And then, all of a sudden, he was in the lift with her, surrounding her with his masculine scent, filling her tummy with butterflies and her veins with flame, and all she’d wanted to do was hurl herself at him and tell him she’d do whatever he wanted if it meant she got a little more time with him. Thank God she hadn’t. Thank God she remembered what the last five weeks had been like—no way could she do anything that would set her back.
She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him with all the emotional energy she felt, deep in her body.
‘How are you?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Is that it?’
‘No.’ He moved closer, and she started turning away from him, stalking deeper into her hotel room. She flicked the kettle on and stayed near it, bracing herself in the small kitchen.
‘I wanted to see you.’
Something inside her snapped. Her self-control, her temper, something.
‘It’s been five weeks,’ she almost shouted.
‘I’m aware of that.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
‘So what do you want?’ She grabbed for a tea cup, slamming it down noisily on the marble bench. ‘Let me guess. If I have sex with you tonight you’ll give me—what?—a diamond necklace? An Italian villa? What exactly is my price these days?’
He visibly winced, and that empowered her. She liked it. ‘Or do you want two nights? Three? It’d cost more for that, you know. At least an aeroplane.’ She tore the top off a tea-bag envelope, shooting him a furious glance as she upended the bag into the mug.
‘You have every right to be angry,’ he said quietly, and his calmness was like fuel being doused over her fire.
‘Damn straight I do! I don’t want you to be here! I didn’t want to see you again! For five weeks I have felt... I’ve been...’ She shook her head—there were no words that would do justice to how she’d felt. ‘And now you’re here, looking at me like—I don’t even know—and I just... I can’t do this. Do you have any idea what this is like? What these five weeks have been like?’ She swallowed, her throat thick and dry. ‘Please, just leave me alone.’ Tears streamed down her cheeks. She reached for the kettle, filling the mug and gratefully lifting it towards her lips.
‘And I will,’ he promised, moving to the other side of the kitchen bench. She was glad there was some distance between them. She needed that in order to be able to think.
‘Please just go.’
‘I have one minute left.’
Strength rallied in her core, so she glared at him. ‘So use it.’
‘I don’t know what it’s been like for you, but I can tell you what it’s been like for me.’
She didn’t want to hear, though. She shook her head, sipping her boiling-hot tea, her body barely able to contain her blood, it was rushing so hard and fast.
‘I went to Alaska. To work. To think. To make sure I didn’t weaken and contact you. There’s no phone service there, and you were a million miles away from me. I went to forget you, and instead Alaska became an echo chamber of my thoughts and wants. You were everywhere I looked—in my dreams, my head, my blood, my body—and I needed, simply, to hold you.’
She ground her teeth together, refusing to be placated by his words. ‘Like I said, one last night? What’s my price?’
He flinched. ‘You have no price. You can’t be bought. Money had nothing to do with us, with what we were. You knew that all along, and perhaps I did too, on some level, but it comforted me to see a commercial aspect to our arrangement. Commerce I am familiar with and good at. If we were simply a different kind of business deal, I could understand how to get you out of my head. I thought I’d be able to work to the terms we’d agreed, just like any other deal. But I was so wrong.’
Against her will, without her permission, his words seeped under her skin a little. She shook her head, physically rejecting the sentiment. ‘No way.’
‘No?’
‘You can’t come here after five weeks, after that last day, and say this and think it makes a damn bit of difference.’
He jerked his head in a silent nod and jagged his fingers in his hair in a gesture that was sheer panic. Good. He should panic!
She sipped her tea. ‘Thirty seconds.’
‘Christo, I’m trying.’
‘I’m not messing around, Cesare. You haven’t said anything that makes me want to hear more.’
‘I was mad with wanting you after that first night. When you came to my office, I saw an opportunity. That’s what I’m good at. I see weakness, I exploit it. Your love for your cousin was something I perceived as a weakness, because I’d never really known love like it. I’ve never known loyalty like it. I couldn’t understand what you felt, what motivated you, and so I couldn’t see, then, how wrong I was to use it to leverage you into my life.’