Ares

Prague at night is a postcard come to life—medieval spires silhouetted against a darkening sky, the Vltava River winding through the city like a silver ribbon, bridges lit up in gold that reflects off the water in shimmering patterns. From the window of the Mercedes-Maybach taking us from the private airport to my property in Malá Strana, it looks like a fairy tale.

Celeste has her face pressed to the glass like a child seeing magic for the first time.

I should find it annoying. Should remind her that this isn't a vacation, that we're here because I have acquisitions to finalize and meetings that can't be conducted remotely. But there's something about the wonder in her eyes that makes me keep my mouth shut.

She's been silent since we landed two hours ago, since she watched me navigate customs with the kind of ease that money and influence buy. The officials practically bowed as they stamped our passports—correction, as they stamped her passport, the one that identifies her as Celeste Hawthorne.

Mine by law. Mine by contract. Mine by every measure that matters.

The car pulls up to a building that's been in the Hawthorne family for three generations, purchased by my great-grandfather when he was expanding the empire into European markets. It's not as tall as the penthouse in New York—Prague has strict historical preservation laws—but it's no less impressive. Eighteenth-century baroque architecture hiding twenty-first-century technology, the kind of property that doesn't get listed on any market because families like mine don't sell.

"We're staying here?" Celeste's voice is small, awed despite herself.

"We're living here for the next six weeks." I step out of the car before the driver can open my door—I hate waiting—and come around to her side. "I have business throughout Central Europe. This is centrally located."

She takes my offered hand this time, letting me help her out of the car, and I feel the small victory of it. She's learning. Slowly, but she's learning.

The interior is exactly as I remember: parquet floors polished to a mirror shine, baroque molding painted in cream and gold, a sweeping staircase that curves up to the residential floors. My housekeeper—a Czech woman named Petra who's worked for the Hawthornes since before I was born—is waiting in the entrance hall.

"Mr. Hawthorne, welcome back." Her English is accented but perfect. Then her eyes move to Celeste, and I see the flicker of surprise she's too professional to voice. "And Mrs. Hawthorne. Welcome."

Celeste makes a small sound that might be distress or disbelief. She's still not used to being called that.

"Petra, this is my wife, Celeste. She'll need appropriate clothing for Prague's climate—spring here is colder than New York. Have a stylist sent to her rooms tomorrow morning."

"Of course, sir. I've prepared the east suite for Mrs. Hawthorne—"

"No." The word comes out sharper than I intended. "She'll be in the room adjacent to mine. The one with the connecting door."

Petra's face remains perfectly neutral, but I see the understanding in her eyes. "Of course. I'll have her things moved immediately."

Celeste is looking at me now, her brown eyes wide with something between fear and fury. "I thought you said I'd have my own space."

"You will. Just not your own floor." I start toward the stairs, expecting her to follow. "Your room connects to mine. The door locks from both sides, but I have the master key. Privacy is a privilege you haven't earned yet."

I hear her sharp intake of breath, the soft curse she thinks I don't catch. But she follows, her canvas shoes quiet on the marble as we climb to the third floor.

The east wing is elegant—all high ceilings and tall windows that overlook the river and Prague Castle in the distance. I lead her to a door painted in cream with gold filigree, pushing it open to reveal the room I had prepared.

It's nothing like the minimalist space in New York. This is baroque luxury: a four-poster bed with silk curtains, an antique vanity, walls painted in soft blush pink with white molding. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, offering a view of the city that would cost millions if you could buy it.

Celeste stands in the doorway, and I watch emotions flicker across her face too quickly to catalog. Awe. Suspicion. Fear.

"It's beautiful," she says finally, cautiously, like she's waiting for the catch.

"It's yours. For the duration of our stay." I walk to the far wall and open another door, revealing the bathroom—all marble and brass fixtures, a clawfoot tub large enough for two. "This is private. I won't enter without permission."

Her eyes narrow. "But?"

"But that door—" I gesture to the door on the opposite wall, the one that connects to my room— "remains unlocked from my side. I come and go as I please."

"That's not privacy." Her voice is tight with barely controlled anger.

"It's more privacy than you had at your father's house, where you didn't even have a door that locked." I lean against the doorframe, watching her process this. "Consider it an upgrade."

"An upgrade would be a room on a different floor. Better yet, a different building."

