"Yes, you do." His mouth grazed the corner of hers. "I know your body better than you think. I can feel your eyes on me when you think I am not looking." His arms slipped around her, drawing her in. The faint scent of cognac clung to his breath, courtesy of the glass Gramps had pressed into his hand before he'd risen at the sound of her steps. " Because I always have my eyes on you."
"Let me sleep with you," he murmured against her skin.
"No." The word scraped raw from her throat. She shoved at his chest, though not hard enough to break free.
"You hurt me, Dorian. The way you used me in that office, I felt like nothing more than a... than a condom. I can’t forget. If you did that to me once, what is stopping you from doing it again?"
He exhaled sharply, as if her words pierced deeper than he'd expected. Then he rested his forehead against hers, eyes closing for a moment.
"That's my fault," he admitted, the words rough, almost dragged from him. "I let my insecurities dictate my actions and drive you away. I told myself I was protecting myself." His breath hitched. "It took you leaving to understand what I'd done."
Her chest felt like someone had reached in and squeezed.
"Give me a chance," he whispered. "You have given me a hundred chances. Give me just one more, Rune."
Chapter twenty-seven
Chapter 27
Rune let herself sag against him. Just for a very short minute she didn't want to feel resentful or angry. Her body was so heavy with exhaustion that she couldn't hold herself upright anymore, not against the wall of emotions that had battered her for days. The future felt uncertain.
It had all ended in that office. He had destroyed her in a way she couldn't forgive with his arrogance and cruelty. If he hadn't behaved the way he had, would she have let him keep trampling across her boundaries? She knew the answer. Yes. Because she'd doormat-ed herself to endure, to accommodate. But what if he had insisted she end the pregnancy? Her breath hitched, throat burning. No. That line she would never have crossed, not for him, not for anyone. Her eyes were burning with unshed tears, and she pressed her face against the hard plane of his chest, letting the scent of him – clean soap, his familiar cologne, and that unique, addictive Dorian scent-wrap around her like a blanket she hadn't asked for but couldn't let go of. His arms were warm anchors of muscle, tentative, as though he didn't trust her not to bolt.
"This is a timeout," she whispered to herself more than him, a bitter promise. Just a lapse of judgement, just a few stolen seconds of weakness. She would let herself drown in him now, because later she would claw her way back to shore. She let her hands travel over the muscular planes of his back, fingertips tracing the tension there before she gripped his shirt and pulled him tighter. Just for a second. Justlong enough not to be angry. Not to remember every sharp word, every betrayal. For a few stolen minutes, she allowed herself to feel only this-warmth, strength, and the illusion of safety.
She couldn't ignore the press of his arousal against her hip, but neither of them acknowledged it. They stayed frozen in that fragile embrace, each pretending it wasn't there, that it didn't change the air between them. Then she felt him breathe her in, his face buried in her hair. His voice was barely a whisper when it came, low enough to scrape against the most tender part of her, “You are the only thing right in my world, Rune. I don't know what to do when you're not there."
Her chest ached at the words, treacherous heat welling in her eyes. This was supposed to be a timeout, a weakness she'd allow herself just once. But the way he said it made her wonder why he sounded like she was taking his last lifeline with her if she walked away. She drew back first. His arms tightened instinctively, as though he could lock her there, but she slipped from his hold like water through his fingers. A stray tear escaped; she swiped it away with the back of her hand before he could see, but he did. Those dark, dark eyes fixed on her, intense as a bruise, and with an unsteady finger he brushed at the wetness on her cheek.
"It's not that easy," she said, her voice rough. "You don't get to do this. You think all you need to do is snap your fingers and I'll come running. I don't want to be that person anymore, a woman who built her life around an illusion. You're not the man I thought you were. And I don't ever want to feel that vulnerable again."
She turned, meaning to walk away, but his hand shot out, catching hers.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I'm not that person you put on a pedestal. I'm very human and very fallible. Don't think I don't know what I am. I never regretted anything I've done – not to my parents, not to anyone else. I am a ruthless bastard." He swallowed, his thumb tightening over her knuckles. "But I regret putting that look in your eyes. I'm sorry."
