Burning in Madness

I tugged at the sash of my robe, letting the black-and-gold embroidered silk slide off my shoulders and pool on the cold floor.

The dark crimson French lace was practically sheer. A few impossibly thin black straps dug into my waist, while the cold, hard metal clasps of the garter belt bit a faint flush into the pale skin high on my thighs.

Just hours ago, I was wearing this exact "armor" to close out this year's Victoria's Secret runway show.

At least fifty million men around the world had been glued to their screens, salivating over my waistline and legs, probably wishing they could reach right through the glass.

But my own husband? Not even close.

Barefoot, I crossed the floorboards, heading straight for the master bedroom at the end of the hall.

It had been exactly a year since the wedding.

When Liam Rothwell left me at the altar, abandoning me to the relentless bombardment of the New York press, it was Arthur Rothwell—Liam's uncle—who stepped up, stone-faced, to clean up his runaway nephew's mess.

Everyone called it a marriage of convenience to dodge a PR disaster. They weren't wrong—for a full year behind closed doors, every provocation of mine had crashed against his wall of ice. He refused to so much as brush my fingers.

Tonight, my patience finally snapped.

Stopping in front of his door, I didn't even bother knocking, just shoved the door open.

At the noise, Arthur, who had just stepped out of the en-suite bathroom, froze midway through towel-drying his hair.

His dark gray silk robe was tied loosely, the parted fabric baring his carved chest and the dangerous dip of his V-line. A single drop of water traced his throat, vanishing into the hard planes I’d fantasized about for countless nights.

I leaned against the doorframe, staring at him, my throat going dry.

Across the half-lit room, Arthur's gaze swept over me, finally landing on my nearly bare shoulders and the dark red lace.

For a split second, his eyes darkened dangerously.

"What are you doing here?" His tone held its usual guarded ice, betrayed only by a faint, involuntary rasp.

I gave him no room to retreat. Closing the distance in one stride, I crashed into his bare chest, seizing his lapels and yanking them wide.

My cool palms flattened against his feverish, rigid core. Leaning in, I let the sheer lace and my bare skin drag deliberately across him.

My fingers dug hard into the edge of his V-line.

"I'm here to fuck you," I said, tilting my head back to hold his stare.

The crisp scent of cedarwood flared. Beneath my palms, Arthur locked up, rigid as a provoked beast with his pupils blowing wide in the dim light.

Just as I thought he was going to snap—pin me against the door and tear me apart—

He closed his eyes.

When they opened again, the fleeting madness was gone, suffocated behind an agonizing wall of control.

"If you simply need a release, I can accommodate you." The raw hoarseness of his voice completely betrayed his actions.

With effortless strength, his fingers clamped around my wrists, peeling me off his body. He took a half-step back, turned, and pulled open the nightstand drawer.

The moment I saw what he pulled out, the lust that had surged to its peak within me hit a wall of absolute ice.

Pinched in his hand was a sealed, medical-grade silicone finger cot.

No desperate embrace. No savage kiss. He just stood by the bed, his eyes having returned to a dead calm, as if he weren't looking at his half-naked wife, but a toxic corporate asset that required PPE to handle.

Not this again.

No matter how much I stripped down and provoked him, his response was always this infuriating, strictly-business rationality!

Humiliation and violent rage shot to my brain. I ripped the packet from his fingers and slammed it against his solid chest.

"Accommodate me?" I let out a bitter laugh, my voice trembling from sheer humiliation. "Arthur, if you're impotent, just admit it! If all I wanted was to get off, I have men lined up around the block on Fifth Avenue. I don't need you patronizing me like this!"

In the dim light, Arthur's dark pupils shrank to pinpricks.

He looked ready to devour me whole, yet at his sides, his hands locked into white-knuckled fists, veins cording under the strain.

His Adam's apple bobbed heavily. "Chloe, I didn't mean it like that," he rasped.

But still, he didn't step forward. Not even half an inch.

He didn't throw me onto the bed; he didn't take my face in his hands and kiss me.

"Whatever."

Scoffing, I didn't even bother to cover myself as I stalked out without a backward glance, letting the heavy door slam shut in my wake.

Back in my room, I stalked straight to the wet bar, pouring a heavy whiskey over a single rock.

The sharp burn of the amber liquid seared my throat, but it did nothing to incinerate the suffocating knot of frustration in my head.

The second my skin touched his just now, I felt the uncontrolled tension in his muscles. I saw the wildness in his eyes he couldn't hide.

There was absolutely no way he felt nothing for me.

So why, for the love of God, did Arthur refuse to touch me?

If keeping his distance early in the marriage was to avoid scandal, fine. But it had been an entire year.

Was it some ridiculous, misguided sense of family loyalty? Did the fact that I was his nephew's ex-fiancée make me completely off-limits to him?

I tilted my head back, swallowing another mouthful of liquor, and let out a cold sneer.

No. For an apex predator like Arthur, a man accustomed to pulling the strings on Wall Street, if he wanted something, a moral code wouldn't mean shit.

Unless...

A sudden thought struck my mind, instantly freezing the swirling motion of my glass.

I remembered an offhand complaint Liam's mother had made during afternoon tea.

She had mentioned that Arthur remained single for so many years because he was carrying a torch for a woman he couldn't have. A ghost from his past who had managed to tame the ruthless Arthur Rothwell.

Was his ascetic saint routine driven not by some bullshit moral code, but by a twisted desire to stay "chaste" for someone else?

Was this sexless marriage just his perfect prop to keep the family off his back?

The moment that realization hit me, the whiskey in my stomach caught fire, torching the leftover dregs of my humiliation into ash.

What replaced it was a bone-deep, icy clarity. And absolute rage.

I had stripped myself bare, dropping every last ounce of my pride in front of him, and he was using me as a prop to prove his devotion to another woman?

Fuck him.

I slammed the empty glass onto the marble bar, the sharp crack echoing through the desolate room.

You want to stay loyal to a ghost for the rest of your life?

Fine, Arthur. Count me the hell out.