So desiring Alice was utterly out of the question.
With the kind of discipline he’d brought to his business when it had gone completely pear-shaped, he forced his body to behave, concentrating on calming an over-excited member of his anatomy in particular, grinding his teeth until things were a little less heated, and then he smiled down at the woman he was going to marry.
The woman he’d arranged to marry purely because it made business sense. The woman he’d selected because she needed money, and money was the strongest motivator.
And he relaxed.
Because they both knew it was a commercial agreement. They both knew it was a contractual arrangement, nothing more. They both knew the terms, and were prepared to stick to them. Desire was neither here nor there in this marriage.
* * *
She was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration when they emerged from the nightclub two hours later, and she knew it made the dress cling to her even more. Knew, and didn’t care. Her body was throbbing with pleasure and happiness, with a kind of light-heartedness she hadn’t felt in a long time—if ever. When she was a child, they’d always been so stretched financially that their home had been tense, and Alice had borne that tension, had carried it inside her.
Then Jane had had her stroke and Alice’s life had been plunged into an existence of worrying and stressing, of heartache and pain that she could rarely engage.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d simply danced. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled because happiness had been turning over inside her.
Everything was simple, and good, and she could relax a little.
A flash burst in her face, the light bright and blinding, and instinctively she curved her body closer to Thanos’s, her expression shifting from a relaxed smile to a look of pure panic. She heard his curse, and remembered the main reason they’d come out tonight was to be photographed. They were here purely for this.
Why had she forgotten?
Fool! She should have at least checked her appearance in the cloakroom before leaving the bar.
‘Got a live one, Thanos?’ one of the paparazzi shouted, his accent cockney despite the fact they were in New York.
Thanos glared over Alice’s head and then looked down into her face. She felt a strange, budding sense of calm despite this odd invasion of their privacy.
‘You are sure about this?’ he asked, quietly, his eyes roaming her face, giving her one last opportunity to pull out.
As if she could—even if this one very brief brush with his lifestyle had made her balk at what lay ahead. Thanks to his generosity, her mother was in a five-star care facility.
Thanks to Thanos, Alice would be living debt-free for the first time in years.
‘I’m sure,’ she agreed firmly.
‘Okay, then.’ He dipped his head forward and Alice had barely a second to get a grip of her emotions before his lips brushed hers. Just a quick buzz, skin on skin, an exhalation, and her pulse began to run riot in her veins, her skin prickling all over with goosebumps and anticipation.
Oh, my.
She lifted a hand to his chest, clinging to his shirt as though without his support she might topple to the ground, and unknowingly flashing her huge engagement ring for all the world to see. And see it they did, the photographers perched outside the Manhattan hotspot snapping furiously as they stayed clinging to one another, his body hard like a rock, hers soft and pliant. His hand curved around her back, resting just above the indentation of her spine, and his own breathing seemed ragged and out of control.
He was an excellent actor, because even as the moment threatened to drag every inch of sanity from her, there was still a small part of her that knew how run-of-the-mill this was for Thanos. How un-scintillating. How ordinary. This was a man who socialised with some of the most beautiful women in the world, who threw parties that Hollywood A-listers fought to attend.
He was hardly going to be truly moved by something as simple as a brushing of lips—and definitely not with someone like her.
If it weren’t for the fact he was paying her handsomely, she’d have pulled away and put some distance between them. But this was an act, a charade, and she’d agreed to play her part.
So she moved her hand a little higher, curving it over his shoulder to make sure the photographers behind them got a chance to glimpse the diamond. Only the act brought her body even closer, and as her flesh moulded to his she felt for herself all the proof she needed that he wasn’t entirely unmoved by this.
His arousal was like a rock against her belly and her harsh intake of breath was evidence that she’d felt it. Her eyes slid to his and her heart began to churn, because a drum was beating, slow and steady but unstoppably, and it was pulling Alice towards it, demanding she listen, and then that she answer.
‘Let’s go home.’ The throaty command came to her as if on delay. She heard his words, struggled to compute them, and finally nodded.
Home.
With her fiancé.