It’s not enough.
It’s nowhere near enough.
"You're sorry you got caught," I say, my voice hoarse.
"No, I'm sorry last night didn't mean the same thing to you that it meant to me," he says, and the words, the sincerity of them, make my throat ache.
Don't you dare, I think. Don't you dare try to take this from me. Don't you dare try to make me the villain.
Slowly, I turn my head, just enough to see him out of the corner of my eye. He looks… shattered. The polished, predatory armor is gone, and underneath, he looks lost.
"You really expect me to believe it was coincidence?" I ask quietly. "That you, the man pursuing my company, just happened to pick me out of a crowd? Kept pursuing me even when I made it clear I wasn't interested? Seduced me? And what? Just happened to have a hotel room at the ready? You must think I'm an idiot."
"I was getting ready in the room before I went to the gala," he says, his voice low. "I was in the suite because I was already there. Not because I was hunting you."
"Hunting me," I repeat, a bitter laugh escaping me. "That's one word for it."
"I picked you because when you walked in, you looked like you hated being there as much as I did," he says. "Because even in that dress you tried to hide in, you were the most stunning woman in the room, and you had no idea. Or maybe you did, and you were trying to pretend otherwise. I picked you because you looked at me like you weren't impressed, and that was a challenge. Because you were smart, and sharp, and you held your own."
The words hang in the air between us, a desperate, earnest plea. A part of me wants to believe him. A part of me wants to erase the last hour, the last day, and go back to the feeling of his hands on my skin, the sound of his voice in my ear, the way he made me feel like I was the only person in the world.
But I can't.
Because I don't know what to believe.
I can still feel the heat of his body pressing against my back. It's like a physical touch, even when he isn't touching me. I can still hear the low, rough timbre of his voice in my ear, telling me how beautiful I was, how much he wanted me.
I can still feel the way my body responded, a willing, eager participant in my own deception.
And worse, somehow, worse is the way he made me laugh.
I hate him.
And I miss him.
And I hate myself for missing him.
The feelings swirl inside me, a chaotic, confusing mess of rage and longing, betrayal and a desperate, foolish desire to believe him.
I need to get out of here before I do something crazy. Like believe him.
I lift my chin and push my shoulders back. "It's a good story, Antonio. It really is. Very compelling. Almost as compelling as the one where you fucked me for a deal."
A harsh breath escapes him, the sound of a man losing patience. "Listen to me."
"No, you listen to me. This is over. This conversation, this… whatever the hell this was supposed to be. It's done."
He doesn't move. He just stands there, looking at me, and I see something in his eyes I don't expect.
It's not anger.
It's not triumph.
It's something raw and shattered and, impossibly, it looks like regret.
"Elsa," he says, and his voice is quiet now, stripped of all the anger, all the heat. "I'm not going to hurt you."
I let out a short, harsh laugh. "You already have."
