‘Don’t. I know it’s not true.’ She had to believe that. It was why she was fighting to do everything she could. ‘But it’s the way of the world, right?’
‘Maybe.’ A glimmer of a tease resurfaced. ‘What of love, Darcie? Don’t you believe in that either?’
Her heart puckered. She held little hope thatshewould ever find it. ‘Truthfully I haven’t seen many examples of long-term happily married couples.’ She swallowed. ‘Except maybe Cora and Vince.’
‘Yeah, they seem pretty together,’ Elias murmured. ‘Are you going to tell me what it is you think I lied to him about?’
He was too near now. Too near, too big, too stunning. She couldn’t say anything.
‘Darcie...’ He gazed down at her and his voice roughened. ‘Ask me again.’
She knew he wasn’t talking about tonight any more.
He leaned closer. ‘That night you asked me to come upstairs with you, you meant to come to bed.’
Yes. His nearness sent her brain into meltdown. She was so tempted to breathe the truth. Too tempted. And it paralysed her.
‘What if I promised the answer would be different this time?’ He gently brushed her hair back from her flushed face. ‘Where has my confident, capable, calm Darcie gone?’
MyDarcie?
She closed her eyes. ‘Confident, capable calm Darcie was all a fake.’
‘No. I don’t believe that,’ he countered. ‘Not for all that time.’
Not for work maybe. But when it came to this—to intimacy—there was no confidence, no capability and certainly no calm. She couldn’t hold back the raw reality any more. ‘You want the truth, Elias?’
‘Yes.’A heartfelt whisper she couldn’t ignore. ‘Always.’
She opened her eyes and stared straight into his. ‘I’ve never slept with anyone.’
He stilled. She saw him mentally repeating her statement. Saw the widening of his eyes as her words registered and felt the withdrawal of the warmth.
‘That’swhat I was asking from you,’ she added before he could say anything that would only mortify her more. ‘It’swhyI asked you that night. Because I thought I was getting married and even though it wasn’t going to be real...’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t have the chance again, not for...’
‘Because you’d be loyal even though it was going to be a paper marriage.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted softly. ‘So I wanted...’
‘Something for yourself first.’ He gazed down into her eyes. ‘Your first. Me. For one night.’
‘Right.’
Elias couldn’t breathe as the oddest sensations unfolded within him. Anger. Hunger. Protectiveness. Possessiveness. All at the same time. He was unravelling and the terrible, terrible urge to take her was taking precedence.
But he froze. Because discovering this now meant that this marriage—this supposed elegant solution to her problem—was suddenly a whole problem within itself. He’d thought they’d overcome their former status as employer and employee. He’d thought she was now hisequal. But she wasn’t. She was inexperienced not just with men, but in other relationships. too. She hadn’t had a family. She’d felt so vulnerable it was her default status to try to stay beneath the radar in her suits.
And hehadto walk away. He couldn’t take the responsibility of doing this. ‘You must be tired. It’s been an intense thirty-six hours.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Tired?’
He didn’t sleep with virgins. He had flings with women as worldly as he was. Women who enjoyed the expensive restaurants to which he took them. Who enjoyed the jet and nice jewels and who didn’t expect anything much more than great food and even better sex. An evening’s pleasure was very straightforward and very finite and there was no emotional burden.
He rubbed his chest, surprised by the sudden ache there. Darcie was effectively bound to him, but she was more forbidden than ever. When he’d spent the evening—hell, many other evenings, too, if he were being honest—fantasising about taking her to bed and imagining her response. But knowing now that it would be her first time? Logically it shouldn’t matter, yet it did. He remembered her unexpected behaviour that night in Edinburgh. She’d had todrinkto gain courage to ask him something other women offered all the time with a literal bat of their eyelids.
Yeah, while Darcie was worldly and was wise in so many other ways, he also now knew she’d experienced things no one should have to endure—abandonment, isolation, fear for her security. And in this she was unbelievably inexperienced. In relationships.
And honestly, so was he. He didn’t do them. He didn’t do emotional support. He was rubbish at it. He’d inherited the lack frombothparents. He’d failed his mother and he wasn’t letting anyone else down ever. So he couldn’t take her on in this. Because she’d need more than justsex, wouldn’t she? And she should have it. She should have much more than the little he could ever offer.