"Not going to happen." I push off the frame and move into the room, invading her space deliberately. "You're flight risk, Celeste. I saw it in your eyes on the plane, the way you kept looking at the emergency exits like you were calculating whether you could survive the jump."

"I wasn't—"

"Don't lie to me." I'm close enough now that she has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. "I can read you better than you think. Every thought that crosses your face, every instinct you're trying to suppress. You want to run. You're just smart enough to know you wouldn't get far."

She doesn't deny it. Smart girl.

"So until I trust you not to do something stupid—like try to disappear into a foreign city where you don't speak the language and have no resources—you stay where I can reach you. Where I can hear you. Where I can respond if something goes wrong."

"Nothing's going to go wrong if you just leave me alone," she mutters, but there's less heat in it than before.

"That's not how this works." I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling her tense at the contact. "You're a Hawthorne now. That makes you a target for every rival, every opportunist, every person who thinks they can get to me through you. Leaving you alone isn't protective—it's negligent."

Before she can formulate a response, there's a knock at the door. Petra enters with Celeste's duffel bag, setting it on the bench at the foot of the bed with the kind of professional discretion that doesn't acknowledge how pathetic the single worn bag looks in these opulent surroundings.

"Will Mrs. Hawthorne be dining in tonight, sir?"

I look at Celeste, at the exhaustion written in every line of her body, the way she's swaying slightly on her feet. "No. Have something sent up to both our rooms. Something light—we've been traveling."

"Very good, sir." Petra leaves with a small bow.

The door closes, and the silence that follows is heavy with everything unsaid.

"Get some rest," I tell Celeste, moving toward the connecting door. "Tomorrow we'll discuss your wardrobe, your schedule, and the rules for living in this city."

"More rules." She sounds defeated.

"More rules," I confirm. "Being Mrs. Hawthorne comes with expectations. The sooner you learn them, the easier this will be."

I'm halfway through the connecting door when her voice stops me.

"Ares?"

I pause, hand on the doorframe. She almost never uses my name. It's always "you" or nothing at all.

"Why did you really choose me? Not the strategic answer you gave on the plane. The real reason."

I could lie. Should lie. Tell her something that maintains the power dynamic, keeps her off-balance and uncertain.

Instead, I find myself telling the truth.

"Because Elara would have been easy. Predictable. A trophy wife who understood the transaction and played her part perfectly." I look back at her, at the girl in her oversized cardigan and baggy jeans standing in a room worth more than most people see in a lifetime. "And I've spent my entire life doing easy things. Building empires, destroying competitors, winning before anyone else even knew there was a game. I'm bored, Celeste. Terminally, dangerously bored."

I step back into the room, and she doesn't retreat.

"Then I saw you on your knees with that fucking cleaning rag, looking at your father like you wanted to set him on fire. Looking at Elara like she was an insect you couldn't wait to crush. And I thought—here's something interesting. Here's someone who might actually fight back."

I'm close enough now to see her pulse flutter in her throat, to smell the soap-clean scent of her skin.

"So yes, I chose you because you were a strategic move in whatever game Ambrose is playing. But I also chose you because I wanted to see what would happen when I put a wild thing in a gilded cage and gave her no choice but to adapt or break."

Her breathing has quickened, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"I'm not going to break," she whispers.

"I know." I reach out and touch her face, thumb brushing across the freckles dusting her cheek. "That's what makes you interesting."

Then I force myself to step back, to walk through the connecting door and close it behind me before I do something we'll both regret.

Or worse—something only she'll regret.

I don't see Celeste again until the next morning, when Petra informs me that "Mrs. Hawthorne has asked not to be disturbed" and refuses to open her door for the stylist.

Of course she does.

I find her in her room, still wearing yesterday's clothes, sitting on the floor beside her duffel bag with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks like she's been crying, though her eyes are dry now.

"The stylist has been waiting for forty-five minutes," I say from the doorway.

"Send her away."

"No."

"I don't want new clothes. I don't want to be dressed up like some kind of doll." She glares at me over her knees. "I want my own things."

I walk to the duffel bag and flip it open. Three cardigans, four pairs of jeans, a handful of t-shirts and tank tops. Nothing weather-appropriate for Prague in spring, when the temperature hovers around fifty degrees and the rain comes without warning.

