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The way Apollo’s lip curled on friends told her what he’d thought of them. ‘I found you snorting cocaine and drinking. When you’d sobered up you admitted it had been a lie to trap me.’
Sasha went back to the chair and sat down again. Reeling. She felt cold and wrapped her arms around herself.
She forced herself to look at Apollo. She felt deep in her bones that she wouldn’t have done such heinous things—lying about being pregnant, taking drugs—couldn’t have. And yet why would he lie? This explained his antipathy and also the way Rhea and Kara had looked at her like an unexploded bomb on her return from the hospital.
She went even colder as she absorbed the full extent of everything he’d told her. ‘You didn’t want to marry me.’
His jaw tightened. ‘No.’ Just that. No.
Why not? trembled on her lips but she didn’t have to ask that question. He hadn’t been interested in her after their night together in London. Her innocence must have been a huge turn-off.
Desperately trying to salvage something positive, she said, ‘But in London you took me for dinner...to your apartment... You liked me then?’ She hated how insecure she sounded.
A sense of exposure hit Apollo again. His voice was taut with self-recrimination. ‘You captivated me. Briefly. You were different.’
‘Different from what?’
Sasha looked so guileless. Pale. Eyes huge.
Was she really faking this amnesia? Was it too convenient that she was remembering snippets but not everything? Was she laughing at him? Forcing him to articulate why he’d wanted her?
But something uneasy in his gut told him that she couldn’t be faking it. She looked too tortured.
He said, ‘Different from everyone else. Other women.’
Twin flags of pink made her cheeks flush and for a moment Apollo was rewarded with a flashback to watching her face flush with pleasure as she’d moved under him, around him.
She said tightly, ‘You mean I wasn’t as sophisticated.’
Apollo had to use every atom of his control to counter the rush of desire. Damn her. ‘You caught my eye. You were refreshingly unaffected. Open. Friendly. But it was all a lie.’
Sasha remembered feeling invisible that night. Until he’d looked directly at her, and the flash of pure heat that had gone through her body. Her tray of drinks had wobbled precariously and he’d stepped forward and steadied it. His lazy, charming smile.
‘Promise to meet me for a drink and I’ll give the tray back.’
She couldn’t remember sleeping with him or the aftermath, but she could imagine all too easily how he would have laid it out. Telling her not to expect more. A man like this would have been used to such scenarios with women. Had she been so desperate that she’d begged for more? She felt ashamed for herself.
In a way now Sasha was glad she couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. This was humiliating enough without recalling in excruciating detail how banal the experience must have been for a man of the world like him. To sleep with a virgin. She’d obviously been a novelty for a jaded billionaire and her appeal hadn’t lasted long.
Her head was starting to throb faintly. ‘What happens now?’
‘Nothing. Until you’ve recovered fully. Then we can discuss the future.’
The future.
Sasha felt slightly hysterical. She couldn’t recall much of the past, never mind the future.
She stood up. ‘I’m getting a headache. I think I’ll go to bed.’
Apollo watched as she turned and walked out. She was the colour of pale parchment. Maybe it had been too soon to tell her the unvarnished truth? No matter how much she’d insisted she wanted to know.
He felt an impulse to go after her and make sure she was okay but he told himself he was being ridiculous. The woman who had engineered a fake pregnancy to trap him into marriage was no delicate soul. Accident or no accident.
He poured himself another shot of whisky and downed it in one. It burned his throat. But he couldn’t get her pale face and huge shocked eyes out of his mind. He had to admit that he was finding it hard to continue suspecting that she was faking the amnesia. Sasha would never have been able to play this far more innocent incarnation for so long without cracking.
Which meant...this news was as shocking to her now as it had been to him when he’d first heard it.
Apollo cursed and put down the glass. He went upstairs and stood outside Sasha’s bedroom door for a long moment. He heard no sounds.
