When I reach him, he smiles at me from behind his desk. “Mr. Holt is waiting for you. Go right in.” I turn to face Micah’s office door, seeing the blinds in his office are drawn, when Neil adds, “Oh, and Allie?” I glance over my shoulder, finding him grinning from ear to ear. “You looked absolutely stunning last night.”
“Thanks.” I give him a small smile of gratitude then I face the open door again, forcing my racing heart to slow to a normal beat. I hold the magazine tight in my hands, entering Micah’s office, finding him sitting behind his desk, reading a document set out in front of him. “Before we talk,” I say, raising the magazine, hoping to ease us into the tense conversation ahead of us, “I think you need to look at this—”
“Close the door,” he orders.
And yes, it’s that, an ice-cold order.
I do as he asks, shutting the door tight, fighting against the shake in my hand. “Okay, the door’s closed,” I say, turning to him.
He’s reading the document for a few seconds more, and I know his intention. He’s showing me my place right now. I don’t come first, not anymore. My back stiffens straight as a pencil, when he lifts his head and leans back in his seat, looking the ever-so-powerful billionaire that he is. Those smoky eyes aren’t smoldering anymore, they’re cold and flinty. “I need your promise that what Juliet told you last night will never be spoken in public.”
My chest squeezes, breath all but gone. “Pardon me?” I wait for him to correct himself, but he doesn’t. So I do it for him. “I think what you meant to say is, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything about me. Here’s the explanation that you deserve.”
A heavy and thick few seconds of silence slide between us. That’s when I realize I’m looking at a different Micah today. It’s not the Micah I know. It’s not even the Micah I’d seen last night—the man running from his demons. This man is someone I’ve never met before. I decide he’s the Micah the world knows. The billionaire. The playboy. This is the man when Micah’s shields are locked up tight.
Then he breaks the silence, arching a brow at me. “That’s what you want me to say?”
“Of course it is,” I continue. “What I don’t want is for you to imply you can’t trust me.” I move closer to the chair in front of his desk, grasping the back, steadying myself. “So, yes, I want you to apologize for not telling me the truth, because that’s a really shitty thing to do to someone, then I want you to explain all this so I understand.”
“I will never apologize for being myself,” he says, calm and collected. “And there’s nothing to explain. You learned who I truly am last night. There’s nothing else to add.”
I blink, shell-shocked by his coldness. “You don’t think I deserve to be told about this other side of your life?”
“No.” He draws in a deep breath before he finishes, “I think you deserve to be protected from it.”
My hand tightens around the chair, digging into the leather. “You don’t need to protect me from anything.”
“You’re wrong.” His eyes ablaze, his voice lowers. “I need to protect you from me.”
“Because you like kinky sex,” I fire back, the world spinning a little around me, as I’m trying to find solid ground. ?
?This isn’t making any sense, Micah.” Which is now scaring me, because it’s making me think the kinky sex he’s into is really sadistic stuff. But deep down, I know that can’t be true.
I know Micah. The real Micah.
He’s not that guy.
“Sadly, this doesn’t have to make sense to you,” he says, coldly. “This is my decision. I refuse to take you down this dark path. It won’t end well for you.”
“Sir.” I jump at Neil’s voice sounding through the intercom on Micah’s desk. “Mr. Bennett is on line one.”
Micah clicks a button on the intercom. “Tell him I’ll be only a moment.” When his finger releases the button, his eyes lift to me again, fingers clasping together loosely on his desk. “I need to take this call.”
My lungs are constricting, fighting to find air. I’m realizing, at the worst possible moment, how much I care for Micah. How much I don’t want him to end this between us. How much I want to forgive him for keeping such a big thing about himself a secret, and how much I want to understand why he never told me this. “It’s my brother,” I state, harshly. “Darius can wait.”
One deliberate brow slowly arches. “Weren’t you the one who was adamant that you didn’t like when personal life interferes with professional life?”
God, his voice is so cold it shatters me. “Micah, why are you doing this?”
His expression is unreadable. There’s nothing there, no emotion at all. “We had a moment and enjoyed it. But that moment ended last night.”
“But it didn’t—”
“It didn’t what?”
“It didn’t end last night, not for me.”
He draws in a long-suffering deep breath before addressing me. “I’m not the man you think I am. I forced myself to be this other guy you wanted, to give us a shot, but the charade has to end.” He hesitates, then frowns. “Now I need to take my call. You’re dismissed.”