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But he had never stopped wanting her. And now, as he stepped toward her, his breathing was hard. And not just his breathing.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I need to tell you something. Important.”
“So you said.” Cristiano’s voice was low as he looked down at her. He came closer, almost close enough to touch her. His mind was scrambling for rationalizations as to why he should.
Perhaps if he slept with her just one more time...
Got her out of his system...
Stop, he told himself furiously.
Hesitating, Hallie licked her full, pink lips. He nearly groaned. Was she purposely taunting him?
“This...isn’t easy to say,” she whispered.
Gritting his teeth, he glared at her. “Let me say it for you, then. I already know why you’re here.”
Her caramel-brown eyes went wide.
“You know?”
He set his jaw. “You never cashed the check.”
Hallie blinked, furrowing her forehead. “The check?”
“The morning after.”
Her cheeks colored and she looked away.
“No,” she said in a low voice. “I ripped it into a million pieces and threw it in the trash.”
“Because you knew, even then, you could demand far more.”
Hallie looked at him sharply.
“I can?” she whispered. “You’d give me money, just for asking? Why?”
“You want me to admit it aloud?” He pulled her roughly against him. She gasped as his hands suddenly moved over her waist, her hips.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a microphone.” But even through the thin cotton of her sundress, touching her waist and hips without crushing her lips with his own felt like torture.
“Let me go,” she breathed, not moving.
He released her. Stepping back, he leaned against the marble fireplace, folding his arms and keeping his voice very cold. “Who is your lawyer?”
“My lawyer?”
“Don’t try to pretend you don’t have one. You knew I’d want to keep this quiet. I’m not proud of it.”
Her eyes widened. “Of—of what?”
“It would hardly improve the public image of my company if the CEO is sued for sexual harassment.”
“Oh.” Biting her lip, she looked away, staring for a long moment at the wall of leather-bound books he never read, and the leather reading chair he never sat in, both brought in by an interior designer to make his office look like a nineteenth-century gentleman’s study. And all Cristiano could think right now was that he wanted to bend her back against the enormous dark wood desk, kiss her senseless, pull off her clothes and...
