sight of her in the doorway, he stopped short in surprise. “What do you want?” Because if he thought he was getting sex, he was sadly mistaken. No matter that her body clamored at the sight of him. The latent desire added another layer of dirt to her already soiled soul.
“Can I come in?”
Those commonplace, even words destroyed the last of her manners. Turning away, she left the door open for him to enter if he wanted to—she had no doubt that he would, even though she made it clear he wasn’t welcome.
She stopped moving in the middle of the living room. Turning to face him, her arms instinctively crossed over her stomach to protect herself from any ugliness to come. She thought she’d escaped all the drama when she’d finally moved from her mother’s house. But like her shadow, it had a way of catching up with her.
Sloan carefully—too carefully—closed the door, then approached her with cautious steps.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” He paused, and when she didn’t answer, he continued. “Or am I going to have to drag it out of you?”
The anger that crept through her like lava spurred her to speak. It strengthened her backbone and lifted her chin. “I thought I made myself clear at the office.”
“You think I’m paying you for sex?” His incredulous tone jarred her.
“I’m your employee. We...slept together. Then you gave me expensive jewelry. What am I supposed to think?”
That full mouth twisted. “Oh, maybe that it’s a gift?”
“Vivian certainly didn’t think that.”
His eyes widened when he heard his stepmother’s name. Ziara squeezed her arms tighter, hoping to hold in the tide of hurt and anger. She should have known going for a guy outside the safe zone would leave her feeling like a slut. So her self-image was a little skewed—years of bullying at home and school would do that. But Vivian’s words had convinced her that she was repeating history.
Everything she’d felt for Sloan up until now—the dizzying rush of desire, need and freedom—wasn’t pure at all. Just shameful. No one really needed another person that strongly. It had to be a mirage, a fantasy.
“What does Vivian have to do with this?” He stepped closer, one measured movement at a time. Ziara retreated until the back of her knees hit the side of the chaise.
“She came in while I was opening the box.”
“Convenient, seeing as how she rarely comes to my office.”
She glanced away. The logistics didn’t matter now. Just the broken pieces left behind.
He reached out to tilt her face up, giving her no choice but to look at him. “She accused you of sleeping with me.” His mouth tightened, compressing his lips and whitening the edges. “I don’t care what Vivian said. She has no proof,” he continued when she neither confirmed nor denied it. “Her view is a little skewed, black-and-white in a world of gray. She sees me as some kind of playboy, when the opposite is actually true.”
Ziara couldn’t stop her eyebrows from lifting.
Sloan chuckled. “Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve actually had to let three assistants go because they pursued me, not the other way around. This—” he gestured between the two of them “—is new to me, believe it or not.”
He slid onto the chaise, pulling her back until her shoulders met his solid chest. “This isn’t about me taking advantage of you because you are an employee, you’re convenient or even because you’re so damn hot. I thought...”
She leaned into his warmth, her spine too weak to keep her upright. Even though she knew it was wrong, her chest ached with her need to believe him. “So what is it about?”
“I don’t know,” he said, reaching around to cup her cheek in the warmth of his hand. “But I sure want to find out.”
His kiss was gentle with a touch of erotic edge. She melted into him, afraid to believe, yet afraid not to. Old fears were hard to kill off. Like horror movie villains, they seemed to rise constantly from the dead.
Finally he pulled back. Standing, he picked her up, then resettled them both onto the chaise with her firmly planted on his lap. “I saw the necklace in Las Vegas,” he said, his hands already burrowing into her hair to excavate the pins confining it. “I don’t know why I bought it. I just knew it would look stunning nestled right here.” He brushed his knuckle across the hollow at the base of her throat. “Bright against your skin.”
She shifted, swallowing hard. “Then why give it to me today? We agreed to keep this out of the office.”
He laughed softly, a kind of exasperated sound that rumbled against her chest. “I honestly didn’t think about it. I thought it might be a nice gesture after all the hard work you’ve done, and, well, Vivian hasn’t been easy on you. I wanted to do something nice for you.”
He felt so good, so solid beneath her hands. Looking up, she let her eyes meet his, the bright blue mesmerizing in the near darkness. Would it hurt anyone but her if she believed him, just for a little while? She’d lost everything else during this debacle. Why should she have to give him up this soon? Surrendering with a sigh, she melted into the crook of his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “What made you think I intended it as a payoff?”
She knew she shouldn’t say it. But the words snuck out of their own volition—without her consent.
“There was an...incident when I was younger.”
“What happened?”
She shouldn’t tell, she couldn’t. No one in the intervening ten years had ever known.
As if he were listening to her thoughts, he pressed a soft kiss to her temple and murmured, “I’ll trade you. Tell me something about you, and I’ll swap it for something about me.”
The temptation, coupled with the darkening shadows in the room, coaxed the rest of the story from her.
“When I was a teenager, one of my mother’s many...boyfriends...showed up at the house one day while she wasn’t home. He said he was there to see me, to give me a present.”
She snuggled closer, seeking Sloan’s protection. “He gave me a beautiful ruby necklace. It was gorgeous, but even at that age I knew something wasn’t right about him giving it to me.” Her stomach clenched in remembered dread.
“Just then my mother came home. When she saw the necklace in my hand, she had a fit.”
The accusations had been the worst—much worse than getting slapped and having the “gift” snatched from her hand. Her mother had accused her of trying to steal her client, not listening to a word Ziara said in her own defense. “Finally, he convinced her it didn’t mean anything, but I stayed out of his way from then on. The way he watched me...”
Sloan’s body absorbed her shudder. It felt so good not to be by herself anymore. She’d been alone, entirely alone, since that day so long ago.
Despite his promises to
