“It’s a mistake!”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Okay, but...”
“But what?”
A shadow crossed her face. “But I don’t love you anymore.”
He felt a strange emotion, deep down inside. He crushed it down before he could identify what it was.
“I do not need your love. I can assure you that you’ll never have mine. Love is for children. I just need your compliance.” When she still hesitated, he took a deliberate step back. “Or I can walk out that door and go straight to my lawyer.”
Letty looked wistful in the gray light from the small window. She sighed sadly. “Have it your way.”
“You’ll marry me?”
She nodded.
He felt a surge of smug masculine triumph. “Good choice.”
Pulling her roughly into his arms, he did what he’d yearned to do for six months and kissed her.
From the moment he felt her lips against his and tasted her sweetness—her mouth, her tongue—he was lost, and at the same time, found. Her lips parted, and as she melted against him, he savored her surrender. His body and long-dead soul roared back to life.
Letty wrenched away. “But first, you’ll take me to your charity ball tonight. And see firsthand what it would be like to actually have me as your wife.”
“Good—”
“Just remember.” She gave him a crooked smile. “You asked for it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
LETTY ALMOST DIDN’T leave a note for her father. Her anger at his betrayal was too high. But in the end she didn’t want him to worry, so she scribbl
ed a note and left it on the counter.
Out with Darius, and I’m never talking to you again.
Darius had taken one look at her closet and told her he was taking her shopping for the ball. She’d tried to protest, but he’d retorted, “There’s no point in announcing our engagement if you turn up at the ball dressed in rags. No one would believe it.”
“Fine,” she said sulkily. “Waste your money on a ball gown. See if I care.”
But she had the sudden disconcerting feeling that her life was no longer her own.
As she climbed into his sports car, her stomach growled with hunger. But she vowed she wasn’t going to say a word about it. It was bad enough he was buying her a dress. She wasn’t going to ask him for food, like a beggar!
But as Darius climbed into the driver’s seat beside her, all her senses went on high alert. Having him so close did strange things to her insides. As he drove through the busy traffic, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. His dark hair wasn’t even mussed, and his powerful body was relaxed in the leather seat. He looked so much calmer than she felt.
But why wouldn’t he be relaxed?
He’d won.
She’d lost.
Simple as that.
Or so Darius thought. Letty clasped her hands together in her lap as she looked out the window. Once he actually saw what life would be like for him with her at his side, he wouldn’t be able to get rid of her fast enough. Maybe she and her father could still be on that bus to Rochester tomorrow.