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One eyebrow winged upward. “A simple thank you would be enough.”
She blushed. “Thank you, but I need my question answered. You’re sending conflicting messages. You ignore me, but then you bring back a vintage perfume bottle because you know I collect them. You treat me with indifference, but you’re constantly touching me and… and kissing me. You’re trying to seduce me, and it won’t work.”
“No?”
“No. Do you know why?”
“Tell me.” He looked amused.
“Because this isn’t real.”
“You’re lying to yourself,querida. Our marriage might not last, but it’s real. And this”—he gestured between them—“what we feel when we’re near each other, isveryreal.”
18
She was in denial. Clearly, by the way her face shuttered, but what was the point of lying when they could be giving each other pleasure instead?
“We need each other in more ways than one,” Dante said.
The bikini she had worn earlier was tempting, and he’d barely been able to peel his eyes from her. When she came out of the water, her drenched body had been exquisite to behold. With water droplets glimmering like diamonds on her hair and skin, he’d almost tossed her over his shoulder and taken her upstairs right then.
The pajamas she wore now were equally tempting. A pair of pale-green shorts showed off her glorious golden-brown legs and a matching top with spaghetti straps draped over her full, unfettered breasts and made him long to cup them in his hands. Her hard nipples pressed against the thin fabric, exposing the truth she preferred to hide—that she wanted him.
“We are married for one reason and one reason only. I want to head up Buchanan & Buchanan, and you want the Hilderbrandt building. There is no other reason,” Annabelle said.
“Then why do you care if I spend time with you or pay attention to you?”
She didn’t have an answer, but he knew why. Time to give Annabelle an education about herself.
“Because you want it all, don’t you? It’s not enough that we’re married. You want me wrapped around your finger.”
She shook her head. “Not true.”
“Oh, but it is. You want me wrapped around your finger so you can control me like you did before.”
“I controlled you?” she said in a raised voice. “That’s a laugh. Six months into our marriage, you practically disappeared. I hardly saw you, which I guess I should be used to because we’re basically reliving the past, aren’t we?”
“I was working, trying to build something from scratch.”
“You didn’t have to start from scratch. My father offered you a job, and you refused to take it.”
“Because if I worked eight to ten hours for him, when would I have the energy to work on my own business? I needed time formydreams andmygoals.” The volume of his voice elevated too.
“Well good for you, you achieved your goals, Dante. Look at this place. Congratulations. Our marriage suffered, but who cares, right? Your dreams have come true.” She slow-clapped.
Her condescension grated. “As if you cared about our marriage or me. I couldn’t give you the life of luxury you wanted, so your father supplied everything for our household because you were unsatisfied living on a poor man’s salary.”
Her mouth fell open. “Again,nottrue.”
“But I understand. It’s because of how you were raised. You had everything—servants, money, expensive clothes, cars and couldn’t live without those things, even for a little while. I should have known better.” He shook his head as a cloud of bitterness enveloped him.
“Fuck. You. You weren’t exactly Husband of the Year. You don’t get to rewrite history and act like the victim. You didn’t give a shit about me. You wanted my family’s connections, and when my mother died, you went about your workday like nothing out of the ordinary happened. You weren’t there for me.”
Her mother, Priscilla Buchanan, passed away suddenly from a brain aneurysm. One minute she was complaining of a headache, the next she had collapsed and was being rushed to the hospital.
“What? You are the one rewriting history. I attended the funeral. You cried in my arms for weeks afterward. I held you while you cried. I wasthere.”
Her tears soaked their pillows every night, and he had felt helpless to alleviate her pain. All he could do was curl his body around hers and hold her as she released the anguish of loss.
