“Yes,” he says, “and as you remember, or maybewon’tremember, you were somewhat indisposed. I wasn’t about to foist a conversation on you about things that could wait.”
“My company can’t wait.”
“You’re impossible. Do you know that?Impossible.”
“And you’re the one who showed me the Artemis factory and told me… told me… that you are a steward of companies. Not a destroyer, not a conqueror.” I shake my head again. He held me while I was feverish and knew about this.
“You should have told me. How could you not have told me?” I push against his chest again. It’s frustratingly solid and firm. He finds my wrists, his long fingers encircling them.
“You would have thrown a fit.” He leans down, his breath ghosting across my lips. “You’re very good at it, and it wasnotthe time. You were sick.”
“Liar. You were scared to tell me.” I break my hands loose from his grip.
He lets go, but his hands find my hips instead, like he wants to keep me in place.
“I did itforyou. Don’t you realize that? I’m doing so much more than I usually would for any struggling company I take over, and I’m doing it?—”
“For your own bank balance,” I spit back. It’s not fair. None of it. That he makes me feel like this, and that Istillwant him. “It’s all profits.”
“My bank balance doesn’tneedMather & Wilde. Do you want to see it? Is that it? I don’t need your company. I don’t even need it to do well.” His teeth grit together in an audible snick.
“You’re such an asshole,” I say.
“Yes,” he says, “that’s it. Get angry at me instead of the real problem.”
“Those people are myfamily,” I say. “And I promised them… I did all of this… to make sure they would have jobs. That the company survives.”
“And it will. You’re making sure that it will. You’re damn good at your job, you know.” Rafe sounds almost furious about that, his voice low. His hands dig into my waist. “Ben wasted you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me yourself?” I ask him. My hand slides into his hair and grips tightly. I’m still feeling too much, but the touch is an anchor. Something to hold on to.
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t flinch at my tight grip. “Because you would react like you’re reacting right now.”
No, I think.
He’s wrong.
Hearing it from him would have softened the blow. Instead he’d done this behind my back. His hair is silky-rough against my fingers and I think of his mouth against mine.
“I can’tbelieveI let you touch me like that, in the changing room,” I tell him. Not when he was gearing up to do this.
Another muscle tenses in his jaw. “I can. Because you enjoyed it. Just like you enjoy my kisses, and my touch, and it doesn’t matter if you hate me sometimes, too.”
I rake my hand over his scalp, and his eyes drop to my lips. The green of his gaze feels liquid. Flowing like the waves of the lake outside the tennis court. The anger has moved down, settling into a burning fire low in my stomach. I’m still furious at him and at me, and at the energy that seems to pulse between us whenever we’re close.
We keep taking two steps forward and one step back.
“Nothing to say? That’s unusual.” He leans forward, lips only an inch from me. “You frustrating, maddening woman.”
“You’re not the one to talk,” I say.
And then his lips slant over mine.
I give him a punishing kiss in return. We’re fighting for control over the kiss. It’s not perfect. There are teeth against my lower lip and then my tongue against his, both of us holding on to the other with the same force we should be using to push each other away.
There’s none of his confident seduction from the dressing room.
None of my calculated cruelty from Monte Carlo.
