“I agreed to no such thing. We work together. Ergo, our relationship is defined as professional by default. But that’s not the extent of it and you know it. I can’t unsee you in that white lace.” He pointed to his temple. “It’s all right here.”
“It shouldn’t be,” she countered under her breath and shot a glance at the shut door, like the lingerie police might burst in at any moment to arrest her for daring to wear something racy under her utilitarian suit.
All at once, it dawned on him, and wow—he wasn’t normally that slow. The only excuse he had for not realizing the source of her ups and downs was that she’d fried his brain from second one. “You like wearing things that show off your body. But he didn’t like it at all, did he?”
That son of a bitch.
Fiercely, she shook her head and she might as well have had denial stamped all over her. “My style is my own and I’ll thank you to stop questioning me about it.”
“Come on, Tilda. I thought we agreed to be honest last night. I was honest with you and I thought you were reciprocating. But you only told me half the story, didn’t you?” Guilt crowded into her gaze and he pounced on it. “That’s why you were worried I felt deceived. Because you’re lying to everyone. Every day.”
“It’s not lying,” she whispered.
He bit back a curse, feeling as if his heart had been wrenched out of his chest to land somewhere on the floor, still beating.
Her ass of an ex had done a number on her, obviously. She’d flinched when Warren raised his hand, hid her sexuality beneath a layer of boring and then plainly told him not to bother with her because she was messed up.
To hell with that.
“Tilda, I’m sorry,” he murmured, but it wasn’t enough.
Last night, he’d let the conversation go because he’d genuinely feared he might put his fist through the wall since he couldn’t unleash it on Tilda’s ex. But she needed something else from him.
So he did what he should have done yesterday. He stood, set the computer tablet in her hands aside and pulled her into his embrace. For a half second, she hesitated, her body vibrating with a million unspoken emotions, and then, holy God…she melted into him, conforming to his contours as if she’d been fashioned from a mold with his exact dimensions.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not even sure why he felt compelled to repeat what had become a common phrase between them, but he wanted her to know he was sorry—for Bryan’s behavior and his own. “I don’t mean to keep upsetting you.”
What else would be the result of a cross-examination? He knew how to get results, not how to comfort. Look what had happened when he tried to comfort Marcus. He’d truly hated to see Marcus in so much pain, had truly wanted to help. But he’d ultimately failed.
“You’re not the problem,” she said, her voice muffled against his lapel because she hadn’t bothered to move her face from where she’d snuggled into his shoulder, which felt a lot nicer than it should. “I am. I tried to tell you that.”
“Stop. Your ex is the problem. And I’m not him.”
Her amazing, sexy body unpeeled from his. “You think I don’t know that?”
She stared at him, composed and blank faced. It was nearly miraculous how she morphed so easily back into the formal woman he’d first met a few months ago when she’d started on this project. Obviously she’d had a lot of practice at hiding behind her reserve.
That made two of them. And this was not one of those times when he could retreat.
“No. You don’t know that. Maybe rationally, you can repeat it to yourself. But it’s not sticking where it counts.”
“Now you’re an expert on me?”
He cocked his head. “That wasn’t a denial.”
“I’m here to do a job, Warren. Can we just focus on that and forget about the personal side of things?” The desperation in her tone hurt nearly as much as the tears.
He nodded, but not because he agreed that the conversation was over. His problem in a nutshell: he was as much of a liar as she was. He didn’t maintain distance with people because he liked being that way. It was how he protected himself from failure.
Yes, he was pushing her. Because she was free to be as sexy as she liked around him and he’d treat it like the gift that it was. She needed to feel sexy and have a bone-deep understanding that it was okay to be as demonstrative with it as she wished. She needed to know that she was desired, but at the same time, that she could kiss a man and back off without retaliation. Bottom line, she needed Warren to undo all the damage the bastard had done to her.