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СКАЧАТЬ plane ride over had not even been helped by the fact that she had spent most of it hiding in the bedroom. He had still been intensely aware of her presence. As he had been intensely aware of her in the car. That awareness had caused him to lower his guard. Had caused him to spill forth the kind of honesty he rarely allowed.

      His past was not impossible to discover. Even so, he often avoided speaking about it. There were no happy memories back in the mists of time. Nothing he liked to revisit.

      With her, the story had seemed easy to tell. He had wanted to tell her, and he could not quite understand why. To make her understand? To make her see the gravity of it all? Why he needed things to work out as he did. Yes, that made sense, and he could not be faulted for that. Because this charity felt essential to him, and he did not want her to view it as having any less importance.

      He felt her come into the foyer before he saw her, every muscle in his body tensing, his nerves on high alert. And then he saw a fine-boned, pale hand resting on the banister, followed by a slender ankle on the stairs, then her foot in a pair of elegant, flat shoes pressing down on the rich burgundy carpet of the bottom step.

      And then finally the rest of her was in sight. Her golden hair cascading around her shoulders, slender curves outlined to perfection by a pair of ankle-length pants that conformed to her curves and a flowing top in a slate gray.

      The outfit was demure in every sense of the word, and yet, perhaps for that specific reason it was unspeakably arousing. It revealed not a flash more skin than was strictly necessary, and that false sense of the demure managed to capture his imagination in ways that something more revealing never could.

      That made him wonder if perhaps he was a bit more jaded than he had ever given himself credit for. If the endless array of models and flashier women had finally become monotonous. If his array of choice had spoiled him.

      Though, until meeting Victoria, he had not been aware of them seeming monotonous. No, in fact he had been very happy with his sex life. And with his choice of sexual partners. It was only since meeting Victoria that he experienced a different desire. As though discovering delicacies he had not known existed before. Delicacies his body had now decided it craved beyond all else.

      “So,” she said, the pristine crystal tone back firmly in place, as formal as their surroundings. “Are you going to take me for that drink you promised?”

      “I had thought we might take a few moments together. If for no other reason than to make sure we are on the same page when it comes to the gala.”

      “That seems like a good idea.”

      “And yet, you seem annoyed with me.”

      She waved her hand, his ring glittering on her fourth finger, catching the light from the chandelier and putting the crystals above their heads to shame. “Not any more than usual. I should have liked to recede into my bed and enjoy a little bit of room service, but I will not be seriously wounded by going out, either.”

      “Well, I’m glad to hear that. That you would not be seriously wounded, that is.” She had a look on her face that he had come to recognize as being very practiced. It was not a natural facial expression—that was for certain. It was one that was pulled tight, schooled into a smoothness that simply didn’t ring true. He had seen it break so rarely, the only time in recent memory the moment in his office when he had sifted his fingers through her hair, when he had treated her like a lover and not a business partner.

      Well, not so much like a lover as he might’ve liked.

      “Shall we go?”

      “Yes, we shall. You’ll be pleased to know that I have arranged for us to dine privately on the balcony here in the hotel.”

      “Dining even? A whole meal? I was expecting just one drink.”

      “That’s the thing with me, Ms. Calder, I don’t do anything by halves.”

      And that right there caused a blush of color to blossom in her cheeks. That subtle innuendo caused a disturbance in her otherwise-unruffled appearance.

      She felt it, too. This thing between them. It made his blood run hotter. And it made him want to push.

      “Is that a promise, Mr. Markin?” Her tone was as cold as ever, but he knew the truth now. It was written over her pale skin, a rose-colored letter signifying her body’s interest.

      “Oh, yes. It is a promise. For you most especially. Should you ever want to test me, I will be more than happy to rise to the occasion.”

      He could see that she knew he was baiting her, knew that he was taking the conversation away from neutral territory, that he was moving things into the realm of the sexual, which he had purposed upon first meeting her not to do.

      He had never been a capricious man; his lifestyle had never lent itself to that. At least not the lifestyle he had found himself in when he’d been cast onto the streets.

      From that moment on, planning had been of the utmost importance, finding a course and staying it.

      But right now he was contemplating going off-plan altogether. Considering what it might be like if he were to ignore the chess game and surrender to what felt inevitable. He prized his control above all else—men who came from the depths that he had come from could afford to do nothing else. Because he knew what it was like when he let his emotions wreak havoc in his life. And when you came from a place where you let your anger control you, you held no control. There was nothing but blood, nothing but violence. And after that, nothing but an endless well of anger, a black pit that had no bottom that he had seemed to fall through endlessly, waiting for a crushing end to the fall that had simply never happened.

      It had been eternal darkness. It had been hell.

      Until Colvin had lifted him out of it and shown him a better way. Sure, it was a painful road. One paved with blood and broken bones, but it was no more than he’d deserved. He couldn’t imagine a more fitting exit from his personal hell.

      Yes, there were many reasons he had purposed to live a life that was led by something other than emotion. Reasons he had buried his old self, and risen again new, clean, different. A baptism by blood and pain, in the truest sense. He’d had to be born again, to accept what he’d become so he could move on, and so he had been. He had not lied when he’d told Victoria that.

      She had forced them together and he resented that. It made it all the more important that he not indulge his desire for her because he’d been manipulated into this and he would not let her lead him around by his male anatomy in addition to everything else.

      But, with her so near, golden hair so soft, so tempting and close enough to touch again, to wrap around his finger, he wanted to indulge.

       You want to go back to that again? To having no choice? To having your hand forced?

      His stomach tightened hard as memory closed in around him.

       Overwhelming fear, blinding rage, a gunshot and a scream in the air, leaving his entire life shattered, never to be mended again.

      No, he could not pursue this.

      Control was everything, and the fact that he had forgotten that even for a moment, the fact that he had been on the verge of justifying giving in to temptation СКАЧАТЬ