“I asked what you were doing.”
“You didn’t have any food. I went ahead and took care of that for you.” Drops of sweat scattered from his hair as he shook his head. Wet, the dark strands had a slight curl to them. “What have you been eating? Your fridge was empty.”
“I’ve been getting takeout,” she said defensively.
He raised one eyebrow. “Just takeout?”
“Not that I need to justify my purchases to a literal billionaire but I didn’t see the point in buying groceries when I was just going to be leaving again.”
She saw his eyes flick to the trashcan and wondered, with a flash of anger, if he’dgonethrough it. If he had noticed the empty bottle of wine and the very discernible lack of takeout cartons.
“You should have woken me. This isn’t the best area and your watch is expensive. People prey on rich boys like you.”
His face, which had started out stern, relaxed into something approximating amusement as he closed the door with a decisive click and sidled closer, propping his fist against the wall over her head. Her eyes went to his arm, which wasn’t quite barring her escape, and then to his face. A lock of hair had fallen into his eyes and shifted distractingly every time he blinked.
“Are you worried about me, blue jay? That’s so sweet.”
Jay hiked her chin up. “You could have gotten mugged.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“I was mugged. The day you barged into my office, someone snatched my purse. And then you came in and I—” Jay broke off, not finishing. But she thought,You brought it all back.
All traces of humor vanished instantly from his face. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Why would I?”
There was a leaden pause as he took that in. Then he made a bitter sound. “I see.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Although she had, a tiny bit. When he had first brought her to his home, she had been determined to give him as little of herself as possible.
He already fucked her like he owned her; she didn’t want him to walk away thinking that he actually did. Not when he held so much else over her head.
From a very young age, this man had been raised to be a wolf in a room of sheep. Everything about him spoke of power, whether he was in the boardroom or the bedroom. Part of that was in the way he carried himself, but most of it was thinking that the world was his to own if he could open his jaws wide enough to devour it.
A sulky expression was stealing over his face. It made him look less like an entitled billionaire and more like a pissed off teenager, and she found herself softening in spite of herself.
Oh, Nick.
She reached up and smoothed the lock of hair that was bothering her out of his eyes, and he stared at her in a way that would have made her laugh if she didn’t already want to cry.
“Thanks for doing the shopping, you idiot.”
“I said I’d take care of you.” His eyelids shuttered as she trailed her fingers down his unshaven jaw and she felt him lean into her touch. When he looked at her like that, with those downcast eyes, she felt hunted. “I meant it.”
She flinched a little. “I can’t afford to depend on people.”
“Normal people do, blue jay.” His strong fingers stroked over her knuckles, coaxing them flat as he brought her hand to the broad plane of his chest. “It’s like a leap of faith.”
She watched him carefully. “You know, we’ve never really talked about finances, religion, family. That’s something people usually discuss before they get married.”
“So?”
“So, don’t you want a family? Your values were always moretraditional than mine and I don’t want kids.”
“I know. That doesn’t matter to me.”
“How would you know that?” Jay demanded. “I know I never told you.”
