The blow registered in her face first, crumpling her tight expression. Marcos raked his fingers through his hair and shot up to pace his office.
He felt like celebrating with her, like marking this momentous day in his career with something even equally outstanding for him personally. But somehow he sensed he had to make amends with her first.
Virginia had wanted him last night. First, he’d been occupied with Marissa. Who’d deceived and lied to him. And who had become so insignificant in his life, he’d forgiven her. After he got what he wanted from her.
All this, thanks to Virginia.
Suddenly, Marcos felt a grieving need to explain, to placate her, to restore the sparkle in her pretty green eyes. Staring around his office, at the papers scattered across the desk, he quietly admitted, “Virginia, I want to make you a proposition.”
Her slow and deep intake of breath was followed by a dignified silence. This was not the way he’d intended to ask her and yet suddenly he had to. Here. Now. Had to know she would belong to him, only him.
They were fighting, the air between them felt electric, charged with anger and lust and something else he couldn’t quite place. Something fuzzy and warm that made him feel close to her even when she annoyed him.
He strode over to her chair and bent, put his palm on her bare knee, and said, with fervor, “Would you be my mistress, Virginia?”
The way she automatically breathed the word no, he’d have thought he’d slapped her. Her eyes shone with hurt and her mouth parted as though she wanted to say something else but couldn’t. “No,” she said again, on another breath, this one made of steel.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying,” he said gently, stroking her knee and moving his hand up to clasp hers where it rested on her lap.
“Don’t!” She said it in such a fierce voice that he halted. Even his heart stopped beating. She shook her curls side to side, her face stricken. “Don’t touch me.”
What was this? What was this?
He caught her face in one hand, his heartbeat a loud, deafening roar in his ears. “Darling, I realize you might have misinterpreted my interests in speaking to Marissa, which I assure you were only business. It’s you I want, only you. And I’m very prepared to give you—”
“What? What will you give me?” She stood up, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “Do you even realize that the only thing I’ve been pretending all this time is that I don’t love you?”
His heart vaulted, but his voice sounded dead as he stepped back. The confession felt like a bomb dropped into his stomach. “Love.”
She chose to look out the window. And at last handed him the file. “Here’s my resignation.”
She set it atop his stacks and started for the door, and Marcos tore across the room like a man being chased by the devil. He caught her and squeezed her arms as his paralyzed brain made sense of her words.
“If you’re telling me you love me,” he said through gritted teeth, “look at me when you say it!”
She wrenched free. “Let go of me.”
He caught her elbow and spun her around, and she screamed, “I said don’t touch me!”
Worried the entire floor may have heard that, he let go of her. His chest heaved with the cyclone of feelings inside of him. He curled his fingers into his hands and his fingers dug into his palms, his knuckles jutting out.
“You want me,” he growled.
“No.” She backed away, glaring at him.
“You tremble for me, Virginia.”
“Stop it.”
“You want me so much you sob from the pleasure when I’m inside you.”
“Because I’m pretending to enjoy your disgusting tumbles!” she shot. She was flushed and trembling against the wall, her nipples balled into little pearls that begged for his mouth. But in her voice there was nothing but pain.
“Pretend? When the hell have we pretended?” He crushed her against him, squeezed her tight even as she squirmed. “We’re fire, Virginia. You and I. Combustion. Don’t you understand English? I’m asking you to stay. With me. And be my mistress,” he ground out.
Did she even realize he’d never in his life said this to a woman before? When her lashes rose and her gaze met his, the damaged look in her eyes knocked the air out of him. He didn’t expect the slicing agony lashing through him at her next words.
“I’m not interested in being your mistress.”