Page 32 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
Pandora stiffened, no stranger to that particular tone of pity in the woman’s voice and the answering dismissal in the other. They were discussing her as if she weren’t here...as if she were a subject to pity and handle. That was it, she was being handled.
After experiencing the easy acceptance of her autism from people like Xander and Ran, the contrast was so glaringly obvious it made her grit her teeth, fuelling her determination as she turned in her swivel chair to pin the two beautiful people with her iciest glare. She smiled, of course, the kind of polite smile she’d seen Xander use in the past. He’d been the one to teach her that the strongest weapon she held was her integrity, after all.
And so she set them straight, grateful when they apologised and actually listened when she explained why it was inappropriate to assume things about her abilities or sensitivities.
‘I’m so sorry.’ The blonde looked embarrassed. ‘My little nephew is autistic too, so I just presumed...’
‘It’s fine.’
It wasn’t, really, but the woman looked so uncomfortable that Pandora just wanted to end the awkward moment. She almost didn’t notice the most troubling part of the entire interaction was that the stylist had been acting this way from the moment she’d arrived, long before she might have noticed anything that might have tipped her off. She’d already known Pandora was autistic. How?
Frowning, she turned back and asked the question aloud, seeing the other woman’s face tighten with discomfort.
‘Oh. It was mentioned in the article that was posted the other day.’
‘What article?’ Pandora felt something sink and tighten within her, like that moment when a plane lost turbulence and you dropped a couple of metres mid-air.
The two stylists looked at each other, and one of them picked up her slim tablet, tapping the screen a few times with her sharp red-tipped nails. Click, click, click. Pandora felt her teeth grinding against one another in the back of her jaw as she waited, her body filling with tension with each passing moment.
The tablet was placed on her lap and she looked down at a perfectly polished image of her own face smiling eagerly up into Xander’s. She remembered that day at the gala, remembered her own nerves at being so close to him for the first time. She remembered how short and clipped he had been and wondered if he’d felt it too, even then. Of course, he’d admitted as much, hadn’t he? He’d said he’d struggled to control his own reaction to her ever since that first night. But, of course, he’d also admitted that to her while they’d been in Japan. And all confidences of that nature had to be left behind there, as per their agreement...
Shaking her head, she refocused, scrolling down past the cover photo to the large headline that simply saidHeir of Zeus. The article wasn’t from a respectable business publication, but another magazine entirely and began with a heavy focus on Xander’s handling of Mytikas Holdings in the face of his father’s illness and passing. They mentioned Zeus as a powerful man but spoke nothing of his shady dealings, instead painting Xander as a rags-to-riches opportunist who had landed on his feet thanks purely to his gold-digging mother.
She lifted her hand to the lump of emotion that had formed in her throat, knowing the truth behind Xander’s parentage and how it had affected him. She hated this article, hated whoever had written such thinly veiled words of jealousy and hate.
But then her eyes caught on her own name in the next paragraph and as she scrolled down another picture emerged. A picture of herself sitting at the formal dance held during her final year in university.
She told herself not to read any more, but still her finger pushed the text up, revealing a final paragraph containing details that were apparently sourced from ‘someone close to the bride’.
...daughter of Irish senator Rosaline Quinn...gifted with languages...troubled teenage years...quirky and scatterbrained...autism spectrum disorder...
The final line of the paragraph questioned if Miss Quinn was built for the life of a society bride, and if Xander Mytikas was taking advantage of his meek, delicate secretary just as his own father had allegedly done numerous times with his own subordinates. Pandora closed the tab, feeling nausea swirl in her stomach and a slight rushing sound in her ears.
She was still sitting in the living room an hour later, in the exact same spot, when Xander returned from work. The penthouse apartment was silent and dark, and it took him a moment before he saw her. When he did, he rushed over, kneeling down on the carpet beside her where she’d been staring at her own picture in the terrible article.
‘I was hoping you hadn’t seen it yet.’ He sighed, then seemed to debate for a moment before wrapping his arms around her. It was the first time they’d touched in several days, ever since they’d returned from Japan, and yet it felt like weeks.
As she relaxed against him, feeling the familiar heat of his lips tracing a path from her neck to her shoulder, she felt a surge of emotion catch her by surprise, tightening her throat.
When exactly had she begun to feel as if the world wasn’t quite right if he wasn’t nearby? It was a dangerous way to think, considering he would most definitely not be a permanent fixture in her life.
Her thoughts closed in on the sensual moment like a dark cloud on a rainy day, tightening a coil of anxiety within her that Xander proceeded to kiss away with his usual deftness. His eyes locked on hers for a split second and her breath caught with the intensity of feeling just looking at him stirred within her. She wanted to reach up and pull his face down to hers and kiss him until neither of them could breathe.
She wanted to kiss and lick every inch of his glorious body and memorise every line like her own personal map. As if she were a magnet and he had somehow become her true north. Fighting off the surge of anxiety over her whirling thoughts, she turned in the circle of his arms and sought his mouth, revelling in the deep groan that rumbled in his chest as their lips finally made contact.
Her kiss was not gentle. She felt his surprise as he gripped her waist, attempting to hold her to him and guide her rhythm but she refused. She needed to be the one in control right now. If they had nothing else, they at least had this wild sensual connection and she wanted a taste of being the one in the driver’s seat of that runaway train for once.
As they flung off their clothes, she told herself she wanted to use him, to just take what she wanted like all the other modern, independent women. But even as she slid down upon his hard length and felt her body open to accept him, she knew she was only fooling herself. She still wanted so much more. The realisation only served to spur her on further, as if she might drive away the pain of her thoughts by riding him faster.
Xander reached up, holding her face in his hands, tethering her to him as he took control. His pace turned slower and deeper and as he thrust upwards he told her in a hoarse voice how beautiful she was. How wild she made him feel. How he could make love to her for hours. Words and phrases that made her foolish heart throb with longing.
She pushed the emotions down and focused on driving them both towards the peak. Xander’s guttural moan of his impending climax was like a flip switch, shutting off all coherent thought. Her own orgasm was a full body quake that seemed to shatter her from the inside out. If she’d thought the lump in her throat had been hard to fight back, the sensation in her chest at that moment was almost more than she could bear.
Pandora awoke a while later to find Xander sitting up on the side of the bed, where they’d moved for a second round of passionate sex, his head in his hands, the picture of a man tortured. The sight of him made her sit up, covering herself reflexively.
‘I wasn’t going to apologise,’ he growled. ‘But I’m not a complete bastard, despite my previous actions. I’ve treated you badly, and you deserve better.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she agreed, satisfied when his eyes dropped to the ground. Let him feel some tiny bit of the pain he was causing her, causing both of them, by being completely closed off to what was so obvious to her. He might believe himself incapable of love and he might have very good reasons for believing that, but it was only fear holding him back. And if he wanted to badly enough, he could overcome that.
