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While my emotion would last way beyond an introduction to the next slick female who catches his eye. And his abandonment would kill me. Better to end it now and start healing than wait until I fall much deeper.

It just doesn’t feel that way.

He curses, the word blunt and ugly. “Everyone else has been a substitute for you. I can’t even tell you how many women I dated because they looked like you. How many times I fucked someone with my eyes closed so I could pretend she was you.”

I gasp. The image of Noah with someone else makes my stomach curdle. But to know that he’d pretended those women were me… I can’t think, can’t comprehend…

“You told me earlier that pretending wasn’t enough for you anymore. It hasn’t been enough for me for years,” he goes on. “You want me to be honest, here it is. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I want to marry you, grow old with you. I want to spend my days devoted to you, every night inside you⁠—”

“You think that, but you’ve never been faithful to one woman in your life.”

“Because you were married, and nobody else mattered. Answer the question: do you love me?”

I swallow. Yes. God, yes. “It’s not that simple…”

“Yes or no.”

He isn’t going to leave until I answer. The firm grip of his hands and the demanding glint in his eyes tells me he plans to be an immovable mountain. I’ve seen him in business. In a game of corporate chicken, he never flinches, never gives in once he’s determined to have his way.

And giving him the truth would only give him the power to keep pursuing me, until he corners me, wears me down, and claims victory.

The moments with him would be sublime. Dizzying happiness. Full of wild satiation and smiles. Incredible. Unlike anything I shared with Tim. Even more intense than fantasies.

But it won’t last. Noah is as domesticated as a Bengal tiger. Hoping I can housebreak him into the role of suburban husband is emotional suicide. A woman can’t change a man. Marriage to Tim taught me that valuable lesson.

In the fight between honesty and self-preservation, I surrender my ideals and whisper, “I don’t.”

Shock passes over Noah’s face before it hardens into something cold. He backs away from the bed and reaches for his pants, his cock hard—his eyes harder. “You condemn me for lying so I could prove you have my heart. But you’re quick to lie right to my face in order to protect your own.”

Guilt and shame showers over me in a hot wash. He’s right. Totally.

But that doesn’t change a thing.

I watch with stinging watery eyes as he thrusts on his shirt and shoes, then stalks toward me again. I try to back away from the fury on his face. I don’t fear that Noah will hurt me. But I’m terrified that he’ll touch me, overwhelm me. And he wants to; that’s stamped into the hard angles of his face.

He reaches me, and with a sweep of his arms, he lays me flat on my back, directly beneath him. In an instant, his hard mouth slants over mine, his harder body envelops me, pressing me into the mattress, leaving me no question how badly he wants me or how angry he is.

His rough kiss dominates—my senses, my resistance. His tongue sweeps through my mouth with familiar abandon, filling me with the flavor of his determination and need. His lips mold against mine. A low groan from his chest rumbles through my body and rips through my self-control. Against my better judgment, I melt into him, open my mouth, and arch against the furious rise and fall of his hard-slabbed chest.

Desire doesn’t just spark inside me; it ignites into a firestorm. The blaze overtakes me in an instant. Noah knows just how to hold me, kiss me… He learned my body too well. Touching him is exhilarating, terrifying—like I imagine skydiving would be—scary and stupid and a rush like no other.

As I reach up to sink my fingers into his hair and raise my hips to his, Noah tears himself away.

Staring with accusing eyes, he backs away to the foot of the bed as his chest heaves. His fingers work into fists.

“Fuck! You’re willing to throw everything we could have away, every bit of the fire and need and love between us⁠—”

“Noah.” I reach for him, heedless of the fact I drop the sheet, exposing my breasts.

His gaze drops to the bared mounds, still swollen and berry-tipped. His nostrils flare, and he swallows. But he doesn’t succumb.

“It wouldn’t last,” I say, cutting into the thickening silence.

“You’re going to throw us away because you’re too fucking scared to believe that I love you. Forever. You’re telling me the crazy tactics I used to win you meant nothing. You think I did all that just to conquer a challenge or get laid? You think I’m too stupid to know what’s been in my heart for ten years, or that I would jeopardize our friendship and working relationship just to get off? You’re out of your fucking mind if you do.”

I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t understand. He can’t since he’s never been abandoned or endured a divorce.

I wanted a fling, and I’m too jaded to believe in fairy tales. What he seems to be offering is an illusion. It’s too much, too sudden, too unreal.