Page 77 of Saved By the Billionaire

She put it down to abject shock—perhaps even horror—that he did indeed let her go, and she ran away from him as fast as she could, disappearing into the after-work crowd, tears still streaming down her cheeks.

There was rock bottom, and then there was about a thousand feet below it, where Roman had to scrape himself up from. It wasn’t like he’d always made the right decisions, and he didn’t think he was perfect, but there was no escaping the fact that in the last twenty minutes, Roman had made the biggest, most unretractable mistake of his life.

He stalked back to Garrett and slid into the backseat of his car, staring straight ahead.

“No Kate?”

Roman’s gut rolled as though he’d just dropped off the top of a rollercoaster. No Kate. Likely, ever again. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“No.”

His hands balled against his thighs. He closed his eyes, tried to think. But their argument kept replaying. The things he’d said. The way he’d made it sound like he’d have paid her to stay, purely for sex. The way he’d somehow managed to reduce what they were to sex. Her face, God, her face.

He sucked in a breath, tried to breathe. Tried to focus, but panic was surging through him. Outwardly, he showed little sign, but his insides were trembling with emotion and he could hardly see straight.

He texted Tia:

I blew it.

Blew what?

Everything.

His phone began to ring. He was tempted to ignore it, but he knew she’d just keep calling. “What’s going on?” she asked, before he could even speak.

“I came to Sydney.”

“Okay. And?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Tia let out a low breath. “How bad?”

“Bad.”

“Want to tell me?”

“I blew it.”

“Okay. Blew it like, you need to buy some flowers?”

“All of Holland wouldn’t be enough damn flowers for this.”

Tia made a noise. “What did you do?”

“Take your pick. Called her a hooker. Offered her money for sex. Told her I would have paid a king’s ransom if she’d stayed in New York as my mistress. Need I go on?”

“Holy shit, you’re kidding me?”

“I wish.”

“What the hell were you thinking? Why did you even go there if that’s what you wanted to say to her?”

“It’s not what I wanted to say to her. I just…I saw her there, waiting for some guy, and I imagined her pimping out her body, and I just…I lost it. I became something I didn’t recognise. No, worse. I became my dad.”

“You are not James Hayes, Roman. You are nothing like him.”

“I was so angry.”