AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He contemplated the terribly interesting wall. “Another woman invited me into her bed tonight, Kelly. And I accepted. So maybe you don’t know me that well at all.”
It took time for the words to sink in. They didn’t mean anything at first. They were just unconnected sounds without any point. But when their meaning dawned, she squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to look at him. She loved him so much and he clearly didn’t give a damn.
She’d come to his office determined to sleep with him regardless of what had occurred tonight. No matter what had made him stay out so long, she’d refused to be dissuaded from her goal. Wouldn’t it prove how much she loved him if his self-destructive attempts to end them before they’d really begun didn’t faze her?
But that was when she’d only had doubts. She’d mostly convinced herself he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t hurt her like that. There had to be another reason why he smelled like an expensive hooker on a busy night.
Except there wasn’t. He’d been with someone else only hours after he’d been with her. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer, not when the truth had smacked her resoundingly in the face.
Her first inclination was to get up and race out of the room. Her second was to pound on his chest and ask him why he’d had to be at Kink that night. Why he’d had to throw just enough bread crumbs for her to think there might be something more between them than books and sex clubs and goddamn staff suggestion boxes.
“I sort of got that when I found you in here,” she said instead, forcing her heavy lids to lift. Defiantly she raised her chin. “If you meant to drive me away, you could have just said you didn’t want me. Believe me, I’m not going to scrap for whatever you’ll toss my way.”
Spencer set his jaw. “I never said I didn’t want you. But you deserve more than—”
“More than what I need? More than the way we make each other feel when it’s just you and me and all the bullshit falls away?”
He took a step toward her, held out a hand. Whether to help her up or to lead her out she didn’t know. Then he stopped and gazed at his outstretched arm as if he hadn’t registered the gesture. “Maybe if the timing had been different,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Kelly, don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.” She rose unsteadily. She didn’t pull down her ridiculously short skirt or scrub her cheeks to rid them of the tears streaming out of her eyes. They slid in hot tracks down her face, dripped off her chin and plopped on her tight blouse. Her stupid get-up that she’d worn for him. Everything was for him. And he’d taken it all and left her with nothing.
Except her pride.
“You’re a goddamn fool, you know that? I thought I was the stupid one to have a crush on you all these years, to want you so badly when it would never happen. And then when it did, to fall for you. It was never just sex with me. Because I always got you like no one else ever will.”
Kelly pressed her lips together until they stopped quivering. She had time because God knows he wasn’t talking. He just stared at her with that same stricken, horrified expression, as if he expected her to collapse at any moment.
“All along, I tried to shove down my feelings, to pretend I didn’t have them so I could be more like you. At least that’s what you want people to think. But I feel too much. And that doesn’t make me wrong. That makes me right. Because I have the balls to stand here and tell you—” Her voice broke, the sob erupting from her chest as loudly as a hammer shattering glass. She sucked in air and forced out the words that burned her throat. “I love you. Even if you don’t deserve it. Or me.”
She didn’t run out the door. She walked. And she didn’t slam it. That, too, was pride.
He didn’t come after her. If he had, he would’ve been a different man. But just in case he changed his mind, she rushed down the hall and out the door, not stopping until she was in her car. Then she let the sobs come, the ones she’d managed not to let go in his office.
She gave herself a full minute before starting the engine. If she had any more crying to do, she’d do it alone.
Like always.
Chapter Sixteen
He wanted to smash things. Every item in his office to start. Because if not for this fucking place, maybe he would’ve manned up enough to make a decision that hadn’t resulted in breaking Kelly’s heart.
She’d get over him, of that he had no doubt. She’d been right about one thing. He didn’t deserve her. At least he hadn’t slept with her one more time, even if his cock had ached so badly he’d nearly exploded the instant he laid eyes upon her in that slutty schoolgirl outfit. She’d looked so innocent, so erotically pure, and he’d wanted to exploit that innocence, to tarnish it until she was his in every way possible.
Hadn’t he done that enough already? He’d had sex with her in front of crowds of people. He’d opened her up and taken what he wanted without thought to what she might need afterward.
And she’d fallen in love with him anyway. Somehow.
Spencer dropped into the chair behind his desk and closed his gritty eyes. He should go home and pack for Virginia. He was due to be on a plane midmorning and he had a ton of work to take with him. The last thing he could afford was another missed night of sleep.
No, what you can’t afford is to lose her.
He didn’t have a right to feel what he felt. The choices he’d made, was still making, had effectively decided that for him. The kindest thing he could do was to let her go now, quickly, quietly, with a minimum of fuss.
That mantra worked well through what was left of the night. Packing and a couple hours of unsettled sleep filled the time and added just a bit of distance. By morning, he’d convinced himself none of it was real. Not the meeting with Diana or what had happened afterward. He’d just had the bad dream from hell. When he walked into the store to pick up the last few files he needed before his flight, Kelly would give him a smile and a wink and he’d go off on his trip already anticipating coming home to her.
When he walked into The Book Nook, he saw Kelly all right. And she was flirting with a man who looked way too much like himself.
“So I figured why not come up for a visit when I have some downtime? I may as well just enjoy myself. You know?” Adam Galvin trailed a fingertip down Kelly’s bare shoulder, his smile broad as he swung it between Kelly and Leigh, who only rolled her eyes. “So far so good. I’m loving the scenery up North, that’s for sure.”
