no such luck with Roman. He was top of her mind every day, ambushing her with memories of kisses and caresses and wrenching pleasure.
She swallowed, not wanting the recollections to surface now.
Her blood warmed anyway. Her senses heightened, making her aware of his scent, masculine and sharp, beneath the sweet smell of rain and the comforting notes of damp wool. Clothing didn’t make a man, but everything about his appearance amplified his stark masculinity. His cheekbones were proud and chiseled, his nose a blade, his lips twitching almost into a closed-mouth kiss as he prepared to speak.
“I slept with you in spite of who you are, not because of it,” he said in a growl.
“Had a staggering crash in your standards, did you?” Insult blindsided her as she absorbed that he was saying she’d been willing and he had merely taken advantage. Any man would. “At least when I thought you seduced me for revenge, it was personal. I honestly thought I couldn’t feel worse about that day. Thanks, Roman. You’re a real guy.”
“And you’re twisting me into a far more vicious bastard than I am.”
She stared at him, astonished. “You made hatred to me.” The words swelled in her throat. She clenched her jaw, trying to hold back convulsive shivers, trying to hold on to control and not allow emotion to rise up and sting her eyes. “At least I had some respect for you that afternoon, before you started ruining my life.”
“Would you get in the damned car?”
She realized people were walking by, staring. Overhearing.
She was freezing, and warm air radiated from the interior. With a sob of annoyed misery, she threw herself into the backseat.
He followed and slammed the door, adjusting the vents so hot gushes of air poured directly onto her.
She didn’t thank him, even though her legs were stinging and her fingers were numb. She attacked the box with her name on it, spilling her mother’s necklace into her lap. Picking it up, she pressed the treasured beads to her lips.
“I only meant to do to you what they did to me, which was cut short your career and leave you with bills to pay,” Roman said.
She dropped her hands. “But you accidentally slept with me, even though you hated me,” she charged, going hot again. Bristling with temper.
“Yes,” he asserted, as if that proved some kind of point beyond the fact he was a conscienceless womanizer.
“To humiliate me,” she confirmed in a jagged voice, looking over at him in time to see guilt flash across his expression before he controlled it.
“I thought you were throwing yourself at me for their purposes. It looked as if you were trying to trick me into letting you stay in my house. I let you come on to me so I could turn you down,” he admitted.
“But you went through with it,” she said, returning to that deep sense of bitterness that had burned through her with every step of her journey back to the hotel that day, as she’d absorbed that what had looked like a white knight had actually been the same blackened soul that the men in her family possessed. “How do people like you sleep at night? That’s what I want to know.”
“Do not lump me in with them, Melodie,” he fired back, temper riled enough to darken his expression and press her into her seat. “Do you see them chasing you down the East Coast to ask about consequences? I am not just like them.” His jaw worked. “I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a good man, definitely not a great one, but I’m not as immoral as they are.”
The way she’d set him on the same reprehensible shelf as the Gautier men ate at him. She could see it. That should have been more satisfying, but it just made her feel small.
“Sleeping with you just happened,” he muttered.
“Because I threw myself at you,” she provided, feeling the sting press forward from the backs of her eyes to blur her vision. “Because you couldn’t resist me.” Spider arms. Freak.
She narrowed her eyes, turning her face away as she willed Anton’s voice to silence and willed her tears to dry before they squeezed past her lashes and fell.
“Yes.”
She hated Roman in that moment. Really hated him. Because he sounded so begrudging as he said it. Not smooth and charming and manipulative. Resentful. He sounded as confounded by his reaction as she was by hers. That made him sound truthful even though she was convinced he had to be lying.
“I know I’m not beautiful. At best, I’m striking,” she said, straining to keep emotion from her voice. “I’m certainly not the type who inspires lust, so give it a rest. You wanted to hurt me. Which you did.”
“I’m not here to hurt you again,” he ground out, flinching as though she’d slapped him. “I can’t take back what I did. If I could...” he began tightly, emotions so compressed she couldn’t read anything in his tone but intensity.
He would take it back? Her heart clenched in a surprisingly strong contraction of agony.
Of course she would take it back, too, she assured herself, even as their heights of pleasure danced through her consciousness, reminded her how rare and singular the experience had been. He’d ruined her for accepting anything less, if he wanted the truth, which left her feeling bleak and hopeless.
“You told me that day that you were attracted to me,” he said.
“Don’t throw that in my face,” she cried, recoiling from being mocked.
“I was attracted, too. More than I knew how to handle. That’s why I slept with you. Not out of revenge. Not to humiliate you.”
She swallowed, wavering toward believing him, but it strained credulity. “It wasn’t love at first sight, Roman. I saw the way you looked at me the day I arrived. You weren’t interested.”
“I didn’t let my interest show. There’s a difference.”
She had to turn her nose to the window then, hope rising too quickly. Did she have no sense of self-preservation? Believing in him had only gotten her a giant helping of heartache the last time.
But he was very contained, not giving away much, very good at keeping his thoughts and feelings well hidden. Maybe he had been attracted.
Even if he had been, so what?
With a troubled sigh, she realized she was crushing the pearls in her clenched hands. Her fingers were warm enough to work now. She reached to close the strand around her throat.
Wool slid against leather and Roman was in her space, fingers brushing hers.
With an alarm that came more from a jolt of excitement than fear, she released the pearls and let him take over, angling herself so he could finish quickly. Her skin tightened all over her body as his knuckles brushed the tiny, upswept hairs at the back of her head. Beneath her layers of clothing her nipples tightened into sharp peaks and her blood grew hot, radiating heat outward to dispel any lingering chill for the rest of time.
The moment he was done she shifted away from his disturbing touch, adjusting the weight
