“I mean, Sutton, um…” He pauses, and I close my eyes as a fresh wave of tears cascade down my cheeks.My god, I was starting to fall for this man.
“I’m gonna go. I don’t… I don’t know what else to do.”
My lip curls into a snarl and I fly off the toilet, reaching the door in three angry strides. I unlock it quickly and yank it open.
The sight of him knocks the wind from my lungs.
His eyes are red, cheeks wet.
Butno. He doesn’t get to besad! I didn’t do this tohim.
“You don’t get to leave.”
He lifts his head, daring to meet my angry gaze, then flinches. “I don’t want to make things worse—”
“Worse?” I bark. “Worse?” Scoffing, I cross my arms over my chest. Thankfully, there was a complimentary robe hanging in the bathroom closet, otherwise, I’d be naked for this horrific conversation. “I don’t see how you could possibly make this any worse, Max.”
He searches my gaze, and I fight to ignore the way my heart breaks at the pain in his eyes.
He doesn’t get to make me feel sorry for him.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I snap, then stride past him. “Did you know I was going to be there that night? At that house party?”
I pace the living room of the suite, unable to return to the bedroom where this man spent the last fifteen hours making love to me like it wasn’t completely evil to do so.
“No, Sutton, I didn’t know.”
I pause, thinking back to that night. The time we spent in that bathroom.
I spin to face him. “That’s why you kept asking me why I was there.”
He takes a deep breath, then nods and tucks his hands into his slacks. He put on a snug long-sleeved henley while I hid in the bathroom, dragged his hands though his hair so it’s perfectly tousled like always. It’s not fair that he should look so good while I stand here in a borrowed bathrobe, tears streaming down my face and the ache between my thighs that he put there.
I close my eyes, releasing another rush of tears.
“I thought you were there to sabotage me,” he says, and my eyes fly open.
“What?”
Max starts to move toward me, but I jerk my head and he freezes. “I was convinced that you were there to leverage this secret against me. For the kid.”
“What?” I shake my head. “What kid?”
“Bratt.”
For a split second, a tiny,minusculefraction of a second, I think he’s calling me a brat. And my footing feels off. He’s Dominus in that instant, and my heart doesn’t know what to do with that information.
But then I realize he means Emerson.
I scoff. “You thought that I’d use this information about you…” I huff out a bitter laugh. “That’s what you think about me?” My voice cracks on the words. “That I’d ruin your life over a contract?” My heart breaks into smaller fragments and a sob slips past my lips.
This might hurt even more than the betrayal.
“No, Sutton,no.” He raises his hands in surrender. “I know you wouldn’t do that, to me or anyone else. But seeing you there, in my home—”
He stops speaking and my eyes widen.
“Holy shit.” That was hishome?
