Maisey Yates - One Night to Risk it All

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Rachel came back to the present, her eyes on the ring, just like they’d been in that moment after her first time with Alex.

They’d been together at least four times in the hours since then. And he’d been telling the truth. He did like foreplay. Not only that, he was good at it. Darn good.

She put the ring back down, a smile curving her lips.

She sat up slowly, the muscles in her body complaining. Alex had given her a little bit more exercise than she was used to. That made her smile widen. Which was stupid, maybe, but she felt...different. Giddy. Alive.

Half in love.

She closed her eyes. No. She didn’t want that. That was such a stupid cliché. She didn’t actually know the man. She’d been naked with him, that was all.

Except it was easy to remember how it was to dance with him. How it felt to hold his hand as she walked barefoot down a city sidewalk. How she’d been different with him. More alive.

Happy.

So maybe it wasn’t so stupid that she felt half in love. It was scary, though. She’d been...not in love, but infatuated with a guy before, with hideous results. But that had been different. It felt like another lifetime. Like it had happened to another girl.

She’d changed over the past eleven years. In ways that were necessary, but in ways that had left her feeling like she was trapped in skin that had become far too small.

And sometime last night, she’d changed again.

She got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, taking care of early morning necessities and looking at herself in the mirror. She looked... Her hair was a wreck. She was pretty sure the dark mark on her neck was a hickey.

She smiled. She should not be enjoying this. But she was.

Real life could be dealt with later.

She pushed her hair back and walked out into the hotel room again, and stopped when she saw Alex’s wallet on the floor. It was open, from when he’d taken out the condom and thrown it onto the ground. After that incident, he’d procured protection from the concierge. Much to her chagrin.

Well, and delight, if she was completely honest. She’d absolutely benefitted from the acquisition of a box of condoms.

She bent down and picked his wallet up without thinking. It was an expensive wallet. Black leather with fine stitching. Like something her father, or Ajax, would own. Strange because his clothes were so worn. Because he worked on a boat.

Her eyes skimmed over to his ID. He had an American driver’s license. Which seemed odd. Because he was Greek, no question. Though, perhaps his employer was American.

Okay, snoopy. Not really your business.

And it wasn’t. They weren’t trading life stories so it wasn’t really fair for her to be looking at his personal property.

Before she could snap the wallet shut and put it on the table, she read his name. Not on purpose. But she saw it, and then all she could do was stare.

She knew his name.

And for a full thirty seconds, she didn’t know from where.

Alexios Christofides.

She heard the name in Ajax’s voice. A growl, a curse. He’d been nettling Ajax for months. Buying shares in his business, reporting him to the IRS for suspected tax wrongdoing, reporting him to environmental agencies. All false accusations, but things that had cost time and money.

He wasn’t a cabin boy, that was for sure.

And he wasn’t a stranger.

She’d been seduced by her fiancé’s enemy.

She thought the floor might shift beneath her feet and fall out from beneath her like sand, dropping her back into the past, in a moment so close to this one it made her want to scream.

Colin, so angry over her refusal to sleep with him, revealing who he really was. What he really wanted from her.

If you don’t want to put out, that’s fine. But I have all those nice pictures of you. A very compelling video. Of what you did for me. I don’t need sex. A little money from the media will be even nicer.

She’d thought she was smarter. More protected. Different.

She was the same foolish girl she’d always been. Worse, even, because this time the villain had succeeded in his seduction. He’d more than succeeded.

What she’d done with him...what she’d let him do to her...

“Alexios?”

The man in her bed stirred and Rachel tried not to pass out. Tried not to vomit. Or run screaming from the room.

She had to know what had happened. She had to know if he knew who she was.

Of course he does. Like he’s here by accident? You can only be a naive fool to a certain point, moron.

“Alexios,” she said his name again and he sat up, a wicked smile curving his face. When he actually looked at her, the smile faded.

As if he knew, even half asleep, that he wasn’t waking to the postcoital scene he was hoping to be a part of. As if he knew that his response to the name had been wrong.

He’d probably already forgotten which woman he’d been in bed with. Which hotel.

That made her want to be violently ill. Or just violent.

But for the moment, she had to stay calm. She had to get answers.

“Rachel,” he said, his voice as strong as whiskey and good sex, going straight to her head and making her toes curl. “You should come back to bed.”

“I don’t... No.” She put her hand on her forehead. “Not right now. I...”

His eyes met with her hands. Where her fingers held his wallet. He looked back up at her, one black brow arched. Something in his manner changed. In an instant, he changed.

He pushed his dark curls off of his forehead and for a second she thought she was looking at a stranger. A naked stranger.

Then she realized that was what he was. She didn’t know this man. Not at all. She’d fooled herself into thinking they’d shared something. That their souls had met, or some such idiocy. But they hadn’t.

It only underlined her stupidity. Her weakness.

Last night, she’d felt like herself. Freed from all the layers of protection and expectation. Somehow slipped free of those well-meaning, soul-binding words spoken by her parents all those years ago. She’d felt real. Well, real Rachel was, it turned out, incredibly stupid. There was a reason she’d been kept in hiding.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” she asked.

He stood, the covers falling from around his waist, his body, his beautiful hard body, on display for her. And even now it made her heart leap into her throat. Like it was trying to climb out so it could get a look at the view.

“Why were you looking at my wallet?”

“It was on the floor. I picked it up. I thought, ‘nice wallet for a cabin boy.’ Clearly far too nice. So now you might as well tell me the truth.”

“I know who you are,” he said. “Imagine my surprise when you found me before I could find you. Imagine my further surprise when I realized I didn’t need a week or a special event to seduce you. You were a lot easier than I expected.”

“To what end?” she asked, her heart thundering, her hands shaking. “Why would you... Why...?”

“Because I want what he has. Everything. And I’ve had something very special to him now. Now we both know I’ve had you first.”

“You bastard,” she said, scouring the room for her clothes. “You...! This is my hotel room.” She stopped collecting her clothes and started getting his instead. “Get your clothes and get out.” She threw his shorts at him, then his shirt. “Out!”

He started dressing. “I don’t know who you think your fiancé is, but I know who he is.”

“And I know who you are! A... A... I can’t even think of a bad enough word for what you are. And you’re no kind of man.”

“You and I both know I am.”

“The ability to trick a woman into letting you put your hard penis inside of her does not make you a man!”