The warm glow that had surrounded her, drowning her in the silent exchange between them and the look of wonder in his eyes, evaporated instantly. Dread and disappointment replaced her excitement over his coming home, and she immediately tensed.
He frowned at her reaction but didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled a small box from his pocket and placed it into her hand.
“Open it,” he said.
Her fingers were trembling, something he might construe as excitement or anticipation, but it was neither. She didn’twantto open the damn box. It somehow cheapened what she considered a deep emotional bond established with the few words they’d exchanged and turned the entire evening into something else entirely.
She didn’t want to see what was inside. All she wanted washim, for him to take her to bed so she could do exactly as she’d vowed and for once take care of him after a long day of work. Was that so hard for him to understand? Had no one ever wanted him, the man, Drake Donovan? And not what he possessed and the cavalier way he tossed trinkets her way on a daily basis?
But she dutifully opened the box and discovered a necklace to match the huge earrings he’d given her already. The very thing she’d predicted, though at the time it had been a sarcastic thought. She hadn’treallythought he’d go that far. But she should have known better.
She gasped when she caught a full view of the diamond necklace. It was huge. Bigger than both earrings put together! It was a teardrop diamond pendant the size of histhumb!
Something inside her snapped and she lashed out, her disappointment too keen to hide.
“This has to stop, Drake!Enough!Every day you give me some outrageously expensive gift, and today this makes thesecond. I don’twantyour gifts. I wantyou. Can’t you understand that? Don’t you know me better than that by now?”
Tears gathered in her eyes and she was shaking with anger and disappointment.
“I don’t want them,” she raged. “I don’t even know what to do with the first couple you bought me. What on earth am I supposed to do with the rest?”
Drake’s expression turned to one of fury, but she was too angry to recognize the line she’d just crossed.
He swore violently and colorfully, turning away for a long moment, his back to her, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. Then he whirled back around, his eyes nearly black with rage.
“Why the hell do you have to make such a fucking big deal out of everything I give you?” he snapped. “It’s not just the jewelry. You looked like you were on your way to death row when I bought you clothing. You’ve objected at every turn when I buy you anything, and you damn well knew the rules going in, so you can’t plead ignorance. Do you even consider how that makesmefeel? It’s not just a rejection of a physical object. It’s a rejection ofmeand my desire to spoil and pamper you and make you feel like the very special woman you are.”
She went soft to her very soul, and she’d never felt more ashamed of herself than in this moment. Oh God, she’d never even considered that he would consider it a rejection of him when all shewantedwas him. Not diamonds, jewels, expensive clothing, credit cards and unlimited funds. She’d made a complete and utter mess of this, all because she’d let her insecurities get the better of her and couldn’t fathom why Drake had chosenher. He called her special, but she wasn’t! Except... he thought she was and she didn’t believe him. Which meant she’d shown him the utmost disrespect by not having faith in him. She was clearly telling him that she didn’t trust him, when nothing could be further from the truth.
She went to him immediately, closing the distance between them and wrapping herself around his huge body, ignoring his rigidity and the fact that he didn’t return her embrace.
“Oh, Drake, I’m so very sorry,” she said, her heart breaking into jagged, painful pieces that left her utterly bereft over hurting him. “I never meant to make you feel that way. You just don’t understand how hard it is for a girl like me...” She broke off and closed her eyes but not before Drake saw the fleeting hint of despair shining like a beacon.
Despite Drake’s anger, he cupped her chin, caressing her cheek with his thumb, because something else was going on here and he’d jumped to what appeared to be very errant conclusions.
“Angel, open your eyes and look at me,” he said in a firm voice.
When she finally complied, he saw the tears that threatened to fall from her glossy eyes.
“What the hell do you mean I don’t understand how hard it is for a girl like you? What kind of girl are you referring to?”
She flushed and would have closed her eyes again but he gave a warning tap to her cheek with his thumb, commanding her attention.
“I’ve never had anything,” she said in a low tone. “Except my parents’ love. My friends’ love. Their support. I’ve worked for everythingelseI’ve ever had, and granted it’s not much, but it’s mine. It was earned and I take a certain amount of pride in that. A girl like me has to work for what she gets because there aren’t a lot of men out there lining up for a boring, quiet, mousy girl who doesn’t need or wantthings. I just feel like you give me so much and I give younothingin return.”
She was becoming perilously close to those tears falling, and he could feel her distress radiating from her in waves.
“The gifts are beautiful. Very precious to me. I love each and every one of them. I’m scared to death to wear the jewelry because what if I lose it? But at the same time, every gift is a reminder of how much you give to me and how little I give you in return.”
Now she was openly crying, tears sliding silently down her cheeks and colliding with his thumbs.
“All I’ve ever had to sustain me before was my sense of self-worth,”she said in a choked, emotion-filled voice. “You can’t put a price tag on self-worth. And right now, I don’t feel worth much at all and I hate that feeling. It’s a helpless feeling, and God, there’s nothing worse than feeling—being—helpless. You have so much pride, Drake. Surelyyouunderstand what I’m trying to say.”
She was coming far too close to begging for his liking. The desperation in her voice seared him to the depths of his soul.
Her impassioned outburst struck a chord deep within him. He marveled at the fact that in all the relationships or rather short acquaintances he’d entertained, never once had a woman taken issue with anything he chose to give her. In fact, there were many times the woman pouted ever so prettily that the earrings were beautiful but without a necklace to complement them the look just wasn’t as breathtaking.
Never had he had a woman stand before him and speak of the one thing he was very well acquainted with. Pride. Self-worth. Of not accepting anything from anyone and earning every damn thing he possessed. And yet he’d reduced her to that by showering lavish gifts on her, as though he could buy her affection, her smile, her happiness when in fact, when he thought back on it, the brightest smiles he could remember seeing were when she saw him after a long day at work, how happy she seemed to be when he chose to stay in and allowed her to cook on the rare occasions they didn’t go out. Nothing he had bought her had come close to the kind of joy and contentment he’d seen in her eyes and on her face that simply being with him seemed to give her. Was she for real? It utterly bewildered him, and for the first time in his life, he had no idea how to handle a woman. This woman. And it made him feel helpless, like a first-class fuckup.
