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"Sometimes I forget how British you are."
"Sometimes I forget you don’t have the balls to see through what you started."
Her features pale. "That’s not fair, JJ."
"And what you’re doing to us is?"
"There’s nous." She crosses her arms across her chest. "Not yet."
"You’re wrong, there was an us the moment we set eyes on each other."
"So you keep saying."
I widen my stance. "Are you saying you weren’t attracted to me from the moment you saw me."
"I’m saying maybe we should have waited. Maybe it would have been better if I had broken things off with Isaac first."
"Something you weren’t going to do for a very long time. All I did was nudge you along in that direction."
She stiffens. "So, you were manipulating me?"
"I was simply making you see how explosive we could be together."
"Sex isn’t everything, JJ."
I laugh. "Sex is the bedrock of any relationship. And what we have isn’t normal sex." I close the distance between us. "It’s a dirty, filthy, forbidden, erotic coupling that gets more intense every time we’re together."
Her cheeks heat. Her breathing grows rough. If I glance down, I’ll see her nipples bead through her blouse. She’s as turned on as I am.
The air between us electrifies. Every nerve ending in my body stands to attention. I’ve never felt so alive as I have in her presence. It’s as if I’m turning back the clock when I’m with her—finding my mojo, rediscovering what it means to want a woman with so much intensity that every part of me seems to be reinventing itself. "Lena," I cup her cheek, "I want you like I’ve never wanted anything else before. My need for you is more than my urge to succeed. It’s more enormous than my thirst for power, more fervent than my ambition to make so much money that no one in this world could ever touch me or my family."
"And yet, you didn’t make time for your children."
Pain coils in my chest, and I shove it away. "I was younger, more... foolhardy. I thought there’d be time to get to know them when they were a little older. I was wrong, of course. By the time I realized my mistake, I was too late."
"And you committed the same mistake again when you put your own happiness before your son’s."
"He doesn’t need you. He’s not in love with you, girl," I snap.
"And you are?"
"I—" I open and shut my mouth.Am I in love with her? Am I?I hesitate.
Something anguished flashes in her eyes. Her features twist—it’s barely noticeable; I almost miss it, and I would have if I weren’t watching her so closely—then she composes herself. "Thought not." She takes a step back from me. "Whatever this is between us, JJ, I’m not sure. But I can’t be as callous as you. I can’t give up all semblance of decency and shack up with you when Isaac is hurting."
"You’re wasting time. This relationship with Isaac is a red herring. You know what we have is the real thing. You know you want this, Lena, so why are you denying it?"
"Because I still care about Isaac. He’s my friend. And it seems callous to flaunt our relationship in front of him."
"He’ll come around, Lena. He’ll understand that this is best for all of us."
"You mean for you. This is best for you," she argues.
"And for you. You know it, Lena."
"All I know is I need time to work through what I’m feeling. I need a clear head to figure things out, which means I need to keep my distance from you."
I curl my fingers into fists. The fact that she needs to keep her distance so she can think things through means she’s as affected by my nearness as I am by hers. That means something, right?