They stood like that for a long moment, her head bowed, his grip trembling. Then she shook her head slowly.
"Go. Don't go. I don't care," she murmured. "But I cannot trust my children with someone like you. After a while, you'll understand that staying is useless. I'm too tired to care." Her hand slipped from his.
He watched her walk away for what must have been the hundredth time in days, his heart pounding in his throat. For years, he had believed Rune was the most pliable person in his orbit, easy to bend, easy to shape. But he saw it now, beneath that soft exterior was an iron core, unyielding, and it had finally turned against him. Stubborn. God, she was stubborn. And for the first time, he realized the uphill task that stretched before him if he wanted her back, not just her body, but her trust, her heart.
Yet what gutted him wasn't her words, but the way she moved. The bow of her spine, the weary droop of her shoulders. She was pregnant, pregnant with his children, and she was unhappy because of him. A cold, unfamiliar panic gripped him. Was it healthy for a woman carrying his children to feel this way? Did stress seep into her blood, into theirs? He didn't know. He had never cared enough to ask such questions before. But now they stalked him with brutal force. What if she never forgave him? The thought lodged sharp and jagged in his chest. He had destroyed rivals and outmanoeuvred men twice asruthless as himself. But the possibility of Rune's heart closing to him forever, of his children growing up as strangers to him, was the one battle he didn't know how to fight.
He walked back into his room, the silence pressing in. Everything was as it should be, precisely aligned. The bed corners tucked tight, the stack of books on the nightstand squared into a neat block of four, pens lined up evenly across the desk. He always found a strange comfort in fours, in sets, in balance. Order was safety. Order meant control. Washing the dishes today, the remnants of food stuck to the dishes had almost undone him. But he had to prove himself to Rune.
He sat at the table, his laptop glowing dark in front of him. He was a troubleshooter, a fixer. And he had a problem he needed to solve. Rune. He needed his Rune back.
So, he forced himself to think of her not as the woman who had just slipped from his arms, but as an enemy to be conquered. The thought twisted something in his gut, but he leaned into it anyway. That was what he understood-strategy, leverage, solutions. He pulled a sheet of paper from the stack, drew a precise line down the centre. On one side, he wrote:What do I know about Rune?On the other hand,What does Rune like?He started to fill them in, methodically as if he were compiling a dossier. Her habits. Her contradictions. The things that lit her eyes, the things that darkened them. He pulled out the file the PI had compiled for him. Then he took another page. This time the heading was colder, more deliberate:The way to win Rune is to do things for her, things she doesn't know she wants.
Beneath that, he added another question, scribbled in darker ink:Who does Rune love?And below it, a final line,What are their problems?His pen hovered, eyes narrowing in thought. Because if hesolvedtheirproblems, Rune would see him differently. Not as the ruthless bastard she'd accused him of being, but as the man who made her world easier. The man she couldn't walk away from.
Chapter twenty-eight
Chapter 28
He woke half an hour before the alarm. He had tossed and turned before he had slid into dreamless sleep. He lay there making a mental list of all the things he had to achieve today. The first order of things was to catch Rune, before she went off on a jaunt to do whatever it was that she did before daybreak. He switched off the alarm and made his way to the common bathroom. The antiquated fittings, the leaky showerhead, and the persistent limescale were all novelties to a man who always had someone else cleaning up after him. With a sigh, he realized he missed his pristine bathroom back in London more than anything else. Maybe not more than Rune, but everything else.
He padded back to what he had come to consider his bedroom and quickly changed into his day clothes. Then he straightened the sheets and the duvet until there wasn't a crease in sight. He stepped back to admire his handiwork before precisely folding the two pieces of paper on his creaky desk and putting them in his trouser pocket. The plan was already lined up in his head. Strategy and problem-solving were his greatest strengths. That was how he managed everything.
