Page 34 of A Billion-Dollar Heir For Christmas
“I assumed that was why you added all those new classes,” she said, fighting the panic within at the slap of chilliness from him. She tried her best to meet it with a certain...languid unconcern, whether she felt it or not. She’d taken to invading his office for a cup of tea in the afternoon, as that was whatsheconsidered behavior appropriate to her people. And tried to act as she meant to go on. As if he was the husband she wanted, not the one he played by day. As if she could make him see, somehow, that it was better when he was. As if this might all work out, somehow, instead of stranding her and her baby on this relentless glacier he liked so much. It was more of an effort every day. “I’m becoming quite an expert on financial matters and the business affairs of the landed gentry. I thought perhaps you were planning to make me your new chief financial officer or the like.”
Lillie thought nothing of the kind, but it was amusing to claim otherwise. Because he would draw himself up in all his offended dignity and try to invoke a blizzard or two with his freezing tones, and she would smile innocently back at him and wait for sundown, when he usually readdressed the outrageous things she’d done in the light. Deliciously.
That part of this game she liked.
It was better than driving herself mad with the increasing fear that she was going to be stuck here, and not with the man she wanted. And how would she keep her child from withering in this terrible, endless winter?
Lillie tried her best not to think of it, and, therefore, thought of very little else.
“In a manner of speaking,” Tiago said. And when he looked at her then, he was expressionless, but there was something about that dark gleam in his gaze that made her sit straighter in the chair. Usually she preferred to lounge about in complete defiance of everything her tiny dictator demanded she do in her comportment classes. “You are my wife now.”
“In more ways than one,” she agreed, and then beamed at him when his gaze narrowed. Because he did not like to be reminded that he was not maintaining the boundaries he’d set down long since.
Tiago had been perfectly clear about that in those first few days, when it became clear that he could not stay away from her at night and more, that he hated himself for it in the morning. At first Lillie felt almost complimented. She had never been the sort of woman who inspired such strong reactions in anyone. Certainly not in men.
But she felt significantly less complimented as time went on. And had got a bit salty about it in turn.
Because the salt covered up what she knew—that this couldn’t last. That at least one of them would break, and she was horribly worried it was going to be her.
If I could control myself,benzinho, I would, he had growled at her, backing her across the length of the small study that second evening, after such a long, cold day. Because it was dark outside, and as she was about to discover, he was his very own kind of werewolf.If I could keep my hands off you, I would. And believe me, the day will come when I will make certain that we behave appropriately. The way we should have been doing all along.
What doesappropriateeven mean between us?she had dared ask him.Everything that happened has been anything but.
But we are both Villelas now, he had growled, coming to a stop there before the bookcase once he had backed her as far as she could go. He had placed a hand on either side of her and leaned in so she could see the blaze of fire in him. The intoxicating heat, just there, shimmering in all that blue and green.And Villelas have standards.
As it happens,she’d whispered, lifting her chin,I haven’t decided whether or not I’m taking your name.
Though she had certainly called it out a lot that night, both there in the study and upstairs in his bed, until the dawn turned him to ice again.
But she did not think that was what he was thinking about as he stared at her now, forbiddingly, across the expanse of his very important desk.
“You are my wife,” he said the way he often did, making sure she could see how he had to call upon his patience. “And it is entirely possible that I might die before you. I would hate to imagine you adrift after I’m gone, a target for disreputable people. It would be far better if you were capable of stepping in and controlling my estate yourself. It’s only rational.”
But there was something about the way he tacked that last part on, she thought. As if it had only occurred to him just then that he could use that as an excuse.
And as she stared back at him, that gaze of his changed. It became...less cool.
Lillie did not pretend that she didn’t know that no matter what he said, or how he dressed it up and tried to make it matter-of-fact, he was giving her a compliment. More than that.
Because his responsibilities, his duties, were the most important thing in the world to him. And if it was her opinion that he clung to them like a drowning man, desperately reaching out for any bits of floating debris to call a life preserver, she wisely kept that to herself.
At least by day.
“If it’s up to me,” she said, aware that her voice was hushed, then, “I’d prefer it if you lived.”
And she knew she wasn’t wrong about the way he looked back at her, hushed himself, as if all of this was a sacred moment. And more, that he might not have intended it that way. That he might have convinced himself that it was, indeed, only a purely rational move that had to do with the estate, not her.
But their eyes locked in that way that had always been almost too honest to bear. And Lillie knew, the way she always knew, that they both knew the truth.
She also knew he didn’t like it.
“Time is not granted to us,” he gritted out after a long moment. “If it was, my parents would have lived forever. They might not have loved each other, not in the way you insist your parents do. But they loved what they built. They loved the history of their great families and the legacies that made them who they were. If it was up to them, they never would have left those things behind.”
“And what of you, Tiago?” she dared ask, though her ribs seemed to clamp down hard against her heart. “Surely they loved you?”
He looked almost stricken for a moment. Then he looked down and she saw his mouth curve, though it was no smile.
“As I said,” and it took him a moment to raise his gaze to hers again, she thought, and a moment more to keep his gaze so clear, so fiercely steady, “they were both deeply enamored of their legacies.”