“I’m not going to fuck you tonight. I don’t have time.”
My expression fell.
For the simple fact of being denied him. But there was something deeper involved as well. If I didn’t get this over with him now, I’d never be over him enough to move on, to find another man who interested me.
I’d forgotten an important fact while sifting through my feelings. Christian was so perceptive he might as well be a mind reader. And I was sure he’d read my thoughts on my face.
His eyes narrowed on me before he reached for his suit jacket resting on the back of an island chair. “You been listening to gossip?”
I chewed my lip. “Sometimes, gossip just falls into your lap . . .”
He slipped his jacket on, in a casual yet kind of scary way. “Do you believe it?”
My pulse wavered like a plucked string. I didn’t say a word, because I didn’t need to for him to know that I did.
He adjusted his cuffs, eyes focused on his task, but something dark was coiling in him like rope.
My stomach turned cold. I went to take a step back but didn’t make it. A gasp of fear escaped me when his hand shot out and grabbed me by the throat. I’d been conditioned to expect the worst from men from a young age, and my heart thundered in my chest as I waited for what he would do.
I expected pain.
So much so, shock and warmth rocked me at my center when he pulled me closer by the throat and kissed me. A sweet pull on my lips and then a soft bite of teeth.
He pressed his lips to my ear, running his thumb across the fluttering pulse in my throat. “I’ll say when this is over, Gianna.”
He released me, and I turned to watch him head toward the door.
“I’m coming with you Saturday.”
I couldn’t even protest because I was still wide-eyed and shaken from the moment before.
“We’ll leave at nine,” he told me.
And then he shut the door behind him.
MY EYES NARROWED. “WHAT ARE you wearing?”
Gianna looked down at her modest gray cocktail dress and short white heels while unsuccessfully trying to fix a tendril of hair that had escaped her French bun. Then, she looked me in the eye and said, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to mold myself into a woman you could love.”
I didn’t know why the sarcasm in her voice annoyed the hell out of me.
“No.”
She raised a brow. “No?”
“That’s what I said, Gianna. Go put on something else.”
She glared at me as she tried to push that unruly piece of hair back once more. That was when I noticed the small tremor in her hand. She was nervous. I hadn’t liked this outfit from the beginning, but now I fucking hated it.
I smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle from my jacket sleeve. “My time is precious, and you’re wasting it. You have five minutes to go change.”
She scoffed. “And what would you like to see me in, Your Highness?”
My bed, spread-eagled and naked.
“What you would normally wear to a wedding your father wasn’t attending.”
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