynna.”

* * *

Lynna felt the words like a slap. She should not have been surprised that he might lash out, but she found herself taken aback anyway. Perhaps not so much at the words as her reaction to them.

Not anger, but something that felt far too close to hurt.

Luckily the idea that her ever traitorous heart might be so completely worthless as to feelhurtbecause Athan Akakios might be a little harsh infuriated her.

“And you needn’t pretend we are any less partners against your father simply because we did. This is about AC International. This is about Rhys. It is about clearing my father’s name.”

He held her gaze, and perhaps if it simply stayed cool or blank or angry, she might have softened, but the fact she was stupid enough to think she sawhurtthere had her sticking to her guns.

“Of course it is,” he returned. Coolly.

And that would not offend her, because there were no secrets here. No feelings. A night together in bed didn’t change what they were to each other. That was all physical—and the physical needed to be put away to deal with this.

For the people who meant most to her in the world. So what did it matter if he wascool? If he lashed out? She was a problem solver, and she would solve this problem if he would not.

“It seems an epically bad idea to ignore the instructions of your PR expert in the midst of a PR crisis.”

“I will notcower,” he all but growled.

“No, but you will need to make the right choices. And to do so, we need to understand where this came from.”

Athan turned away from her then. His back was stiff, his shoulders tense, and she had the oddest impulse to move forward and smooth her hands over all those contracted muscles. Like when she’d reached out and touched him when Niko had dropped the news.

But that had been too close to crossing lines, confusing motives. Perhaps the pleasures of last night…and this morning…did not have toend, but only if they could keep those lines clear. Only if it did not get…confusing. For either of them.

So, they had to focus on the task and moment at hand. They had to solve the problem.

“Why did he go to your mother?” she asked him. “Why did she turn on you?” Maybe if they understood that, Ophelia could somehow undo this.

“I grew up at my father’s knee, Lynna. That meant a hefty disdain and mistreatment of my own mother. She has every reason to turn on me.”

There was clearly more to that story, and she opened her mouth to demand it. Then she stopped herself. This was partly her fight, but not totally. And Athan had a whole team of people to deal with this. He didn’t need her.

And, maybe, there was somesmallpart of herself worried that if she heard the story she’d have empathy for Athan because, while she had issues with her own mother, they all stemmed from dealing with tragedy. Her mother had never once turned her back on her children, and it felt so wrong to think any would.

She went back to making breakfast. It was something she could do, and he would need to eat. And then she didn’t have to think about a boy whose parents did not love him. Who had presumably used him as a tool, and still did.

But that only made her think about the truth of the matter. Athan’s parents had not been married for some time, which meant whatever Athan thought he did to his mother at his father’s knee was nothingrecent. “You were just a boy when your parents divorced.”

“I was thirteen,” he said starkly, as if that refuted what she said, when of course it did not.

“That is a boy. Rhys is nineteen, and I hardly consider him more than a boy, no matter how brilliant he is and how well he’ll do once he graduates into the real world. Thirteen is aboy.” She didn’t know why she felt so adamant about that when she could not doubt that he’d done terrible things to his own mother.

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