My Taboo Harem! - Chapter 506: Dinner for Two: Goddess’s Apology
Chapter 506: Dinner for Two: Goddess’s Apology
They ate on the carpet.
There were plenty—white leather, Italian-made, each one probably worth more than a car and twice as pretentious. But Phei had put the food on the low table near the window and dropped cross-legged like a feral little shit having a picnic, and she had stared at him for a long, delicious moment—this woman who normally ate at tables that cost hundred thousands of dollars, dined with Legacy patriarchs and foreign diplomats and people who would rather swallow broken glass than let their designer ass touch anything lower than a throne—and then, without a word, she had simply sat down across from him.
On the carpet.
In her halter dress and her pendant necklace and her bare feet, because she had kicked off her heels somewhere between the third piece of sushi and the brutal realisation that she hadn’t eaten since eleven that morning and was hungrier than her pride would normally let her admit without sounding pathetic.
They didn’t talk about it.
Neither of them brought up the sex. Neither of them referenced the conversation after—the wall she had thrown up so fast the mortar was still wet and dripping.
They just ate.
And talked.
About nothing. About everything. About the sushi, which she had taken one bite of and made a sound—low, throaty, the mhmmm of a woman whose taste buds had just been violently ambushed by something unexpectedly fucking divine—that made Phei’s chest swell three sizes like the narcissistic dragon he was finally getting the worship he deserved.
“Did you really make this?” she asked, chopsticks hovering over the next piece.
“Are you doubting me right now?”
She nodded. Opened her mouth for more. Chewed. That sound again—deeper this time, eyes sliding shut in shameless pleasure—and Phei filed it away in the growing catalogue of things about this woman that made his pulse forget its rhythm and start composing bad, horny poetry instead.
“Not just that,” she said, still chewing, manners abandoned because the food was too good for something as boring as etiquette. “I can’t believe you came all the way here with food just to eat with me.”
She shook her head, half-laughing at the absurdity. “Who the fuck does this these days?”
He shrugged, the picture of casual divinity. “What about a dragon desperate for his goddess to accept him?”
She hummed. Low. Considering. Tasting the word the same way she tasted the sushi—rolling it around on her tongue, savouring the flavour.
“Desperate,” she repeated. “If you’re being this sweet, I’m going to find it very hard to hold my walls up.”
“That’s kinda the point.”
They laughed together, the sound rich and filthy and easy in her billion-dollar office at night, on the carpet, with sushi between them and the city glowing cold and blue beyond the glass like a jealous voyeur that wished it could join.
“The cheque,” Phei said.
She set the chopsticks down slowly. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him with those dark, careful eyes that had probably ruined lesser men without breaking a sweat.
“I admit it,” she said. No deflection. “That was my plan. The reciprocation plot. And yes—I was surprised you saw through it.”
Phei waited, letting the silence stretch like a cat toying with a dying mouse.
“But it wasn’t what you assumed.” She held his gaze, steady.
“Yes, I was going to use it. At some point. But only to ensure it served my daughter’s interests. So that you would date Elena. That was the endgame. Not leverage for its own sake—leverage directed toward her happiness.”
She came closer.
Her hand rose, fingers brushing his cheek
, palm settling warm against his jaw, thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone with a tenderness that had no fucking business existing in the same woman who had tried to trap him with a favour two weeks ago.
“And then you gave me the envelope back,” she said, softer now. “To avoid owing me a favour. And I realised—in that moment—how much you’d been through more than Elena told me while crying. How many times people had done exactly that to you. Used kindness as currency. Twisted generosity into debt.”
Elena cried?
Her thumb stopped moving.
“I’m sorry, Phei. For pulling that move on you.”
He chuckled, dark and low, like a god who found mortal apologies adorably quaint and slightly pathetic.
“I didn’t know the Ashford Madam apologised for seeing an opportunity and wanting to capitalise on it.”
“She doesn’t. Usually.” The corner of her mouth twitched. “But from the start—even before the sex—I felt something shift in me. And after everything it felt wrong to pull that move on someone I’d just…”
She trailed off. Regathered. “But the plan was already in motion with Elena. And Elena was right there in the room. So.”
Phei shook his head. “I don’t fault you. I’ve been in this life for ten years. I know how it works. I would’ve done the same thing if I was—”
“Cut the bullshit.”
He stopped.
“There’s no way,” she said, eyes flat and certain, “that you would’ve pulled that move on someone you’d just fucked.”
He laughed, holding both hands up—palms out, the universal gesture of a man caught in a lie and surrendering with theatrical grace. “Alright. You got me.”
“Mhm.”
“I’m glad we’ve cleared the air about that, at least.” He picked up a piece of sushi with his chopsticks, leaned forward, and held it to her mouth like an offering to his personal goddess.
She opened without thinking. Took it. Chewed.
Mhmmm.
“You’re dangerous with food,” she said.
“I’m dangerous with most things.”
“I’m starting to notice.”
As the food cleared Phei gathered the plates and containers and packed them back into the bag with the quiet efficiency of someone who cleaned up after himself.
She tried to help but he waved her off with a lazy flick of his fingers, the gesture of a man who didn’t need assistance with menial shit.
They settled on the couch.
The white leather. Expensive as sin. She had sat on this same couch for years—business meetings, contract negotiations, late nights alone with documents and colder coffee.
It held no good memories. Only functional ones. Cold. Transactional. Soulless.
Phei spread his arms along the back of it. Casual. Open. The relaxed posture of a boy offering sanctuary without demanding it be taken.
She looked at him.
At his arms. His face. The solid line of his chest beneath the black turtleneck. She wanted to dive deeper—wanted to fold herself into that warm space between his jaw and shoulder and stay there until the building locked down around them and the city went dark and the entire fucking world forgot they existed.
She didn’t overthink it anymore.
The couch had no good memories? Fine. She would make some.
With her young dragon.
She dove into his chest almost so fast and so deeper.
Phei’s arms closed around her immediately—not tight, not possessive, just there. Solid. Warm. Like a man who understood this powerful woman needed to be held more than she would ever admit out loud and who was perfectly willing to hold her for as long as it took for her to stop pretending she was made of steel.
She sniffed him with her eyes closed. Face pressed into the soft fabric of his turtleneck. Breathing him in—that ancient intoxicating scent beneath the shirt, something that was purely him and made her brain go blessedly quiet in a way decades of expensive meditation and even more expensive therapy had never managed.
His fingers found her long black hair. Started stroking. Long, slow passes from crown to shoulders, the ink-black strands sliding through his fingers like liquid silk, and she felt something clenched tight inside her chest for years finally begin to loosen its death grip.
“What would Elena think of me,” she murmured against his chest, “if she saw me like this? In the arms of a man we both—”
