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“The rest of your clothes. Throw them in.”
I grip the bottom of my dress. “This all I have left.”
“I know. That’s the point. Kind of hard to think about leaving if you have no clothes.”
I blink up at him. “You’ve lost your mind.”
Corrado narrows his eyes. “The clothes, Michela. In the tub. Right now.”
I lift my middle finger and stomp out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, where I open the closet and scoop out as many suits and pressed shirts as I can carry. The pile blocks my view, and I nearly trip as I march back to the bathroom and throw all his stuff into the roaring flames.
Hands on his hips, Corrado stands aside.
I repeat the process twice until all his clothes are in flames. “There. See how that feels?”
Corrado strips naked and adds everything he’s wearing into the burning pile. “Your turn.”
He reaches for my dress.
I slap his hand away.
He does it again.
I slap it away again.
He captures my wrists, drags me out of the bathroom, and slams the door. He pins me against the bathroom door and slams my wrists above my head. His jaw works, and his gaze is on my mouth. “I want you to stay,” he growls.
“After you burned my clothes?”
He nods.
“After you told your brother and me how our arrangement is over?”
Another nod.
“After you ended my employment when you promised I could have that job? We even put it into our agreement.”
“Yes, yes. After everything.”
“That first night I asked you out to dinner. You missed the date on purpose. Admit it.”
Corrado scrunches up his nose. “I admit it.”
Oh God. “You did that because you don’t want to deal with anything remotely human, like feelings.”
Another nod.
“But I need your feelings. I need your heart.”
Clearly out of his comfort zone, Corrado grits his teeth. If it wasn’t sad, it would be comical how much he hates intimacy.
“I want you before I let you go,” he finally says.
He’s changing the subject and taking control of the conversation along with our situation, and I’m helpless against it, even if I see it for what it is. He’s offering me freedom. “How do you want me?”
He pulls the strap of my dress, then releases it. “You know how.”
I bite my lip. “And when you say you’ll let me go, how do you mean it?”
