The Billionaire's Bought Bride and Instant Mom Chapter 60

Aveline

The wine glass slipped from my nerveless fingers and shattered against the marble floor with a sound like a gunshot. For a moment, I just stared at the broken crystal scattered around my feet, my brain refusing to process what I'd just heard.

Marriage. He was asking me to marry him and become Ryan's mother.

Every emotion I'd been struggling with for the past week—the fear, the guilt, the crushing anxiety—evaporated in an instant, replaced by something much more powerful and infinitely more dangerous.

Pure, incandescent rage.

"No," I said, my voice cutting through the elegant dining room like a blade. "Never. I will not marry you."

Orion blinked, clearly taken aback by the vehemence of my response. He started to rise from his chair, his hands raised in what might have been a placating gesture.

"Aveline, I think you're misunderstanding—"

"I understand perfectly," I snapped, shooting to my feet and backing away from the table. "You want me to become your wife so I can take care of your son. You want me to be Ryan's mother."

"Yes, exactly," Orion said, moving around the table toward me with careful steps, as if approaching a wild animal. "This isn't about romance, if that's what you're worried about. I'm simply suggesting a practical arrangement. You love Ryan, don't you? And he adores you."

The casualness of his tone, the way he spoke about marriage like it was a business transaction, only fueled my fury.

"What do you think I am?" I demanded, my voice rising. "Some kind of tool you can use to comfort your child? A convenient solution to your parenting problems?"

Orion's expression shifted, his eyes hardening. "I think you're exactly what Ryan needs—"

"I've had enough of being used as a tool!" I exploded, my hands clenching into fists. "I will not spend the rest of my life trapped in another arrangement designed for someone else's convenience!"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. Orion stopped moving toward me, his posture changing from conciliatory to something much more dangerous.

"Aveline," he said, his voice taking on that deadly quiet tone I'd learned to fear, "do you think this is a casual suggestion? Do you think I'm asking for your opinion here?"

He took another step closer, and I could see the steel beneath his civilized exterior.

"This is not a request. This is a strongly worded recommendation that you accept my offer. Because if you don't..." He paused, letting the threat hang in the air. "You might find the alternatives considerably less pleasant."

Something inside me snapped completely.

"Oh, is that so?" I laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. "Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Blackwell. I fucked you! I used your body while you were unconscious! I took what I wanted and left my ring on your nightstand like you were a prostitute!"

Orion went completely still, his face cycling through emotions too quickly for me to read.

"So if you want to threaten me," I continued, my voice dripping with venom, "go ahead! But remember that I could destroy your reputation just as easily! And if you think you deserve some kind of compensation for what I did to you, fine! I'll give you exactly what you got from me—one night where I get to enjoy your body while you lie there and take it!"

The silence that followed was deafening. Orion stared at me with an expression I'd never seen before—something between shock, admiration, and barely contained fury.

I slammed my hand down on the table hard enough to make the remaining dishes jump. "We're done here. I'm leaving."

But as I turned toward the door, Orion's hand shot out and caught my wrist, spinning me around and pulling me against his chest with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs.

"You want to compensate me?" he asked, his voice a low growl against my ear. "Right here? Right now?"

His face was inches from mine, close enough that I could feel his breath on my skin, see the dangerous glitter in his dark eyes. This close, his cologne was intoxicating, mixing with something that was purely him in a way that made my head spin.

"You're insane," I breathed, but my voice came out weaker than I'd intended.

I shoved against his chest with both hands, putting all my strength behind it. He stumbled backward, his foot catching on the broken crystal scattered across the floor. I heard him curse as he went down, saw the flash of blood as a shard of glass sliced through his expensive trousers and into his leg.

"Orion!" I gasped, the sight of blood cutting through my anger like ice water.

But before I could move to help him, his hand shot out and caught my ankle, pulling me down with him. I tumbled onto the marble floor, landing astride his hips with my dress hiked up around my thighs.

The position sent a jolt of recognition through my entire nervous system.

This. This exact feeling—the weight of him beneath me, the solid warmth of his body, the way my legs bracketed his waist. My body remembered this with devastating clarity, remembered the pleasure and the power and the way he'd felt moving inside me.

Heat flooded through me, unwanted and undeniable, and I felt my face flush with more than just anger.

"Familiar?" Orion asked quietly, his hands settling on my thighs with possessive certainty.

I tried to scramble away, but his grip tightened, holding me in place. His face was tilted up toward mine, those dark eyes searching my expression with an intensity that made me feel completely exposed.

"Let me go," I whispered, but even I could hear how breathless I sounded.

Instead of releasing me, he slid one hand up to cup the back of my neck, pulling my face down toward his. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me, and God help me, I didn't pull away fast enough to stop him.

But at the last second, instead of pressing his lips to mine, he turned his head and bit down hard on the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder.

Pain shot through me, sharp and shocking, followed immediately by a heat that had nothing to do with anger.

"Is that what this is about?" I asked, my voice dangerously low and steady despite the fury vibrating through me. "A desperate bid for control? Biting is a primal, almost infantile act, Mr. Blackwell. A textbook display of possessive aggression. From a professional standpoint, it's fascinatingly pathetic. You should really talk to someone about that."

Orion rose slowly, deliberately, favoring his injured leg. Blood was seeping through the expensive fabric of his trousers, but his eyes, cold and unflinching, never left mine. He seemed to relish the diagnosis, to welcome the fight.

"Perhaps I should," he said. He straightened his tie, a small, dismissive gesture as if we'd just concluded a business meeting. "But I certainly won't be paying you for the analysis."

He paused, studying my face with cold calculation. "However, don't mistake this for an ending, Aveline. You and I are far from finished." His tone shifted to something almost conversational. "Oh, and you're no longer Ryan's teacher. We'll be transferring him immediately."