Page 42 of Saved By the Billionaire

“I’ve been thinking,” she blurted out, her voice slightly unsteady. “I really don’t need to stay here anymore.”

His eyes probed hers, his features not shifting, so she had no idea what he was thinking.

“My ankle’s better. My head, too. I can…”

He stared at her for so long with those piercing eyes of his; goosebumps covered her flesh. “Do you want to leave, Kate?”

She pressed her toe in harder.

“I asked you a question.”

But she couldn’t answer it. Not without revealing too much about herself. Not without admitting how much she wanted to stay.

“You have a life,” she prevaricated. “A job. Things you have to do.”

He strode towards her, expression intense. “We have a contract.”

“I won’t tell anyone⁠—”

“With an end-date. And unless I’m mistaken, we still have one week to go.”

A week.

It felt like a millisecond. One single, pathetic week would go so quickly. And how would she be strong enough to walk away at the end of it?

“Emails last night, a meeting today,” she continued, forcing herself to face rejection. She was no stranger to its sting. “If you want me to go, I’d really prefer you just say.”

He cursed under his breath, but stayed exactly where he was.

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done⁠—”

“Stop,” he said, and though he still didn’t move, the inflection in his tone might as well have been a whip, cracking through the room. She felt the air sizzle with his finality. “I do not want you to leave. Believe me, Kate, I am not known for my reluctance in speaking my mind.”

Her heart felt like a bird, trapped in her chest, beating its delicate wings. She glanced away, not wanting him to see how relieved she was. Not wanting to admit it, even to herself.

“It’s just…if things have changed, if you’ve changed what you want from me…”

“Then we wouldn’t be standing here, having this conversation. You’d be installed in a lovely comfortable hotel room to finish out your recovery.”

She twisted her fingers together, ignoring the sharp jab of pain beneath her ribs.

“I don’t talk about my past; not with anyone but Tia.” Jealousy was unmistakable, adding another barb to the sore spot in her chest. Images of the strikingly beautiful woman flooded her mind. She blotted them out, rather than succumb to their power. “I don’t know what it is about you, but even without the paperwork, you crack something inside of me open. Something…I don’t particularly like.”

She risked a glance at him then, her heart speeding up. “Oh.”

“This can’t be more than we agreed. A week. Whatever happens between us, that won’t change. Do you understand?”

She tilted her chin. “We just discussed this. We have a contract.”

“Yes. But what the hell does that matter? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Or yourself?”

He grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m capable of hurting.”

Sympathy bloomed in her belly and she took a step, and then another, closing the distance between them and lifting a hand to his chest. “The big, bad billionaire,” she murmured. “You think you don’t have a heart that can break?”

“I know I don’t.”