forward, then stiffened. She exhaled, pulling back her hand.
“What’s wrong now?”
“I can’t take it,” she said. “Not like this.”
He slowly walked around the bed toward her. “It’s yours. You earned it.”
“Earned it how?” she whispered.
“For God’s sake, Emma!”
She whirled back to him. “I can’t take it off the bed. As if I were your...”
She couldn’t say the word, but he did.
“My whore?” Cesare came toward her, his dark eyes like fire. “You are driving me insane,” he ground out. “If you do not want the money, then leave it. If you are so determined to go, then go. I don’t give a damn what you do.”
“You’ve made that painfully clear,” she said hoarsely.
“And you,” he snarled, “have made it clear that there is no way I can win. You think I’m a selfish bastard, you hate me, you hate yourself for your so-called love for me. You’re sick of the sight of me and you’re using our night together as an excuse to quit.”
She sucked in her breath.
“An excuse?” It was humiliating how her voice squeaked on the word.
“Yes.” Cesare was close to her now, very close. She was suddenly very aware that she was wearing almost nothing and they were alone in her dark bedroom. Her nipples were hard beneath her white lace bra. Her own breathing seemed loud in her ears. His powerful body towered over hers, and she could feel the warmth emanating off his skin. The heat in his gaze scared her—almost as much as the answering heat in her own body. He said in a low voice, “You’re running away from me like a coward.”
She gasped, “Are you kidding? I’m running like a coward?”
Cesare’s hand reached out to touch her cheek, and as she felt his fingertips against her skin, it was all she could do not to turn her face into the warmth of his caress, even now. “You mean nothing to me, Emma,” he growled. His dark eyes burned through her. “You never have. You never will.”
“Good,” she choked out. “Because I can hardly wait to leave you. I’m so happy that after tonight I’ll never see you again....”
His hand trailed down her cheek, to her neck, to her bare shoulder. She barely heard his harsh intake of breath over the pounding of her own heart. She trembled, knowing she was on the knife’s edge.
Cesare roughly seized her in his arms, and crushed her lips with his own.
CESARE’S KISS WAS angry and searing. His lips plundered hers, and all her anger and grief and pain seemed to explode beneath the fire of his touch, into an inferno.
He wrapped a strong arm around her waist, holding her tight against him, and his other hand ran along her bare arm, up her shoulder, down her naked back. She felt his body, hard against hers, and against her will a soft moan came from the back of her throat. Her skin felt scorched everywhere he touched. She was desperate to have him closer.
Now.
Her hand cupped the rough edge of his jawline, then moved back to tangle in his dark hair, pulling his mouth harder and deeper into hers.
She heard his hoarse intake of breath as he cupped her full, aching breasts over the lace of her bra. She was overflowing the cups now, and her belly was starting to get fuller as well. Would he notice? Would he guess? Would Cesare be able to see how he’d permanently branded her body as his, always and forever, without her saying a single word?
“All this time, I’ve been hating myself for a lack of self-control,” he said in a low voice. “Now I can hardly believe I had such restraint.” He lifted his gaze to hers, even as one of his hands slowly stroked her nearly naked body, over her white lace, causing her to tremble with need. “I can’t believe I waited so long.” His sensual lips curved as he cupped her face, tilting back her head. “No other woman has even interested me since that night....”
Her lips parted. No. Surely he couldn’t mean what she thought he meant....
With their bodies so close, standing together beside her bed, she felt his warmth and strength. She breathed in the bare hint of masculine cologne. She felt the electricity of his words, of his touch—the overwhelming sensual force of his complete attention. And Emma’s only defense, anger, crumbled.
He kissed her softly, briefly, butterfly kisses to each of her cheeks, tantalizingly close to the corners of her mouth. But hope, like a fragile spring bud unfolding in the snow, began to build inside her. She could hardly believe his shocking confession.
He’d been faithful....
“There’s really been no other woman for you since our night?” she breathed.
He shook his head, his eyes dark. “Has there been someone for you?”
The question made her choke out a laugh. “How could there be?”
“Does that mean no?”
“Of course not!”
“Good.”
His sudden masculine smugness irritated her. “You admit something, too,” she said sharply.
“What?”
“You didn’t seduce me three months ago just because I was crying. You weren’t just trying to comfort me.”
He stared at her, then said quietly, “No.”
Her soul thrilled at the concession. She gloried in it. “You wanted me, too.”
He spoke a single grudging word, as if it were pulled from deep inside him. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Years,” he bit out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
“I was afraid you’d do exactly what you did today.” His hands undid the plaits of her braids, causing her long dark hair to fall down her back. She trembled as his hands stroked her long, tumbling waves of hair. “You’d get some crazy delusion of loving me, and then I’d have to fire you.”
“I am in love with you.”
He snorted. “If you really loved me, wouldn’t you be begging me to stay?”
“Because begging works so well with you.”
Slowly he lowered his head until his mouth was inches from hers.
“It’s just lust, cara,” he whispered, his lips almost brushing hers. “Not love....”
And holding her
