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“Yes!” She clutched the documents to her chest, no doubt fighting to control her temper.
“How the fuck did you get to that conclusion?” I demanded, also clinging to my control, but only barely.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she repeated. “I don’t want to hear your denials.”
“How the fuck can I deny anything if I don’t know what I’m denying?”
“You never really cared for me.” She pointed an accusatory finger at me. “I was always your ticket to the Astor money—”
“Youknowbetter.” I made a huge effort to lower my voice. “What you’re saying. In your soul. Youknowme. I never wanted your money. I never betrayed you. You kicked me out of your life. That’s the truth.”
Her eyes welled with tears. Her chest rattled and a sob died in her throat as she hugged the documents even tighteragainst her breast.
“Please, Thena, don’t cry.” It made me want to cry. I moved closer to her, and then, when she didn’t ask me to stop, I stepped even closer, until she stood with her back against the door and our faces were only an inch apart. “Talk to me, darling.”
Her liquid eyes widened. Her lips trembled and her body called to mine. Ah, hell. All my resolutions began to cave. I longed to kiss and console her, to fix whatever pained her. My need to stop her suffering was so powerful that I set my pride aside, braced my hands at either side of her head, and leaned forward until my forehead rested on hers and I was breathing her air.
“I want to kiss you.” I locked eyes with her. “I need to kiss you.”
She uttered no words, but she didn’t say no. My impulse to soothe her was so extreme that I couldn’t hold back. I brushed my lips over her mouth. At first, it was a tentative touch. Her lips were as soft as I remembered, and yet her impact on my body was anything but. I leaned into her lips, lingered there, pressing my mouth to hers, soaring on the wind of her breaths, enveloped in the scent of her shampoo, famished for a little taste of her.
My lips worked over hers, gently, slowly. I swiped my tongue over the seam of her mouth. Fireworks went off in my head when she parted for me, giving me access to the flavors remembered so well. She tasted like the strawberries and oranges she’d always favored for breakfast, like my past swooping down on me and flying me back to my happy place.
Did I deepen the kiss? Did she? I had no way of knowing, and yet the contact ignited a chain reaction. My pride fled. My brain cut out. I had no way of stopping what came next. Heat, pleasure, and joy shot through me as our mouths became voracious and our tongues intertwined, reviving the memoriesof the thousands of passionate kisses that had come before this one.
As our mouths locked in one hell of a kiss, I enveloped her in my arms and hugged her to me. The documents crunched quietly between us. Holding them with one hand, she lifted her other arm and coiled it around my shoulders. I blasted off to a world that made sense again, a universe full of opportunities for happiness I’d forfeited years ago.
I may have never surfaced from the kiss if she hadn’t tensed against me. She whimpered into my mouth then groaned as she braced a hand on my chest and shoved me away from her.
“No.” Her whisper hardened into a command. “No!”
Her push wasn’t strong enough to move me, but I stepped back of my own accord, confused by her reactions. First, she’d allowed me to kiss her and had kissed me back, passionately, committedly. Now she was rejecting me again?
“What’s wrong?” I studied her expression, desperately looking for clues to explain her about-face.
“You can’t seduce me anymore.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as if she’d been soiled by my kiss. “This time around, I won’t allow you to fuck me out of my wits so you can get your way.”
“What the hell?” I couldn’t believe her words. “That’s not—” I bit down on my anger. “Do you think so little of me?”
“I don’t think, I know. This conversation is over.” She whirled around, and still clutching the documents, turned the knob with her other hand. “This time around, I won’t allow you to deceive me.”
“But—”
“Enough!” She threw the door open and shot me a scathing glare over her shoulder. “You will not make any additional contact with me or with anyone at the Astor Group. The next time I’ll see you, it’ll be in court.”
Her contempt blustered over me like a slap to the face. I gripped my cane and suppressed a need to stagger. I’d never deserved her or her love, and Nix’s death was on me, but that kiss, it’d been good, meaningful, powerful. I’d tasted honesty at both ends. At the same time, her accusations that I’d somehow deceived her and that I’d never really loved her were cruel and unusual punishment for a man who’d adored one woman with complete devotion.
How the hell could she possibly thinkIcould deceive and betray her?
Her attitude was also reckless. Her father’s assassin could be anywhere, attack anytime. We needed to talk this out. Leaning on my cane, grappling with the shock of everything she’d said, I went after her.
Of all the people in the world, Thena knew me best. I’d expected she’d resent me for the rest of her life because of Nix’s death. She’d broken our engagement, thrown the ring I’d given her at my face, and had me dragged out of her father’s penthouse by Astor security. All because of Nix’s death. I’d known she’d be mad at me when I came here, but I’d also hoped she’d listen to what I had to say. I’d even believed I’d had a chance when we kissed.
Not the case.
She’d just accused me again of using, deceiving, and betraying her.
Me. Betraying her. I scoffed.How? When? In what universe?
