Page 35 of Saved By the Billionaire

He heard a hint of jealousy in her voice and wished he could take it away. Tia was inextricably bound up in him, a forever part of his life, but that was why they’d never slept together. They shared too much; there was too much to risk by messing it up with sex. “Tia is unique.”

Kate’s eyes flashed, but whatever she was feeling, she covered quickly. “I mean…expensive looking. Glamorous. Polished.”

“They’re women I’ve met through the course of my life,” he said, with a shrug. “My businesses, my investments.”

“So, yes then.”

Exasperation had him grinding his jaw. “I don’t have a type.”

“I bet if I saw a photo roll, I’d disagree.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.”

Yes, so was Roman. Curious about Kate. Her life. Her past. Her future. Her dreams. And most of all, about the way the air between them hummed with electricity, so he wanted to kiss her and see if their chemistry would be as heavenly as he suspected. But he could tell she wasn’t going to let this go without some sort of answer.

“The first girl I slept with lived a few doors down. We were both seventeen, and it had been a long, hot summer. We’d gone swimming most days, in a creek near where we lived at the time. We walked home together—I still remember the buzzing of mosquitos and the humming of crickets. I was leaving the next day, and I knew that if I didn’t kiss her that night, I’d never get another chance.”

Kate’s eyes were huge in her face. “Roman Hayes, you’re a romantic.” A smile was playing on her lips, and she pressed a finger to his chest, half-accusingly.

“I was a hormonal teenager,” he corrected, surprising himself with a gruff laugh. “And we’d been swimming together every day,” he reminded Kate. “That’s a lot of time for a seventeen-year-old boy to be looking at a gorgeous woman in skimpy bathers.”

She rolled her eyes. “Say what you like, I can tell. You’re a romantic. I like it.”

“She was not polished or expensive, but she made me laugh.”

Kate’s lips parted in surprise, her eyes probing his, making him feel strangely vulnerable. He hadn’t revealed anything huge about himself, but he felt as though he’d stripped away a layer, shown her something he probably shouldn’t have.

“I can’t imagine you laughing.”

He grimaced. “It was a long time ago.”

She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, her delicate lips tugging to the side as her eyes probed his. Eventually, she spoke. “It was my eighteenth birthday. I went out to celebrate my freedom from foster care.”

“On your own?”

Her eyes didn’t meet his. “Yep.”

He curled his fingers into his palm in a futile attempt to curtail the sympathy that swelled in his chest, the ache to protect her. Why hadn’t anyone done that before now? Why hadn’t anyone looked after Kate as she deserved? Like you looked after Grace, a darkness inside of him shouted, reminding him of his own failures.

But Kate wasn’t aware of the battle raging inside of him, the accusations from the past that always dogged him.

She cleared her throat and continued, “I drank too much and went home with some guy I met at the bar. I don’t even remember his name,” she admitted, her features showing something like remorse. “I don’t remember if there were crickets humming,” she added. “And there was definitely nothing romantic about it.”

The protective pang exploded through him now. Roman Hayes lived and died by many rules—black and white. Sleeping with a woman who’d had too much to drink was a line he would never cross. He wanted to reach into her past and erase all of the assholes who’d used her, who’d taken what they wanted without waiting to see what she needed from them. He wanted to run his hands through the waters of her life and leave only the good, but it wasn’t possible.

He lifted a hand to Kate’s cheek, touching her lightly. The bruising had faded. For the first time since they met, he could see her without immediately being reminded of the violent nature of that encounter.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, wondering that he hadn’t really consciously thought that before. There were so many other things he noticed about Kate—her grace, her poise, her contradictory vulnerability and strength—but she was incredibly lovely to look at as well.

“See? Romantic.”

He laughed then. “Believe me, my thoughts right now are not remotely romantic.”

“No?”

“No, Kate.” He leaned forward and brushed a kiss against the base of her ear, stifling a groan for how badly he wanted to stay right there. “Sign the damned contract. I want to make you mine.” And he did, badly. He couldn’t erase the assholes from her past, but he could show her a different kind of future, a different kind of relationship. Pragmatic and safe, sure, but so much better than one-night stands with men who weren’t worthy. He stalked away from her while he still could, because it was becoming harder and harder to put distance between himself and this intoxicating woman and Roman Hayes knew, without a single hint of doubt, that control was vital—for both of their sakes.