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“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“What for?” She sniffed.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you sorry we had sex? Or that you were such a bastard about it.”
“Both,” he said with a grimace. “Your first time shouldn’t have been like that.”
Her eyes were huge in her face as they met his. “What should it have been like?”
He dragged a palm over his jaw. “It should have been with someone you cared about, for a start. It should have been with someone … someone who was in love with you.”
Claudia spun away from him on the pretense of making a cup of tea. She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t hear him admit that he felt nothing for her without acknowledging and displaying the pain that cascaded through her as a result.
“It sure as hell shouldn’t have been on my desk.”
Claudia sobbed. She couldn’t help it. Her emotions were in overdrive despite her best efforts to control them.
His hands on her arms surprised her. She jerked but he held her tight, dropping his mouth to the side of her neck. “Let
me show you what it should have been like.” He turned her gently, his eyes imploring her. And perhaps, if it had been as simple as that, she would have agreed. But she saw the shame on his face. The apology.
The sympathy.
And it was that final emotion that strengthened her resolve.
She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. She never had done.
“I think it’s better if we leave it at that,” she muttered, fixing her gaze over his shoulder. “It was very instructive.”
“Instructive?” He repeated.
“Yes. I’m twenty-one and until half an hour ago I was still a virgin. It was time for me to grow up.” She cleared her throat and stepped away from him, grabbing her cup of tea as she went, seeking refuge on the far side of the kitchen.
“I’m glad I could be of service,” he said softly.
“You were.” Her smile was brittle. “But now, I want to go back to London”
He frowned, his expression one she couldn’t decipher. “You can’t be serious.”
“You think I can stay here?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nothing has changed, Claudia. If you return to London, the press will have a field day. You will be hounded once more.”
“And being under the same roof with you is any better?”
He winced visibly at the comparison and she knew she was being unfair. What had happened hadn’t been his fault. She’d wanted him just as much as he had her. More, probably, because she had zero experience and her body had been burning up for a man’s touch. Any man’s touch? Or his?
She knew the answer to that.
“You know why you are here,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “And what I will do if you leave.”
“You’re not serious? You can’t honestly be blackmailing me with my own inheritance?”
He shrugged his shoulders unapologetically, a glint of determination firing in his eyes.
“Nothing has changed. I still want to protect your father’s legacy, which means keeping you out of the spotlight.”
