Modern Romance June 2017 Books 1 – 4. Maisey Yates

all conscious thought, Lucy skated her hands over Jax’s smooth damp back and then wrapped her arms round him tightly. He was struggling to catch his breath close to her ear and she smiled and twisted her head to kiss him on the cheek.

      Jax froze as though she had crossed some invisible boundary line. He refused to do that stuff with her again. Bone and sinew he rejected any show of affection that came from her and he yanked back from her and rolled away. He wasn’t buying into that again with her, no way! She had given him that same hugging and petting and apparent warmth in Spain and he knew it was meaningless. He had known that when he saw her in that alleyway having sex with another man. As that cringe-making memory returned, Jax wanted to smash a fist into the wall.

      That was better left buried and he knew it, particularly now that they were married. When he thought about it, he felt seething anger and violent. Forgiveness wasn’t in his vocabulary and forgetting wasn’t in his nature. There wasn’t any reason for him to think about that sordid episode, he told himself grimly. All he had to do for his own protection was remember that she was treacherous and watch out when she was around other men.

      When Jax jerked away from her and headed for what she assumed was the bathroom, Lucy felt as if he had slapped her in the face. He had recoiled from her as if she were contagious, as if he couldn’t bear her touch. After such intimacy, that hit hard and hurt, spelling out the message that once he had had sex, he was up and away, any pretence of courtesy or caring set aside and rejected.

      She felt hollow and very, very foolish. This was the aggressive male her father had blackmailed into marrying her and this was the payoff, she assumed sickly. Evidently he had taken the only thing he actually wanted from her and now she was like an abandoned toy, a distraction good enough only to be tossed back in the cupboard until the next time he wanted to take her out and play with her.

      ‘You don’t like it when I touch you after sex,’ she accused baldly.

      Jax shot her a winging glance from narrowed green eyes that glittered. ‘Because it’s fake.’

      Lucy sat up. ‘It wasn’t fake,’ she told him but he had already vanished into the bathroom and within seconds she heard the sound of a shower running.

      Well, Jax needn’t think that was the end of the conversation just because he wanted it that way, Lucy thought angrily. She scrambled out of bed and grabbed up her handbag to extract the letter that Kreon had given her. Whether she liked it or not, it was time to be open and honest. She opened the bedroom door and found their luggage piled outside. She lifted a case and dragged it in, opening it up to remove a light cotton robe. Nothing slinky about her nightwear, she reflected ruefully. Iola had insisted on buying her some stuff and the prospect of Jax gazing in disbelief at her chain-store PJ’s had persuaded her. She wrapped herself in the robe, watching out of the corner of her eye as Jax strode naked into what sounded like an en-suite dressing room because she could hear drawers being rammed open and shut and cupboard doors being slammed. My goodness, he was in a bad mood...so much for her assumption that intimacy would bring relaxation and a release of tension!

      Jax reappeared, clad in a pair of faded jeans and a black tee shirt that clung to his muscular torso. He headed straight for the trolley and opened it before lifting a plate and piling food on it. ‘Would you like anything?’ he asked with studious politeness and she wanted to slap him for his tone.

      ‘Not right now, thanks,’ she murmured tightly. ‘I have something for you... Kreon gave it to me today.’

      Jax swung round, fully acknowledging her for the first time, his lean, darkly handsome face guarded until he saw and immediately recognised what was in her hand and he stalked forward to snatch it from her with a profound look of revulsion.

      ‘Were you in it with him?’ Jax shot at her accusingly, for most ironically that possibility hadn’t occurred to him and right there and then he called himself an idiot for not having suspected her active involvement in Kreon’s blackmail threat.

      Lucy’s chest swelled on a stark indrawn breath of shock as she drew herself up to her full unimpressive height. ‘Are you certifiably insane?’ she demanded in fiery rebuttal of that suspicion. ‘Yesterday, after the wedding, Kreon told me what he had done to you because he felt guilty. He knew he’d done wrong—’

      ‘Diavolos...’ Jax derided. ‘Kreon felt guilty? You will never know what a comfort that is to me!’

      ‘He did wrong but he’s not a bad man and the mistake you made was in not immediately coming to me about my father’s threat and the existence of that letter,’ Lucy condemned with conviction. ‘I believe I could’ve stopped it because he would have been too ashamed to continue with it once I knew about what he was doing.’

      ‘And pigs fly and there’s two blue moons in the sky,’ Jax scorned, shaking his tousled dark head in wonderment, green eyes as cutting as sword blades. ‘I’ll ask you one more time...were you aware of his intentions?’

      ‘No, I blasted well wasn’t!’ Lucy shouted back at him, her blue eyes flooded with angry, defensive discomfiture. ‘How can you even ask me that? I wasn’t expecting you to ask me to marry you, wasn’t even thinking along those lines!’

      Jax cocked his proud dark head back, black curling lashes semi-screening his stunning eyes. ‘It’s done now.’

      ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged uncomfortably. ‘But I had nothing to do with the blackmail or any idea of what was going on behind the scenes—’

      ‘But it all worked in your favour, all the same,’ Jax spelt out with contempt. ‘You got to marry into the Antonakos family.’

      ‘Well, from where I’m standing now, on my wedding night, marrying into the Antonakos family is not the triumph it’s purported to be!’ Lucy shot back at him furiously, an angry flush mantling her cheeks. ‘In fact it feels like hell, most particularly when I seem to have a husband who can happily have sex with me and then virtually push me away afterwards!’

      ‘I don’t cuddle...ever,’ Jax stressed.

      ‘Bella needs cuddles so you’ll have to revise your rule and I need them too,’ Lucy flung back at him rawly. ‘So, if you want sex, you’ll do it.’

      An unholy flare of rage lit up Jax’s eyes, lightening them to the brilliance of sea glass gleaming in sunshine. ‘I’ve put up with a hell of a lot but I won’t stand for that!’ he raked back at her, every word slicing through the air like a knife. ‘I married you. Be grateful for it because you’re getting nothing else from me but the name and the money and a father for your child!’

      And as Lucy stood there staring at him, involuntarily unnerved by the sheer force of his rage, she stilled a shiver, appalled by that assurance. ‘That’s not enough for me,’ she muttered shakily.

      ‘Tough,’ Jax enunciated with clarity. ‘That’s all you’ll be getting now and in the future.’

      With that final statement of punitive intent, Jax strode out of the room and just left her there. Lucy ate through a whole plate of profiteroles and drank coffee and then felt sick. Her whole world had fallen into pieces round her feet and, with it, any sense of security. She lurched into the bathroom where she was sick and when she felt strong enough to stand up again she went for a shower. She knew she would never look at a profiterole again. She would never look at Jax the same way again either for she had just seen a side of him that he had never shown her before.

      Now she knew what she really hadn’t wanted to know. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. In fact he had absolutely hated and thoroughly resented having to marry her. He had suppressed that fury successfully throughout the day and she had provoked him into expressing it by asking for something more: a stupid cuddle, of all things. Her eyes stung and she looked heavenwards as she struggled to control her wildly see-sawing emotions. As far as Jax was concerned he had already given her more than enough: his famous name, his great wealth, his readiness to be a father. Your child, he had called Bella, not our child.

      Why would he care that none of that would be sufficient to make her happy? Why would he care that