Page 17 of Saved By the Billionaire

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, staring up at him.

That same muscle jerked in his jaw as he ground his teeth, his expression unfathomable. “The fact you booked a hostel bed in that part of town. What were you thinking, Kate?”

She toyed with her fingers, caught off guard by his defensiveness, and the way he was staring at her.

“It’s fine,” she brushed aside his statement. “I mean, it’s not the worst.”

“That is hardly a ringing endorsement. Do you have a death wish?”

She flinched. “I’m tougher than I look.”

He crossed his arms, staring down at her for so long her skin tingled with a need to be touched. She looked away quickly, towards the magnificent view, wondering what it was about this man that could so easily unnerve and unsettle her. “You are tough,” he conceded. “But not unbreakable, and staying somewhere like that is just begging for trouble.”

“So you’re saying this is my fault?” she asked sharply, gesturing towards her ankle, surprised by how much that stung.

“Of course not. No one has a right to touch you, to hurt you. But you have to take better care of yourself. Starting with not putting yourself in situations like that hostel, or walking alone at night, down dark alleys…”

“I got lost, I told you.”

“And not getting lost,” he added.

“I didn’t plan…”

“You didn’t plan to take good enough care of yourself.”

“Roman—you can’t—” she shook her head, words failing her. She wanted to tell him he couldn’t talk to her like this, that he had no right, but the words choked in her throat because his concern was so obvious. And she hadn’t known that in forever.

“Stay here,” he said, reaching for the remote control and placing it beside her. In doing so, he bent down, his face only inches from hers, so she could feel his warm breath. “Be safe, be sensible.” And he reached out, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, and brushed a finger over her cheek, tilting her chin so her face was angled towards his, their eyes locking in a silent battle of the wills that felt charged and important.

He stalked into his office as though a tiger were on his tail; as though the flames of hell were following after him, and sat down heavily in his chair before standing again and pacing to the window, staring down at the far away street with a racing heart and an overheated body.

He’d wanted to kiss her.

Hell, he’d wanted to do more than kiss her. He’d wanted to take her, to make her his, to make her scream; he’d wanted to own her, to possess her, to make her beg for him. He’d wanted so much more than to just keep her safe, and it made a mockery of the idea of what he was doing.

How could he want her? How could he be fantasising about touching her? Not twenty-four hours ago, he’d saved her from the depraved attacks of two mad men, and now he was keeping her prisoner in his penthouse and dreaming of making her his?

Thank God he’d had the sense to leave, he thought with a grimace, as he reached for his phone and started to make calls. Focusing on the practicalities brought him back to reality, and by the time he’d finished organising the pieces of her life, and had caught up on some work emails, he was ready to see her again, ready to be in the same room without imagining his body over hers, or the way she’d sound when she came.

“For God’s sake, you are impossible.” His voice was like a whip, startling her out of her quiet reflections. Resting in the kitchen with her body weight on one foot, waiting for the coffee machine to spit out another perfect coffee, she glanced back at Roman, who was striding swiftly towards her. “I told you to stay where you were.”

“I wanted a coffee.”

“And you didn’t call for me, because…?”

“You were busy,” she shrugged, not meeting his eyes. Her skin had felt like a rose petal when he’d touched it, soft and flawless. His fingers itched with a need to touch her anew.

“Did I say that?”

“Well, you sort of stormed out of here,” she said with a small smile, because he’d done exactly that, leaving as though his life depended on it.

He moved closer to her, his eyes boring down on hers, setting her pulse racing all over again. “Let’s get one thing straight. You’re here to recover. That means staying still, not hobbling around my apartment. If you want something, I’ll get it.”

“Roman,” she said, shaking her head with disbelief. “Why does this matter so much to you? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s because you don’t know me.”

“Okay. So explain it.”