Tempting the Billionaire (Love in the Balance 1)

But she couldn’t think of any of them. The only images flooding her mind were the things she would have done to him if he’d leaned in the slightest bit and closed his mouth over hers. She would have hauled him into her foyer by his collar and put those lips to good use for the next hour.

Rolling over, she smothered a groan into her frilly decorative pillow.

Bad idea, her brain reminded her. But she couldn’t get a single other part of her body to agree.

Chapter 16

Crickitt ignored the purr of her desk phone and continued filing the papers stacked in the crook of one arm. It was nearly seven o’clock, and she was more than ready for a relaxing weekend away from the office. It’d been impossible to relax around Shane this week. The almost-kiss at her front door left her flustered and sexually frustrated. Though she hadn’t actually been around him much since then. Which made her wonder if she’d squandered the moment.

Her desk phone rang again, and Crickitt growled under her breath. She stalked to her desk and answered, trying to sound neutral. “Crickitt Day.”

“Hey,” came the gruff greeting over a din of other voices.

“Ronald.” She wasn’t able to keep the shock out of her voice. The name of a local pub lit the caller ID screen. She lowered herself into her chair. Of course he hadn’t called from his cell phone. He knew she wouldn’t have answered.

The last time they’d spoken, Ronald had insisted on them getting back together, proclaiming he was wrong and begging for her forgiveness. By the time he’d mentioned the word “remarried” and claimed he still loved her, Crickitt had heard enough. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of that conversation.

She heard a slurping sound as he took a drink, vodka tonic if she had to guess, and the clink of ice cubes against the edge of the glass. “I was thinking,” he slurred, “about you and me.”

“I’m busy,” she grated, raising every internal shield in an attempt to protect herself.

“You haven’t changed,” he said with a derisive grunt. “Still ignoring life outside of work?”

“Ronald—”

“No wonder the sex was so bad.”

A hot wave of anger blasted through her limbs, leaving shock waves in its wake. She rummaged around her head for a comeback that wasn’t littered with profanity but came up empty-handed.

“You should have been thinking about me instead of your precious career,” he continued, oblivious to her emotions. “Maybe then I would have let you stay.”

She squeezed the phone so hard her fingertips tingled. She loosened her grip and forced herself to breathe. “You’re drunk.” But acknowledging his state didn’t erase his accusations.

“The sex schedule was a little impersonal.”

Her stomach pitched.

“But you wore that lacy thingy, which I guess kind of made up for it.”

“We were on a schedule because I was trying to get pregnant.” The words bubbled up from some deep, dark place she would have preferred not to acknowledge. “You weren’t complaining at the time,” she added, tears flooding her eyes.

“Well, whatever.” He crunched an ice cube. “It worked out for the best.”

Thick emotion blocked her throat as she tried to digest the truth behind his statement. Yes, she was glad she never had children with Ronald, but it didn’t change the fact she still wanted them.

“I was thinking,” he continued rather than wait for her reaction, “about how you never bought the bread I liked, only the multigrain. And you know how much I like to get the mail, but you always ran out to the box first.”

She shook her head, trying to understand how he could follow a callous statement with one so pithy. “What are you even—”

“I loved you, Crickitt, I did,” he said in the condescending quality he’d perfected over the years. “But, more like a friend. Or a sister.”

She gave herself a moment to regroup, for the sting of his statement to dull. “Just because you’re angry,” she said, feeling her blood boil, “doesn’t give you the right—”

“Angry doesn’t change the fact that I can’t, in good conscience, be with you any longer.”

“I don’t want to be with you!” she shouted. Without waiting for a response, she slammed the phone onto the cradle. She stared at it, daring it to ring again. It didn’t.

And though she’d have rather died than cry over Ronald’s harsh accusations, the tears came. And wouldn’t stop coming.