"These aren't clothes, Celeste. These are rags." I hold up a cardigan with a hole in the elbow. "This needs to be thrown out."

"Don't you dare." She's on her feet now, snatching the cardigan from my hands. "That was my mother's. It's the only thing I have left of her."

The information hits me like a physical blow. I've just insulted something irreplaceable, something precious.

I should apologize. Should backtrack.

I don't do either.

"Fine. Keep the cardigan. But the rest of this—" I gesture to the bag— "isn't sufficient. You need proper clothes. Weather-appropriate clothes. Clothes that won't embarrass the Hawthorne name when we appear in public."

"I thought you chose me specifically because I'm not Elara. Because I'm the maid in baggy jeans."

"I chose you because you're not a social-climbing whore. That doesn't mean I want you looking like you got dressed in a thrift store dumpster."

The words are cruel, deliberately so, and I watch them land like blows.

"Get out." Her voice is shaking.

"No."

"I said get out!"

She grabs a vase from the nearby table—expensive, probably priceless, definitely breakable—and I realize a second too late what she's about to do.

The vase shatters against the wall beside my head, crystal shards exploding in a thousand glittering pieces.

The silence that follows is absolute.

Celeste is breathing hard, her hands shaking, her eyes wild with rage and fear and something else I can't quite name. She looks beautiful like this—unhinged and desperate and completely, utterly real.

"You can't erase me," she says, her voice raw. "You can burn my clothes, you can change my name, you can drag me halfway around the world, but you can't erase who I am."

I should be angry. Should punish this outburst, make her understand that destroying my property has consequences.

Instead, I find myself moving toward her.

She backs up as I advance, her eyes never leaving mine, until she hits the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Prague. The glass is cold against her back—I can see her shiver at the contact.

"I don't want to erase you," I say softly, caging her against the window with my arms. "I want to see exactly who you are when all your defenses are stripped away."

"You want to break me." She's trapped now, my body blocking any escape, the city spread out behind her like a kingdom she can see but never touch.

"No." I lean in closer, close enough that our breaths mingle. "Breaking is easy. Any idiot with enough cruelty can break a person. I want something harder."

My hand comes up to her face, thumb tracing the line of her jaw.

"I want you to submit. Voluntarily. Consciously. I want you to hand me your free will and trust that I'll give it back when you need it."

"Never." But her voice lacks conviction.

"We'll see."

I can feel the moment her body betrays her—the way she softens slightly, the way her breathing synchronizes with mine. She's fighting it, fighting the pull between us, but physics is physics. Gravity is gravity.

And right now, I'm a black hole and she's caught in my event horizon.

"This city is mine," I murmur, one hand sliding down to her hip, pulling her slightly away from the glass so I can step closer. "Every street, every building, every breath of air. And so are you."

My hips press forward, and I feel her sharp intake of breath as my erection—hard and insistent since the moment I walked in and saw her sitting on the floor—makes contact with her soft belly.

"Every breath you take," I continue, grinding against her slowly, deliberately. "Every beat of your heart. Every thought in that brilliant, stubborn head. Mine."

Her hands come up to my chest, pushing weakly, but I feel the way her nipples have hardened beneath her tank top and cardigan. Feel the way her body is responding despite her mind's protests.

"I hate this," she whispers. "I hate how you make me feel."

"I know." I lean down, my lips brushing across her forehead in a gesture that's more brand than kiss. "But hate is still feeling something. And feeling something means you're alive."

I let my mouth trail lower, hovering just above her lips without quite touching. The temptation to close that last fraction of an inch is overwhelming, to taste the defiance on her tongue and swallow it whole.

But I don't.

Instead, I pull back, releasing her from the cage of my body and stepping away.

She sways slightly, her eyes glazed with confusion and unwanted arousal, her breathing uneven.

"The stylist will be here in an hour. You'll cooperate, or I'll dress you myself." I move toward the door, forcing myself not to look back. "And trust me, Wife—you won't enjoy what I choose if I'm the one choosing it."

The door clicks shut behind me, and I lean against it for a moment, my cock aching in my trousers, my control hanging by a thread so thin it's practically invisible.

She's going to be the death of me.

Or I'm going to be the death of her.

Either way, this ends in destruction.

I just have to decide whose.