even being sweaty, he muddled her senses and filled her with an unbearable longing. Or that he kissed as if he could never stop. Or that he liked having utter control even as he shredded hers.
Or that she had liked it—the way he couldn’t stop, the way he took control, the way he just made it hard for her to think, the way he knew exactly what would drive her wild with longing. That she had liked how good it felt to give herself over to him, body and mind, that she trusted him as she had never trusted anyone.
All of them were things she shouldn’t know about him. A bunch of things she didn’t want to know about herself.
She felt raw, exposed. All she wanted was to run. Far from him, far from herself.
Handing her a chilled bottle of water, he dropped to the couch, and Riya shot up from the couch. He tugged her down. Riya slinked to the edge, her breath coming in choppy bursts. Panic weaved through her.
“You and me, this can’t happen, Nathan.”
“You can’t control everything in life, Riya. I don’t want this to happen either, but I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t have everything the way you want it.”
She turned to him, desperation raising her tone. “Don’t say that, don’t just...accept this.”
His mouth took on a rueful twist. “What do you want me to do? Wave a wand that’ll make it go away? The only solution I can think of is dragging you inside and giving us both what we so desperately want. Maybe we should get it out of the way, and things will be much clearer then.”
“This is probably your MO. Seduce a woman, say goodbye and walk away. And cut her out if she doesn’t accept your decision. Like you did with Sonia. But I won’t fall for you. You have no heart. You’re the last kind of man that I should kiss, or want, or...”
Fury dawned in his eyes, turning them into blue fire. “Is it helping, then? If my being here is turning you inside out, how about you give me the blasted estate? I’ll leave tonight.”
“No. I can’t.”
“Damn it, Riya. You’re not responsible for Jackie or Robert or anyone else. You were what? Twelve? Thirteen, when my mother died?”
“Robert regrets his mistakes. I know he does. He gave Jackie and me a home when we’d have been on the streets. He always had a kind word for me. He gave me shelter, security, food. He treated me like a daughter when my own father didn’t bother to even ask after me in a decade.”
“Where is your father?”
“How the hell should I know? He never asked about me, never checked how Jackie has been all these years. And this is after he divorced her because she was emotionally volatile. And he let her take me. He let his volatile wife have charge of his eight-year-old daughter.
“For all her weak nature, Jackie at least looked after me in her own way. That’s more than I can say for—”
“She didn’t do you a favor by doing that, Riya. It was her minimum responsibility. And she failed you in that. She exposed you to her fears, to the staff’s hatred at the estate. Don’t you see the effects of that in yourself?”
“My life is perfectly fine, thank you. And my professional one even better, thanks to you. The last few days, working with you, have been amazing. I love your energy, I love the way you do things, Nathan. And if Travelogue can—”
“As of this morning, Travelogue has an investment of ten million dollars from RunAway International. I have ordered my lawyers to put the papers together.”
RunAway International Group. The brilliant boutique of his companies offering flights, vacations, adventure trips through faraway lands... And now Travelogue was a part of that prestigious group.
Her small company...it was at once the most exciting and breathtaking prospect. She had no words left.
“I’ll double the figure you make now and you’ll have stock options in RunAway too. I’ve started the headhunt for a new CEO, and we’ll find one by the time I leave.”
He was going to leave. That was what she had wanted; that was what she needed. That was their deal.
Then why did the prospect sit like a boulder on her chest? What had changed in a mere three weeks?
Concealing her confusion, Riya forced a smile and thanked him just as the physician knocked on the door.
All the way through him checking on her and the limo ride back to the estate, she couldn’t figure out why reaching the goal she had set for herself, why impressing someone of Nathan’s vision, why achieving the financial freedom she had always craved was suddenly not enough.
Whatever his behavior toward Robert, Nathan was unlike any other man she had ever met. All her rules, all her fears and insecurities, nothing stayed up when she was around him. He made her want to know him on a visceral level, made her want to abandon her own rules, made her yearn for a connection that she had denied herself for so long.
Nothing mattered with him. Not the pain of the past, not the fear for her future, only the present. And she couldn’t let this continue. Already she was in too deep, lost at the thought of him leaving.
* * *
Nathan had no idea how long he stood staring at the closed door after Riya left, the silence of his suite pinging on his nerves. Everywhere he looked, he saw her now.
Laughing, smiling, arguing, kissing, moaning, gasping, glaring...even as she denied her nature, there was such an innocence and intensity to the emotions that played on her face.
He wanted her with a sharp, out-of-control need that crossed all lines. Now that he knew how she felt underneath him...
Everything inside him wanted to make her his. Ached to own her, possess her, show her how wild and good it could be between them, longed to make her admit that she felt something for him.
Why not? a voice inside taunted him.
They were both free agents. They were both adults. And she wanted him. There was no doubt about that.
No.
How could he tangle with her knowing what she wanted in life? Even if she was determined to hide from it. How could he touch her knowing that when it was time to leave, she wouldn’t be able to handle it?
She hadn’t recovered even now from her father’s abandonment, from her mother’s negligence. Even his father’s acceptance and caring of her hadn’t been enough to erase that ache from her eyes.
It was in the way she was hiding from life, had slaved herself over her company and the estate, the way she took responsibility for the adults who should have looked after her.
In the way she had risked his wrath and her ruin just to make Robert smile. In the way all the light had gone out of her eyes when she mentioned her father.
And yet she was loyal, she was caring and she was strong. Exactly the kind of woman who could plunge him into his darkest fear if he let her. But by the same token, how was he supposed to walk away without stealing a part of her for himself?
