were playing across the wide ceiling.
He stood but kept the distance between them. When she spoke it was almost too soft for him to hear, but he could make out the words.
“I needed security.”
“That’s it?” he asked, sensing she was hiding something. He knew then that subterfuge was a big part of what was going on here and it had little to do with sex. It was all about who they both were and who they didn’t want the other to see. “Lay it out for me, babe. Because that just sounds like a line.”
“I left because I knew that you were twenty-four-carat solid gold and I was that spray-on stuff they use at fairs that wears off after a few days and leaves a green mark.”
She turned her head away from him. “I wanted to leave before I left a mark on you that you’d have a hard time getting rid of.”
Hayden led Shelby out of the planetarium to a very exclusive restaurant on the fifty-fifth floor of the Chimera. They were led to a private booth that faced the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows overlooking Las Vegas. The view was breathtaking. She slid onto the bench and straightened her skirt, looking casual and at ease.
But Hayden wasn’t. Tension rode him like a gambler trying to find a winning streak.
Knowing it tightened the knot in his gut. Why did this woman still have a hold on him? And would revenge be enough to loosen her hold?
His mind warned that logic didn’t play a part in his actions here and now, but he wasn’t really listening with his mind.
The curve of her neck was looking fragile and vulnerable, and he realized that talking about her past was one of her weak points. They’d never really talked about where she’d come from. Perhaps he’d been too shallow to care or too arrogant to think any of that mattered. But now, with the years between them, he realized that her past very much shaped the kind of relationship they’d had.
“Thanks for showing me the stars tonight,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Would you like some more wine?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Let’s get down to business. I believe you said you want to get what you paid for, right?”
When she said it like that he sounded like a bastard. It didn’t matter that they both had been acting true to form in those days. He had been a spoiled young man who’d picked a pretty, shy girl who needed him. He’d liked the way she’d clung to his arm, let him pay for everything and make all the decisions. That wasn’t politically correct but he wasn’t really a PC kind of guy. Despite the money he’d always had, sophistication had always eluded him.
“Yes. That’s what I want.”
He saw in her eyes that she knew it as well. Knew that she was sitting across from a man who wasn’t quite the gentleman he pretended to be.
“You make me feel very feminine when you look at me that way. And I’m not at all used to it. Most men I date are intimidated by me.”
“Why?”
“Who knows,” she said, but bit her bottom lip.
She knew. Shelby always knew why people acted the way they did. She made it her business to pay attention to those details. “Just guess.”
“Because I’m driven to make my company a success. I made too many mistakes when I was young.”
“Like you’re old now?” he asked.
“You know what I mean. Sometimes I’m amazed at how immature I was when we were together.”
He leaned back, resting his arm on the seat behind her. He wanted to pull her closer to him, to cradle her against his body and protect her. But Shelby didn’t need him to do that. He imagined that was what she’d been talking about. That men realized that Shelby was an independent woman who made her own way. It was a bit intimidating.
“You’ve done really well. I read an article about your company in Entrepreneur. The reporter said you were one of the savviest business minds he’d ever encountered.”
She shrugged the comment aside. “I think he was just being nice.”
“Reporters are never nice. He respected what you’d done.” Hayden realized he did, too. She’d taken the hand that life had dealt her and rolled with it.
“Well…” She shrugged. It was clear to him that Shelby wasn’t there yet. She didn’t really respect herself. Had he played any part in that?
“Let’s get back to us. I think your dad paid me off so—”
“No, Shelby. I paid that money to you.” He hadn’t meant to say it but it was best she knew the facts. He wasn’t playing around this game—the stakes were high and he wanted to be damn sure Shelby realized it.
“What?”
“Old Alan wanted to make sure I never forgot the lesson he was teaching. He gave you the money, then made me pay him back every cent.” His father had always been real fond of that kind of demonstration—one where the lesson was reinforced by humiliation. It didn’t help that Hayden had played on his father’s biggest weakness: a woman with big soul-filled eyes and an empty bank account.
“Hayden…I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I took the money…well, I didn’t mind taking it from your dad because I knew it was how he kept score.”
He said nothing. She’d pegged his father easily. It was how Alan kept score and he’d paid off three wives of his own, so Shelby knew that it didn’t bother him. Hayden didn’t say anything else but he knew that he’d paid for Shelby with more than just money. He’d paid for her with his soul and now he wanted hers.
Shelby couldn’t have been more shocked. She’d never imagined that Hayden had ultimately paid for her giving up their relationship. But then she’d allowed Alan to push a wedge between them. Let him threaten her with revealing the secret she’d kept from Hayden. The one she still didn’t really want him to know. She wished there were some way to escape the intimacy that he’d created around them. She didn’t want to be sitting so close to him while hashing out the past.
In her mind it was easy to pretend that she was noble and wanted to pay him back—whatever the cost—so that he could find some peace from the past. But the reality was, it hurt. She didn’t want to flirt with the only man with whom she’d ever really been honest emotionally.
She didn’t want to open up herself and him to the kind of hurt that would undoubtedly come. Because she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to just give him a week of sex and then watch him walk away.
Hayden put his arm around her and pulled her against his side. She closed her eyes and pretended that this was something else. Something that she’d done without for a long time. Comfort was easy to take from Hayden. He had big shoulders and a solid chest, and he was more than capable of carrying any burdens.
But that didn’t mean that eventually the burdens wouldn’t be too heavy for him. She turned in his embrace, put her arms around his waist and rested her head over his heart. His hands moved up and down her back, before settling on her hips, holding her close.
His
