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For a long while there was only the way their hearts thundered, almost as if to the same beat.
He wanted to gather her to him. He wanted to do things that made no sense, like press kisses against the line of her jaw. When it finally penetrated that he felt the urge to do these mad things, it was like dousing himself in a cold plunge.
Balthazar pulled out, though it caused him something almost like pain to leave behind that silken grip.
He told himself to turn away abruptly, but he didn’t. He took his time, fully aware that it was likely to be burned into him forever, the sight of her like this. Sprawled out on his desk, her skirt rucked up to her waist, thoroughly debauched and thoroughly his.
You’re a fool, he growled at himself.That was revenge and nothing more.
But that felt very much like a lie, when he had long considered himself allergic to dishonesty in any form.
When he finished putting himself to rights, he focused on her and found her doing the same. Her eyes were downcast as she slid from the desk. And though she tugged her skirt back into place competently enough, her hair told a different story.
Balthazar did not advise her to smooth it down. A clear indication that no matter how smooth an exterior she tried to present, the reality remained.
He liked that more than he should have.
“Shall we consider that a down payment?” she asked, her voice so crisp and cold that it took him a moment to realize she hadn’t actually hauled off and slapped him.
And he chose not to question why it felt like a betrayal. When he knew it shouldn’t. When he knew who she was.
Who she always had been. Why did he insist on wishing it could be otherwise?
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kendra,” he replied in kind. “That was merely finishing what we started three years ago.”
He watched the column of her throat move. He was suddenly, deeply furious that she wouldn’t raise her head and look at him directly. “Surely it can be both.”
Balthazar made himself laugh and took some pride in how she stiffened at the sound.
“I wouldn’t pay two dollars for something I could get so easily,kopéla. Much less two million.”
Her gaze snapped to his then, bright and hot.
And worse, a kind of knowledge flickering there in the depths that made everything in him tighten. Sending him into a spiral of something perilously close to shame.
Especially when she didn’t crumple before him.
She held herself almost regally. “Shall I tell my brother to expect to see you in court?”
“You can tell your brother to go to hell,” he growled at her, because he didn’t care for the sensation still curling around and around inside of him. He didn’t acknowledge shame. But he could still feel her, clenched tight around him. And the taste of her was in his mouth. And all of it was part of the same game. He would never forgive it. “You can go right along with him, for all I care.”
He saw her gaze grow brighter and he thought once again that she might sob. He didn’t know what he would do if she did—
But instead, she only nodded, once.
“Understood,” she said icily.
Then Balthazar watched as Kendra Connolly marched over to his door, threw it open, and left as if she’d never been here.
As if she’d never screamed his name while he was buried deep inside her. Twice.
Leaving behind nothing but a torn bit of lace that had once been her panties.
Balthazar stood there a long, long while. His phone rang. His mobile buzzed. He heard one of his secretaries come to the door and say his name, then retreat when he failed to respond.
Outside the walls of windows, New York was a mess of color and noise.
Like her.
