“We’re not doing this,” he said in that same cut-glass voice, causing her to shake for a new reason altogether.
She hated that he had such a hold on her emotions but she didn’t know how to cut the cord. Didn’t want to. He made her feel so alive. Even destructive emotions were more than she’d felt for a man for too long.
And love wasn’t wrong. She wouldn’t believe that, no matter what he said or did.
Loving him was right. If he misused that love, didn’t value it for the gift it was, she still wasn’t wrong for feeling the way she did.
Dear God, why had it taken her so long to realize that?
“Why?” she asked when she trusted herself to speak.
He didn’t answer for so long she reached out to grip the armrest.
“I’m not the man you think I am, Kelly. I’m not misunderstood. I’m not in need of saving. Or loving. Or whatever the hell it is you think you can do to make me more than I am.” He turned but he didn’t look at her. Suddenly the wall above her head took all his attention. “I played along, because you entertained me. You’re a fun girl. Sexy as hell and inventive and—”
“You goddamned bastard, this isn’t just about sex. You said it yourself.” Anger and fear steamrolled the last of her restraint as she jumped to her feet. “Don’t you stand there and pretend it is, because I know you’re lying.”
“For three years, we’ve had a work relationship. For a little over a week, you’ve been in my bed. You’d be wise not to see things that aren’t there. Free advice, kid.” His mouth twisted into a semblance of a smile. “Unless you get it on the dotted line, it doesn’t count. And what a man says when he wants into your pants means nothing. Less than.”
“What happened?” she asked in the coldest voice she could manufacture. Hard to sound cold when her skin burned as hot as the fury building inside her, but she did her best. “When you left me earlier, you weren’t spouting platitudes about what we are or aren’t. You were just happy to be with me. Not that you’d admit it, oh no, but I can read you now.”
He contemplated the terribly interesting wall. “Another woman invited me into her bed tonight, Kelly. And I accepted. So maybe you don’t know me that well at all.”
It took time for the words to sink in. They didn’t mean anything at first. They were just unconnected sounds without any point. But when their meaning dawned, she squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him.
She loved him so much and he clearly didn’t give a damn.
She’d come to his office determined to sleep with him regardless of what had occurred tonight. No matter what had made him stay out so long, she’d refused to be dissuaded from her goal. Wouldn’t it prove how much she loved him if his self-destructive attempts to end them before they’d really begun didn’t faze her?
But that was when she’d only had doubts. She’d mostly convinced herself he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t hurt her like that. There had to be another reason why he smelled like an expensive hooker on a busy night.
Except there wasn’t. He’d been with someone else only hours after he’d been with her. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer, not when the truth had smacked her resoundingly in the face.
Her first inclination was to get up and race out of the room. Her second was to pound on his chest and ask him why he’d had to be at Kink that night. Why he’d had to throw just enough breadcrumbs for her to think there might be something more between them than books and sex clubs and damn staff suggestion boxes.
“I sort of got that when I found you in here,” she said instead, forcing her heavy lids to lift. Defiantly she raised her chin. “If you meant to drive me away, you could have just said you didn’t want me. Believe me, I’m not going to settle for whatever scraps you’ll toss my way.”
Spencer set his jaw. “I never said I didn’t want you. But you deserve more than—”
“More than what I need? More than the way we make each other feel when it’s just you and me and all the bullshit falls away?”
He took a step toward her, held out a hand. Whether to help her up or to lead her out she didn’t know. Then he stopped and gazed at his outstretched arm as if he hadn’t registered the gesture.
“Maybe if the timing had been different.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Kelly, don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.” She rose unsteadily. She didn’t pull down her ridiculously short skirt or scrub her cheeks to rid them of the tears streaming out of her eyes. They slid in hot tracks down her face, dripped off her chin and plopped on her tight blouse.
Her stupid get-up that she’d worn for him. Everything was for him. And he’d taken it all and left her with nothing.
Except her pride.
“You’re a damn fool, you know that? I thought I was the stupid one to have a crush on you all these years, to want you so badly when it would never happen. And then when it did, to fall for you. It was never just sex with me. Because I always got you like no one else ever will.”
Kelly pressed her lips together until they stopped quivering. She had time because God knows he wasn’t talking. He just stared at her with that same stricken, horrified expression, as if he expected her to collapse at any moment.
“All along, I tried to shove down my feelings, to pretend I didn’t have them so I could be more like you. At least that’s what you want people to think. But I feel too much. And that doesn’t make me wrong. That makes me right. Because I have the balls to stand here and tell you—” Her voice broke, the sob erupting from her chest as loudly as a hammer shattering glass. She sucked in air and forced out the words that burned her throat. “I love you. Even if you don’t deserve it. Or me.”
She didn’t run out the door. She walked. And she didn’t slam it. That, too, was pride.
He didn’t come after her. If he had, he would’ve been a different man. But just in case he changed his mind, she rushed down the hall and out the door, not stopping until she was in her car. Then she let the sobs come, the ones she’d managed not to let go in his office.
She gave herself a full minute before starting the engine. If she had any more crying to do, she’d do it far away from that godforsaken store she loved so much.
And that man.