He put his hands on his head. “None of this ever had anything to do with her. I made a plan. I decided marrying her would be the best thing for my life, marrying into the Holt family would be the best thing for my life, and feelings...followed.” He dropped his hands back down to his sides, curled them into fists. “But I have hardly thought of her since our marriage, and I would be shocked if you could find a man who would think of her, when he had you, naked and underneath him.”
His voice got deeper, rougher, the light in his eyes changing.
“Well...then,” she said. “I guess there’s...that.”
“You do not like the thought of her with me,” he said.
“Brilliant observation there, Sherlock, I really don’t.”
“Why?”
“Well, answer me this, Ajax, and whatever the answer is, make it honest. What do you think about another man touching me? Kissing me like you did? Touching my breasts the way you did.”
A muscle in Ajax’s jaw jumped. “I think...I think I would have to kill him. And when I say that, I don’t say it lightly. Or metaphorically.”
She swallowed. “Oh.” She believed him. Somehow, she believed him. “Ajax...who were you before you came to our home? Before you came to work for my father?”
“This discussion is not...necessary. I don’t...”
“You told me that last night. As if by keeping it from me you were protecting me, but honestly? Real honesty here, not protecting myself, not putting on a happy face. Not hiding tears. You destroyed me. Your reaction to what happened between us. Leaving me like you did. You can’t just pretend that by closing yourself down and giving me nothing you won’t be hurting me.”
“Leah, you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“No, I don’t. So tell me. It hardly seems fair. You’ve known me most of my life. You know my family. You saw me all through my hideous awkward stage, which, in my opinion, gives you way too much power. I know you didn’t just appear one day. I know you got your scars from somewhere. Tell me so I understand.”
“You don’t want to understand.”
“I do.”
“No.” He turned, his expression fierce. “I’m not going to stand here on a beach with you in that ridiculous bikini and tell you all the sordid details of my life.”
She let out a growl and reached behind her, undoing one of the ties on her bikini. Then she yanked off the top and threw it into the sand. “There. Half the ridiculous bikini is gone. So tell me part of the story.” She waved her hand over her midsection. “Half, even. You could tell me half.”
He looked around them, then back at her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“My bikini was a problem. I have removed the problem. Half of it anyway. Tell me.”
“You can’t just...stand there like that.”
She put her hands on her hips, anger, adrenaline, coursing through her. Because her defenses weren’t holding. They weren’t rebuilding. The only other option was to get him to bare himself, too. And if she had to stand there, half-naked to get him to do it, it was a small trade.
“Can. Am. Tell.”
Ajax sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes glued, no matter how hard he tried to get them not to be, to Leah’s breasts. She pushed him. Brought him to the brink, so that the monster tugged at his chain, begging to be released. And if he wasn’t careful, the chains would break completely.
He could do this. She was testing him, and he wouldn’t fail.
“You don’t want to know this, Leah. This is...the kind of darkness you’ve never seen.”
“I can handle your darkness, Ajax,” she said, whiskey eyes burning into his.
The look in his eyes was that of a man ready to go into the torture chamber. “I don’t want you to have to handle it.”
“Tough. I married you. That means it concerns me. I’m not a child. I’m not a sheltered flower... Ajax, my whole life has been lived in front of the world. I have had total strangers leave the most hideous comments about me on blogs, in news stories, all because...because when you have any kind of public face, whether you want it or not, people feel like they own you. And that showed me a lot about people. A lot of really horrible things about people. So maybe to you I seem innocent or unaffected, but the simple truth is that I’ve seen more than you think. You can trust me with your story. With your darkness. I won’t run.”
“But maybe you should.”