AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She whirled around. “What?”
But his face was implacable, his features bearing a mask she couldn’t perceive beyond. “Did I hurt you?”
She flinched, his meaning digging into her. So too his care. She didn’t want care. She didn’t want compassion. “No. Not physically.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes, because if she did, she might tell him that had been their best time yet. Their last, but also their most incredibly, overwhelmingly powerful coming together. Because she’d known it was the end of the road?
“Then what’s happened? Why are you crying?”
She dashed at her cheeks before bending down and collecting her trench coat, cinching it around her waist with scant concern for the fact she was naked underneath.
“Did you honestly think I would go through with this?”
He looked as though the bottom had just fallen out of his world. Good. Now he knew what it felt like. “Did you honestly think you could blackmail me into spending a month having sex with you?”
A muscle throbbed low down on his jaw. “I thought you wanted this.”
“This? You?” she demanded. “Like this?” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “How dare you imply I would sleep with a man for any kind of financial consideration.”
“There is no financial consideration,” he contradicted. “I am not giving you money. Rather, the opposite. I’m withdrawing my offer to buy your grandfather’s house.”
“And giving me something much more valuable—the house.”
“That’s not—you’re making this sound?—,”
“No, I’m making you see,” she interrupted, “just what this is. How dare you?” She demanded again, and though she didn’t realise it, she reminded him strongly in that moment of the first night they’d met, in this very hotel, when she’d been so like Boudica.
“You agreed?—,”
“Yes, I did, but I never intended to go through with it.” She tilted her chin in angry defiance. “I came here tonight to see if you were seriously so callous and deluded as to think that I might. I thought maybe the time in between making the offer and seeing me now might have helped you wake up and realise?—,”
Her voice trailed off as a sob burst from her. She smothered it with the back of her hand, took a second to regain her composure. “I told myself that if you slept with me, you were every bit as much of a bastard as I suspected. And if you didn’t? Then maybe, just maybe, you had some moral fiber after all.”
His eyes closed as her words hit their mark, but she felt no satisfaction in tearing shreds off him. It was all just…impossibly sad.
“So, this was a trap?”
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me,” she threw at him angrily.
“You’re telling me you came here to intuit my worth by whether or not I slept with you. Well, how about another option that you evidently haven’t considered? How about I slept with you because where you’re concerned, any kind of common sense and ability to think clearly deserted me almost from the moment we met?”
Her lips parted on a wave of feeling, because if she wanted to—if she were really pathetic and hopeful—she might read something into that statement. She might hear his words and think there was some kind of admission there. But this was Rocco Santoro, and he’d made his feelings for her—and women, and sex—abundantly clear.
“Do you think I don’t hate myself for this, Maddie?” he demanded, dragging a hand through his hair. Her gaze dropped lower, to his chest, and then back to his face, but it hurt so much to look at him and see the anguish in his features. She immediately wanted to put this fight back into a box, to shelve it for later. Or never. To ignore all her doubts and what he’d suggested and just lean into how freaking great this felt.
But that was a mistake her mother had kept making and Maddie would never be so stupid.
“Do you think I don’t see what’s happening with us and hate myself? How can I do this to you? How can I suggest that a month with you has any possible quid pro quo worth? When the truth is, another month with you is beyond value.”
She closed her eyes, pushing away the words he was saying, pushing away the long-hoped for meaning. Because surely that was an admission that she meant something to him?
“I don’t know, but you did,” she said, hardening her heart, knowing she had to protect herself better this time. She wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. She wasn’t her mother, and she wasn’t the woman Brock had made a fool of.
“It is a sign of how desperate I was for more time with you that I did this. What else can you possibly attribute my madness to?”
She shook her head though. It was too late. He’d had time to consider, to withdraw his offer, to apologise, and he’d done none of those things.
“I came here to say goodbye,” she said, glad her voice, finally, barely shook. She turned away and moved to her handbag, discarded near the front door. She carefully removed an envelope and brought it back to Rocco. There was wariness in his eyes, but beyond that, she couldn’t understand a thing he was feeling. He was too good at hiding himself away, walling himself off. She pushed the envelope towards him and watched, with satisfaction, when he opened it and saw what was inside: signed contracts of sale.
