Page 108 of Falling for the Grumpy Bad Boy

She didn’t want to be attached to me. I was fine behind closed doors when no one could see the way I made her cry my name. The way I turned her inside out with my tongue and a well-placed finger. My cock.

I wasn’t good enough for the princess in public.

“A chef with mafia connections,” I said with sudden understanding. “A chef who’s being dragged through the tabloids. A chef who would sully the squeaky-clean reputation of Clementine Hartley.”

She didn’t even try to argue. She just stood there with those apologetic eyes, like she was sorry for hurting my feelings but not sorry enough to actually change her mind. Like I was some stray dog she’d been feeding scraps to who needed to be gently shooed away.

The silence stretched between us. I felt my temper flare white-hot. This was the same woman who had shown up at my hotel room in cartoon taco pajamas. The woman who pushed and pushed until I finally gave in. Who looked me in the eye and said she didn’t care what anyone thought because she was a grown adult.

What a load of shit.

“So that’s it?” I said, my voice deadly quiet. “You chase me for weeks, show up at my door, tell me you don’t care about my family or my past, and now suddenly you do? Now suddenly I’m too much of a liability?”

She flinched but didn’t deny it. That hurt worse than if she’d slapped me.

“I told you from the beginning this was complicated,” I continued, anger making my words sharp. “I tried to keep things professional. I tried to protect you from exactly this kind of fallout. But you wouldn’t let it go, would you? You kept pushing, kept insisting we could make it work.”

“Rhett, please⁠—”

“No.” I held up my hand. “You don’t get to ‘please’ me now. You made your choice. You chose your daddy’s approval over what you wanted—me. I was what you wanted until you got home.”

“It’s not worth more than my family,” she said quietly.

“Fine,” I said. “I get it.”

“Rhett, please don’t⁠—”

“Don’t what? Don’t be disappointed that you’re choosing to throw away something amazing because people decided to write some bullshit? I don’t care, Clem. You’re right. It was a mistake from the minute it started. I knew it but I let myself get sucked in. Won’t happen again.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You know what? Maybe everyone is right about me. Maybe I am just like my family—too volatile, too dangerous, too much trouble for someone like you.”

“That’s not what I think,” she said.

She wrapped her arms around herself, looking smaller than I’d ever seen her.

“Goodbye, Clementine,” I said, walking down the steps toward my car.

“Rhett, wait⁠—”

I didn’t turn around. Couldn’t turn around, because if I saw her crying on that porch, I might do something stupid like go back and beg her to change her mind. Grovel like a fucking fool.

It wasn’t going to happen.

I didn’t need to beg anyone to fuck me.

I got in my car and drove away. I had a job to do, and until Desman called and told me to step away from his pet project, I was going to do it. If he wanted me off, he was going to have to fucking call me and say it.