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It had beensix months.When would she be done with this feeling of hurt, betrayal and rejection? Of believing that she hadn’t been enough for Jack? That if she’d been more fun, spontaneous, sexier, he wouldn’t have cheated?
You’re not my type.
Yeah, well, she hadn’t been Jack’s type either, apparently.
“Okay, Portia,” his voice drawled, low and husky. Damn it! She hadn’t expected him to come out so quickly. She blinked rapidly, hoping he’d be too hungover or drunk to notice the tears she’d had to stave off, taking an extra moment to remove the thick wad of papers from the envelope before laying them out on the table.
“Do you have a pen?” He asked, not looking at her. Thank God. It gave her a moment to process the fact he’d pulled on a pair of jeans, done up the zip but neglected the button, meaning they sat dangerously low, revealing those fascinating hip bones. A shirt had apparently been too much effort.
She studiously ignored his tattoo.
“Seriously? This is your house,” she muttered, pulling out one of the three pens she always had at the ready. “What kind of person doesn’t have a pen available?”
“I’m more of a digital guy. I keep telling Dante, this can be done online.”
“Your lawyer wants paper,” she snapped, wearied by everything suddenly. By Jack, by his affair, by her family’s unswerving loyalty to him, their insistence that he was a good guy who’d just made a single mistake, who deserved a second chance. As though Portia was an unfeeling bitch because she’d broken off their engagement and refused to look back. She was weary of Marco too, of the way he lived his life and somehow got away with it, weary of men who acted like women were dispensable and good for only one thing.
“I’m surprised to find you alone,” she murmured, passing a pen over. “I think that’s a first.”
He shrugged. “Does it bother you?”
“That there’s not some naked woman here to contend with?” She asked.
“That there quite often is,” he corrected, pinning her with his gaze once more. Sharp, astute, way more like Dante than she liked.
Something trembled down her spine; she ignored it. “I don’t really care,” she said stiffly. “It’s your life.”
“You seem to care,” he responded, dropping the pen to the table without having signed the documents. “Or maybe you’re just naturally very prim.”
Something about this conversation was lined with danger, but she didn’t shy away from it. He was speaking her own inner-most fears. Maybe if she could understandwhyshe was so prim, Jack’s cheating would make sense.
“You’re wrong.”
“About what?” He moved closer, eyes flecked with amber and gold, lined with dark black lashes, probing hers. “You not caring? Or your being prim?”
“I’m—,” her tongue darted out, licking her lower lip. “I don’t know.”
He appeared to contemplate that. “Have you ever had sex with a guy anywhere other than a bedroom?”
She gasped at the question. “Marco,” her voice held a warning, but the physiological response to his words couldn’t be ignored. Her heart trembled, her cheeks flushed, her blood seemed to be racing through her body hard and fast. “How dare you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
Heat gushed between her legs. She glanced away quickly. “I’m—,”
“It’s a simple ‘yes’, or ‘no’ question.”
“That you have no right to ask.”
“What are you going to do?” He teased, moving closer, lifting a finger to her hair and tucking it behind her ear. “Dob on me to my brother?”
“Go to HR?” She responded but her voice wobbled and her knees were even worse.
“You could do that,” he said with a shrug, then turned back to the table, picked up the pen and moved to the document.
Her ears were filled with gushing, rushing blood and she could hardly think straight, but she didn’t want him to sign the documents because then she’d have to leave and as weird and wrong and totally unexpected as their conversation had been, it had also made Portia feel more alive and sensual than she had in a very long time.
Her heart slammed into her ribs as heat made it almost impossible to breathe.
