Chapter Six
Leonidas knew he hadtwo choices.
Pull away before it got worse, or fight until the end even though he knew he had already lost.
To go to Monaco was to face his nightmare made manifest—to see with his own two eyes the proof that his wife had lost faith in him, that whatever they had built in those fragile hours in Manhattan had been nothing more than a beautiful lie he’d told himself because he wanted it to be true.
But because he still had no plans of acting like a coward, and because he had always believed it was more efficient to rip the bandaid off with one brutally quick yank rather than prolonging the inevitable—
“You forgot your coat, kyria.”
Here he was, thirty minutes later, unable to keep himself from doing what he had always done as he draped the cashmere over his wife’s shoulders and watched her startle at the unexpected warmth.
So much for efficiency.
Lexy looked up at him with eyes that were softer than usual, her cheeks rosier than they had been before New York, before the penthouse, before everything between them had shifted into something he didn’t have words for yet. She smiled—just a small thing, barely there—and that was all it took.
She didn’t even have time to gasp.
The moment the jet lifted off and the seatbelt sign flickered out, Leonidas had her hand in his, was guiding her down the narrow corridor toward the master suite that he had always insisted she use on long flights because the bed was better and the blackout curtains were more effective and he had never once admitted, even to himself, that he liked knowing she was comfortable even when he wasn’t there to see it.
Only this time, he was there.
And the suite felt entirely different with both of them in it—smaller somehow, warmer, the air thick with something that made her breath catch when he pressed her back against the door. They used the bed. They used the shower. They used the ridiculous marble counter that she had always thought was purely decorative, and by the time they were finished, Lexy had come to the dazed conclusion that every room on this jet—every room anywhere, really—could become something completely different when it was the two of them together.
She fell asleep in his arms somewhere over the Alps, curled against his chest like a child who had never known anything but safety, and she didn’t stir when the jet touched down in Monaco, didn’t wake when he carried her through the private terminal and into the back of the waiting limousine that Aivan had arranged.
Leonidas watched her sleep as the city blurred past the tinted windows, her dark hair spilling across his lap, her breathing slow and even and trusting in a way that made something in his chest ache.
She was here.
She was his.
And he still had no idea if he was going to lose her.
****
The guest suite atCannizzaro Racing headquarters was ready when they arrived, all clean lines and muted luxury, and Leonidas tucked Lexy into the oversized bed with a care he hadn’t known he possessed. She murmured something in her sleep—his name, maybe, or maybe just a sound—and turned her face into the pillow like she was searching for his warmth even unconscious.
He made himself leave anyway.
The hallways of the facility were quiet at this hour, most of the staff either home or huddled in the tech wing dealing with the aftermath of the breach. Leonidas moved through them with the ease of long familiarity, his footsteps echoing against polished concrete as he made his way toward the lower levels where the real work happened.
He was passing the mechanics’ bay when he heard it.
“—and then Guile does the Sonic Boom, right, but Ken counters with the Shoryuken—”
Leonidas slowed.
Two young men in Cannizzaro Racing coveralls were hunched over a phone, gesticulating wildly as they debated something with the intensity usually reserved for engine calibrations and tire compounds.
“No way, bro. Ken’s got better combos, but Guile’s zoning is insane—”
