“I’m fine right here.”
His voice gentled even more. “I’d love to stop arguing. Is that possible?”
“No. It’s the most impossible thing I’ve ever been asked.”
He leaned back in his seat with deceptive relaxation, but his eyes continued watching her like a predator. “All right then. Talk to me while we argue.”
“Talk to you? What do you want me to say?”
“How are you, darling?”
She gazed outside, hurting all over again, hating his gentleness, his questions. “Now you pretend to care,” she scoffed.
“You’re the only thing I care about.”
Outrage bubbled up in her chest. “Save your breath, Andrew. You won’t be able to seduce me, and you’ll never have my heart again, this I promise you.”
He smiled. “A challenge. I can always count on you to make it fun for me, can’t I, darling?”
Suddenly she was glad his marks were hidden under her cuff bracelets. She was glad he had not seen that she still wore them, even though he probably knew, deep down, that she did. She had kept her vow, not because he deserved it, but because she couldn’t be the one to break it, couldn’t sever her ties to him, for she feared that he would sever her from his life as well. But then, hadn’t he already done that?
Her eyes blurred remembering, and all of a sudden, her heart felt heavy.
Andrew.
How many women had he been with these past three years?
She was so angry at him, but had underestimated how she would react seeing him again. The attraction was so strong, it took effort to sit across from him. She’d never been so separated before while riding in such close quarters.
The distance hurt. His presence hurt.
The car pulled over at the Fairchild Hotel. It belonged to his family and was one of the dozens of businesses he owned. She would be swept back into his life, but the glamour of living with a Fairchild had lost all of its glitz for her. Andrew wasn’t the perfect man, not her prince who’d rescued her. He’d rescued her, all right. But he’d just taken her from one hell to another.
The motor shut down, and Whitney suddenly panicked, tugging at her cuff bracelets, loathing with sudden intensity the marks that lay hidden beneath. “I can’t do this. Please, Andrew, let me go. Let me kiss you here and we’ll get it over with.”
The door opened, and he didn’t hesitate. He stepped out and held out his hand for her. “We said forever, Whitney,” he said softly, something dark and pained in his eyes.
An ache spread through her, too.
Andrew was a man used to getting his way, and the only way to make him let her go was to make him stop wanting her, and it was going to hurt them both.
Especially when he was all she’d ever wanted.
Chapter Two
As they entered Andrew’s luxurious five-bedroom apartment on the top floor of the Fairchild, Whitney’s memories of her time here fell on her like bombs.
She’d lived in this very home with Andrew for almost two years, and then alone for two more, waiting for him, until she couldn’t bear to wait any longer and had no choice but to move out a year ago. Despair opened in her chest as the familiar scent of maple wood furniture invaded her nostrils.
She watched as Andrew pressed the access code on the Creston keypad, and all at once, several lamps flared to life across both the living and dining rooms. “Did you stay here like I asked you to, Whitney?”
He cocked his head in question, and Whitney remained stubbornly silent. When he’d left to “work” in the Middle East, he’d offered her the use of his home, his chauffer, his maids. He’d left her with checkbooks, credit cards. Everything except what she most needed. Him.
He strode down the hall to the master bedroom, and when he returned, his jaw was clamped, for obviously he’d noticed that her things were gone. “I see.”
He took off his jacket, and the sight of his muscles rippling under the fabric of his white cotton shirt almost undid her. Her voice was laced with anger and frustration. “What do you want, Andrew?”
He unknotted his tie and pulled it loose, and she burned in her skin at the sight of his biceps flexing under his shirt. Their bodies were calling out to one another, silently, powerfully. She could feel his pull, tugging at her with magnetic force. “Show me your wrists, Whitney,” he said, as he set his tie aside.