Claiming His Nine-Month Consequence

That brought her up short.

“Oh,” she said faintly. As she changed gears, her old truck rattled and coughed smoke behind them. “I live just up here.”

Ares turned to look out the window, and unwillingly, her eyes lingered on his silhouette. The hard line of his jaw, the curve of his lips. He was so handsome, she thought. So masculine. So powerful. So everything she was not.

Then, following the direction of his gaze, she saw her neighborhood with fresh eyes. The trailer park was small, tidy and well maintained. Ruby’s neighbors were kind and hardworking, but the trailers looked old and plain, with snow piled haphazardly on the road. The flowers that made the street so beautiful in summer were nowhere to be seen in winter. And her neighbors’ cars, like her own, had all seen better days.

As she parked in front of her own family’s single-wide mobile home, she saw how careworn it had become. But good people lived in this neighborhood. Good people who worked hard. Telling herself she had nothing to be ashamed of, she put her truck into park and turned off the engine. “Would you like to come in?”

Ares’s darkly handsome, chiseled face held no expression. “To meet your sick mother and the little sister who was planning to trap me into marriage?”

“Right. You don’t do complicated.” She tried to keep her voice light, even as her cheeks burned. “I’ll be right back.”

Closing the door solidly behind her, Ruby went into her home. The living room was dark. “Ivy? Mom?”

“I’m in here,” her mother’s voice called weakly.

Ruby hurried into her mother’s small bedroom and found Bonnie propped up in bed, a small television blaring from an opposite shelf. Pill bottles were on her nightstand table, along with an untouched plate of food.

“Mom! You didn’t eat!”

“I wasn’t...hungry,” her mother said apologetically. Her voice was small, and she paused to take breaths sometimes between words. “Why are you...here?”

“I got out of work early, so I’m going up on the mountain for Renegade Night.”

Her mother beamed at her, her kind blue eyes shining.

Ruby hesitated. “I’m, um, bringing someone. A man I just met.” She bit her lip, but she wasn’t used to hiding things from her mother, so she finished reluctantly, “That Greek guy who bought the thirty-million-dollar house.”

The smile slid from Bonnie’s wasted face. “No.” She shook her head weakly. “Rich men...cannot love...”

“Don’t worry,” Ruby said quickly. “It’s not like that. We’re not on a date. He just helped me get the night off, so I’m returning the favor by bringing him on the mountain. I’m sure I’ll never see him again.” Lowering her head, she kissed her mother’s forehead. Drawing back with a frown, she touched Bonnie’s forehead with her hand. “You feel cold.”

“I’m fine. Ivy said...be home soon.”

“She called you?”

“She...was here. Changed to...jeans. Out with friends. Pizza.”

Ruby hoped that was true, and that Ivy wasn’t trying to get into some other club downtown. But if she’d changed into jeans, that was unlikely. And she knew Ivy wouldn’t be on the mountain. She hated winter sports with a passion. “I could stay with you.”

“Go,” Bonnie said firmly. “You deserve...fun. You always take care...of us.” She took a rasping breath. “Go.”

“All right,” Ruby said reluctantly. She squeezed her mother’s hand and smiled. “When I get back tonight, I’ll hopefully have funny stories to share. I love you, Mom.”

“Love...you...”

Ruby hurried down the hall to the oversize closet, where she stored all the interesting vintage clothes she’d collected over the years, in dreams of someday starting her own business. Now, let’s see, where had she put it? Digging through boxes, she finally found what she was looking for and grinned. She could hardly wait to see Ares’s face.

CHAPTER THREE (#ue7500a0d-918b-50ca-8dcf-3902c4ab390b)

SCATTERING SNOW AS he twisted his snowboard to a stop halfway down the mountain, Ares straightened, looking back.

The night was clear and dark with stars. He could see his breath in the cold air, illuminated by moonlight and the slow trail of fire-lit torches of skiers zigzagging single file down the mountain. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

Or maybe he had.

Ruby came to an abrupt stop next to him on her snowboard, pelting him with a wave of snow. Her face was indescribably beautiful as she laughed merrily, her cheeks pink with cold, her eyes sparkling bright.

“For a man who claimed to suck at skiing,” she observed, “you’re pretty good.”

“This is snowboarding. I never claimed to suck at snowboarding.”

“Flying down the hill like that, I thought you’d break your neck. No doubt causing anguish to starlets and lingerie models everywhere,” she added drily.

He grinned. “Don’t forget the swimsuit models.”

Her trash talk reassured him. He knew if she’d been underwhelmed by his snowboarding skills, she would have instead been patronizingly kind. He was relieved, since he’d nearly broken his damn neck trying to stay ahead of her.

Ares looked back at the torchlit parade. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“I’m happy to be here.” Looking at him, she said softly, “Thank you, Ares.”

Hearing her low, melodic voice speak his name, he felt a strange twist in his heart. Was it her beauty? Was it the winter fantasy around him, the sense that he was a million miles away from his real life?

It was excitement, he told himself. Excitement and lust. And triumph. He was winning her over. She would soon be his.

Ruby gave him a sudden cheerful grin. “No one even recognized you.”

Wryly, he glanced down at his vintage 1980s one-piece ski suit, bright blue with white and red racing stripes. He’d almost refused to wear it when she’d given it to him. Then he’d realized it was a test of sorts, and had taken it without complaint, along with the antiquated snowboard equipment, old goggles and a dark beanie hat from the resort’s lost-and-found bin.

“Perfect,” she’d said when he’d come out of the dressing room, her eyes twinkling with glee. “You’ll fit right in.”

And somewhat to his surprise, he had. The other ski instructors participating in Renegade Night were mostly in their twenties, both men and women, all of them fit and reckless. Even with Ares’s height and broad physique, no one had looked at him twice. Not with two Olympic athletes joining them, Star Valley locals who’d won medals in ski jumping and downhill skiing. And also some famous hockey player, apparently. They were the local heroes. No one had looked twice at Ares in his thick goggles.

It was disconcerting. But also strangely liberating.

Anonymity meant privacy. It meant freedom. That kind of invisibility was exhilarating and new.

Even as a boy in Greece, Ares had been constantly under a microscope, the only child of Aristedes and Thalia Kourakis, the glamorous, fabulously wealthy Greek society couple. His mother was famous for her beauty, his father for his ruthless power, and both of them for their tempestuous marriage, a five-year battle that had ended in a ten-year divorce.

And if they were merciless to each other, they’d been even more so to their only son. They’d used him as a pawn, first in the marriage, then in their divorce, in the court of public opinion. Ares had been recognized, and fawned over, wherever he went, if not for his appearance, then for his family’s wealth and name.

Appearance was what mattered. His parents had taught him that well, spending almost no time with him, leaving him in the care of nannies as they tried to outdo each other by buying him ridiculous gifts. The gifts always came with strings. Like on Ares’s ninth birthday, when his father had bought him a Brazilian aerospace company. As Ares had blinked in confusion—he’d dreamed of a puppy—his father had added casually, “And in return for this amazing gift, I expect you to report on the activities of that whore you call a mother.”

Now, as Ares felt the ice-cold wind of the Idaho mountain whip against his face, he realized he’d never had the chance to cast off his name and everything that came with it—fame, power, yes, but also darkness.

He felt strangely free. Strangely alive.