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MOON

"I hope the professor didn't threaten to ruin your grades or something?"

"What?" I looked at Yuki whose eyes were brimming with clear curiosity. She and I walked out of the school building together, our last class for the day finally done. It was already noon, the moon eager to suppress the sun's warmth.

Surprisingly, Yuki and I had the same major and courses.

"When he dragged you back into class, I thought he was going to spank you or something." She giggled into her fists. "Even his brooding vibe is hot, and I've always had a golden retriever type." Yuki sighed dreamily, eyes twinkling, and I couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corner of my lips.

"He simply warned me not to interrupt his class anymore," it wasn't exactly a lie, but I made sure to sound dismissive enough not to rouse any suspicion. As promised, Shaun was right outside the gate, leaning against the black Mercedes he'd driven me in. Beside the car was a red sports car already running, with a driver whose head popped out of the window the second we came into view.

"Hurry your ass up!" He yelled at me, and I went still, brows pulling together in confusion.

"Shut up, you're embarrassing me!" Yuki yelled back without much heat to her words. Then she turned to me and smiled.

"I have to go before my stupid driver tells my father I'm at a strip club again."

"He does that?" I laughed, eyes moving back to the driver and finding him glaring impatiently in our direction.

He didn't look like driver material. He seemed more like a friend doing his not so liked friend a favor.

"He does everything he can to torment me," Yuki groaned, "And my father doesn't trust me enough to let me drive myself so..."

"I know the feeling," I responded, but only because I was never left unchaperoned as Aphrodite. Edmund took the safety of his daughter and her image very seriously.

"Rich people...am I right?" Yuki dragged me into a hug and grinned wider when she pulled away, "I just know we're going to be great friends, Dee, don't forget to shoot me a text when you get home!"

"No problem."

I watched as she got into the sports car, she and her 'driver' engaged in a heated argument that involved her calling him shit for brains and him calling her a used condom before I made my way to Shaun.

My driver had an expectant look on his face. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"Had a good day, Mrs. O'Brien?"

"Aphrodite." I corrected and got into the car. Once we were both seated, our eyes met in the rearview mirror and he immediately looked away.

"And why didn't you tell me your boss worked here?"

"Technically, Cillian isn't my boss, his grandmother is." Shaun pointed out with a low amused chuckle and I digested this piece of information because it was the first real thing I'd gotten about this family in days.

"So, his grandmother is the head of the family?"

Shaun simply shrugged, which was neither a yes nor a no.

The rest of the drive back to the house I now lived in was quiet, mostly consisting of me going online and searching up everything I could find on the O'Brien family, my patience wearing thin as time progressed because the only thing I could find on the name was a blurry image of the family's matriarch and their 400-year-old trading ports in six countries.

"Jesus..." I massaged my aching head as frustration and resignation warred within me while the car pulled to a stop in front of that beautiful house again.

I could just go through this marriage without having any information on any of them. It shouldn't matter, and just because I remembered a false memory of his eyes on my lips didn't mean I had to know everything about him.

It's just sex. And pregnancy. And a child.

"Aphrodite?" I heard Shaun's worried inquiry from the driver's seat, ripping me away from my thoughts and into the present. "Is everything okay?"

I nodded and dejectedly exited the car, my shoulders feeling heavier than they should have as I made my way to the front door. The house was just as I remembered it, walls covered in art that had me stopping in my tracks and wondering if this was his grandmother's doing, or his.

My legs weakened with each step I took further into the house, my mouth dry, head pounding with a vengeance I didn't deserve, my limbs feeling like dead weight.

God, was I falling sick or something?

The scent of something fried reached me and in turn my stomach made the most embarrassing sound.

Oh. That's right. I hadn't eaten in a while.

The overwhelming turn my life had taken had killed my appetite for almost three days. Not for long, apparently.

My legs dragged me in the direction of the scent and I easily located the kitchen, which was only a door away from the sprawling living room and adjoined dining area.

It smelled of chicken, curry and tomatoes, and I wanted nothing more than to eat until my stomach had no room left. The hunger left a gnawing pain in my stomach, making me feel as though I could eat three days' worth of meals if given the chance.

My feet halted as I took in the sight of the kitchen. Beautiful, yes, but that wasn't what made me stiffen up like a tree in winter.

It was him.

Cillian.

He was standing behind a stove, perfect lips thinned with concentration as he stirred what looked like stew. He had on a plain white apron that hugged his torso to perfection.

God. He was huge. He wore grey sweatpants and a T-shirt that showed off muscular arms, arms almost as big as my thighs...and I was the thickest thighed bitch I knew, besides Aphrodite of course. They flexed with each movement, veins popping out from beneath his skin, and for a solid second I pictured those fingers wrapped around my throat.

His auburn hair was tousled, a few tendrils falling against his freckled, god-like face.

Under the golden light of the kitchen chandelier, he looked like everything I'd ever fantasized about in the darkest parts of my soul. The domesticity of what he did wasn't enough to dampen the sheer menace of his sexual appeal.

Holy fucking shit he was — looking at me.

He was looking right at me.

Green eyes narrowed into a glare that set my skin alight with a heat that shouldn't have consumed me in that moment.

But it did. And I couldn't look away.

Just then, a ginger cat made its dramatic appearance with a loud yowl, jumping on Cillian and meowing so loudly as it clung to his apron.

My lips parted in astonishment as the not-so-little creature clawed its way up this brooding man's perfect body and didn't stop until it was right on his shoulder.

He didn't move, neither did the cat. He sighed like it was a minor inconvenience and then went back to glaring at me.

"Why are you here?"

"Uh...I live here." I replied with a pointed expression, my eyes alternating between the satisfied looking cat comfortably seated on his broad shoulder and his expression of discontent.

He grunted, as though I wasn't worth having a conversation with. He brought down the pot and turned off the burner, moving more carefully, probably because of the cat.

"What's your cat's name?"

His eyes snapped up at me and he held me in an invisible vice grip with that stare. "Having a conversation wasn't a necessity in the contract, Aphrodite."

Ouch.

"Well," I shrugged, acting unaffected, "It's basic human courtesy, and I'm your wife...you have to speak to me..." I scratched my chin sheepishly, "And feed me."

That got his attention. He slammed the metal spoon in his grasp down hard on the kitchen counter and let out a low grunt that sounded more like a curse.

I flinched slightly at the sound, eyes following his movement warily as he rounded the counter and stopped right in front of me. Expression dark as night.

"You are my wife on paper only."

"That still counts for something."

"Does it?" Just like he did back in school, he walked until our feet were touching, then he leaned in, so close that I could smell the body wash that clung to his skin, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath against the fine hairs on my face.

"Because the only time this thing between us will actually count is when you're beneath me, naked, legs spread and dripping with my come."

My throat went dry, the world spinning for a moment as his words painted a vivid, torturous image in my head that snaked around my lower belly, burning, aching...something akin to excitement unfurling in my chest.

His expression didn't change, but I noticed it again as his eyes dropped down to my parted lips.

"Would you like to skip to that part of our relationship?"

Holy shit.