And through all my fury, all I could think was…He’s touching me. Clayton is touching me. It’s been…so long.
Everything I wanted to not remember was threatening to come rushing back.
“Calm down.”
“Again. Fuck you.”
I was panting and my eyes were burning.
“I’m not joking. And this isn’t a trick,” he said.
I finally managed to yank my hand hard enough that he let go and I was knocked off balance. He put a hand on my waist, keeping me steady.
The unexpected touch was agonizing. It melted right though my suit. Right though the walls around my memories of the last time I was here. And he was too close. Much too close.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped and pushed him back.
He stepped back and gave me room.
“Will you listen to me?” he asked.
I nodded but didn’t open my mouth, because all the words that wanted to come out were screaming swear words.
He sighed, long and slow, like he was emptying out his chest, gathering himself for some battle. Centering himself in a storm.
“Our engagement was real. And my feelings for you—”
I’d expected a lot of things. An argument about how our marriage would be good for business. For King Industries.
Not him telling me how he felt.
I laughed so hard I actually wished I could stop laughing, and he looked at me like he always looked at me. Detached. Cold. Untouchable.
He’d never had feelings for me. Not this man. Not for me.
“I will never believe you,” I told him. “You are a liar from top to bottom.”
He stepped forward and I stepped back and it was a fast-moving dance until my back was against the door and he was standing right in front of me, his hand braced on the door beside my head.
He touched, with one long, elegant finger, the top button on my suit.
I swallowed back…I’m not sure what. A moan. A protest. I could barely breathe. I was angry and so shocked and so…
Fucking turned on.
“Your heart is pounding,” he said.
“Hardly.”
“I can see it.” He lifted his finger from the button of my suit to my neck. “I can feel it. This was real,” he said. “The way you responded to my touch. It was the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”
“That says more about you than it does about me.”
“I imagine it does,” he said. “But what you felt for me was real.”
“Right, and what you felt for me was an act. Is this some power trip for you?” I got my shit together and ducked sideways away from him. “Is this a good time? Humiliate the stupid girl who thought she was in love with you—”
He was on me so fast I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even register it. I was back against the door, his body pressed up against mine. No coy fingers. No curled lips. It was his chest against mine and we were breathing in time together.
“No one calls you stupid. Not even you,” he said. “You are and were the furthest thing from stupid.”
I was so weirdly stunned by his defense of me. By the earnestness of it. I was momentarily speechless. I valued my intelligence. I’d just never thought he noticed.
“And you loved me,” he said. “You can’t change that.”
“And you used me,” I spat. “You can’t change that.”
“I wanted you,” he said. “I wanted you and I admired you.”
No. No I didn’t want to hear this. It hurt to hear him say these words. The bruises he’d put on my psyche were gone. Healed up. My heart had sutured itself back together, but these words threatened to bring it all down.
“There’s no point to you pretending you cared about me. That you wanted me.”
His hips pressed against mine.
The words died in my throat.
He was hard against my belly and my entire body went hot.
“Does that feel like I’m pretending?” he whispered into my ear. My brain was short-circuiting. Warning sirens are going off. “Veronica? Answer me, so I know you understand what I’m saying.”
“It’s biology,” I whispered, pulling myself deep inside my skin like a turtle in a shell.
“It’s you. And that fucking suit.” He growled the words, like he was struggling with control. “Do you remember? What we were like? That wasn’t a lie. Not ever.”
I put my hand against his chest, registering —because I was a masochist—the hard curve of his pec. The heat of his skin beneath the fine fabric of his clothing.
And then I pushed him away.
“Fine,” I said through dry lips. “You’re not pretending.”
He stepped away, giving us distance.
“We could just have sex. Be…lovers. Why in the world do you want to be married to me?”
“Because I always wanted to be married to you.”
“You don’t have to say that!” I cried. “The company is yours!”
“I’m not saying it because I want the company. I’m saying it because I want you.”