memory made him writhe with shame.
How far she’d fallen. Today, she’d sent him a message—her first direct communication with him since she’d dumped him so coldly ten years before—offering him her body. For money.
All afternoon, Darius had tried to ignore her message, to laugh it off. He’d gotten over Letty years ago. He wasn’t interested in paying a hundred thousand dollars to have her in his bed tonight. He didn’t pay for sex. Women fought for his attention now. Supermodels fell into his bed for the price of a phone call.
But the part of him that still couldn’t completely forget the past relished the idea of seeing her one last time.
Only this time, she’d be the one begging. He’d be the one to reject her.
As he’d signed the contracts that afternoon to formally sell his company, built on a mobile messaging app with five hundred million users worldwide, to a massive tech conglomerate for the price of twenty billion dollars, he’d barely listened to his lawyers droning on. Holding 90 percent of equity in the company made him the beneficiary of an eighteen-billion-dollar fortune, minus taxes.
But instead of rejoicing in the triumphant payoff of ten years of relentless work, he’d been picturing Letitia, the woman who’d once betrayed him. Imagining her trying to seduce him with an exotic dance of the seven veils. Picturing her wearing nothing but a black negligee. Begging him to take her to bed, so she could perform Olympic-level sexual feats for his pleasure.
After the papers were signed, he practically ran out of the office, away from all the congratulations and celebrations. All he could think about was Letty and her offer.
He’d spent hours trying to talk himself out of it. Then, gritting his teeth, he’d driven to the Brooklyn diner when the message said she’d be getting off work.
He didn’t intend to actually sleep with her, he told himself. He’d only wanted to make her feel as small and ashamed as he’d once felt. To see her humiliated. To see her beg to give him pleasure.
Then he’d planned to tell her he no longer found her attractive, and toss the money in her face. He’d watch her take it and slink away in shame. And for the rest of his life he’d know that he’d won.
What did he care about a hundred thousand dollars? It was nothing. It would be worth it to see her abject humiliation. After her savagely calculated betrayal, he craved vengeance far more than sex.
Or so he’d thought.
But so far nothing had gone according to plan. Seeing her outside the diner, he’d been shocked at her appearance. She didn’t look like a gold digger. She looked as if she were trying to be invisible, with no makeup, wearing that ridiculous white diner uniform.
But even then, he’d been drawn to her. She managed to be so damn sexy, so sweetly feminine and warm, that any man would want to help her, to take care of her. To possess her.
Bringing her back to the penthouse to enjoy his vengeance, Darius had allowed himself a single kiss.
Big mistake.
As he’d felt the soft curves of her body press against his, all his plans for vengeance were forgotten against the ruthless clamor of his body. For ten years, he’d desired this woman; and now she was half-naked in his arms, willing to surrender everything.
Suddenly, it all came down to two simple facts.
She’d sold herself.
He’d bought her.
So why not take her? Why not enjoy her sensual body as a way to finally excise her memory, once and for all?
She’d lied her way through the evening, pretending it was a romantic date, instead of a commercial transaction. He’d almost been surprised.
Until now.
Naked beneath him, Letty looked up, her eyes luminous in that lovely face he’d never been able to forget.
“Say something,” she said anxiously.
Darius set his jaw. After her heartless betrayal, followed by ten years of silence, she’d just told him out of the blue she loved him. What could he say in response? Go to hell?
Letitia Spencer. So beautiful. So treacherous. So poisonous.
But now, at last, he understood her goal. She wasn’t just playing for a hundred thousand dollars tonight. No. Tonight was just the sample that was supposed to leave him wanting more.
Because he’d seen her face as she left that diner. She was tired. Tired of working. Tired of being poor. Perhaps her father, newly free from prison, had been the one to suggest how to easily change her life—by becoming Darius’s wife.
She must have seen his company’s sale trumpeted in the newspaper today and decided it was time she made a play for his billions. He almost couldn’t blame her. She’d been holding on to her virginity all these years—why not cash in?
She loved him.
Cold, sardonic anger pulsed through him.
She thought he’d learned nothing all these years. She actually thought, if she told him she loved him, he would still swoon at her feet. That he was still the lovesick idiot of long ago.
If Darius had despised her before, it was nothing compared to how he felt about her now.
And yet, he still desired her. Holding himself motionless inside her hot, tight sheath, he was still so hard, he was close to exploding.
That fact enraged him even more.
He wanted to make her pay. Not just for this last insult, but for everything that had gone before. Suddenly, causing her one night of humiliation wasn’t nearly enough.
Darius wanted vengeance.
He wanted to raise her up, give her hope, then bring it crashing down as she’d once done. Fantastical plans coursed through his skull. He wanted to marry her, fill her with his child. He wanted to make her love him, then coldly spurn her. He wanted to take everything, and leave her penniless and alone.
That wouldn’t be revenge. It would be justice.
“Darius?” A shadow of worry had crossed her face as she looked up at him, naked on the bed.
Lowering his head, he kissed her almost tenderly. She trembled in his arms, her plump breasts crushed against his naked chest, her amazing hips spread wide for him. Seeing her stretched out on his bed, with the play of shadows and light on the sexy curves of her tantalizing breasts, stretched the limits of his self-control.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, agape mou,” he said in a low voice. Lie. His lips brushed the sensitive flesh of her cheek. As lightly as a butterfly setting down, he kissed the two tears that had overflowed her lashes. “But the pain won’t last.” Another lie. He would make sure it lasted the rest of her life. He smiled grimly. “Just wait.”
She looked up at him, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. Then sighed, relaxing in surrender.
The kiss he gave
