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Until the truth hit her like a bucket of ice water as she realised what he was doing. Once again, she was letting him use her. She had dressed up for dinner and behaved as impeccably as she knew how and he was responding by behaving as if she were nothing more than a decorative object he could take to bed without conscience. As if she were a piece of clay he could mould to his own desires, never stopping to think that she might have feelings—and that he might be trampling all over them.
Tearing her lips away from his, she used all her strength to plant her hands on his shoulders to push him away and he jerked his head back in surprise.
His eyes darkened. ‘What’s wrong?’
She stepped away from him and the temptation he presented. She could feel the heat of her face and the thunder of her pulse as she glared at him. ‘What’s wrong? Are you...serious?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘Do you really think you can walk back into my life and completely disrupt it—and then expect me to have sex with you, just because you’ve snapped your fingers?’
‘But you want me.’
He said it unequivocally—like someone stating calmly that the sky was blue—and all the anger which had been simmering away inside Erin now came to the boil.
‘Oh, I might want you,’ she agreed. ‘My body may have been programmed to react to yours in a way I don’t particularly like, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to follow through. Because you don’t have any respect for women, do you, Dimitri? Not just me, but any woman. You use your undoubted charisma to get them into your bed, but you blaze through their lives without thinking about the consequences. You used me that night because you were in a dark place—and afterwards you just cast me aside, as if I was someone of no consequence. Like I was a thing—not a person.’
She shook her head as she struggled to get more breath in her lungs. ‘I thought my sister was wrong to tell you about my wedding—but now I can see it was probably the right thing to do. Leo does have the right to know about his father. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to act like...like some sort of convenience by getting intimate with you. Because that night was a one-off and it was a mistake.’
‘Erin—’
‘No! You aren’t going to change my mind—no matter how hard you try.’ Frustratedly she pushed a handful of hair away from her hot face. ‘While we’re here we can accomplish what we initially set out to do. I will pretend to be your secretary if that’s what you want and we can use the time to decide on a way forward best suited to our son. But I don’t plan on having sex with you, Dimitri—not now and not ever—so you’d better get that into your stubborn head.’
CHAPTER SIX
DIMITRI’S BODY ACHED and his blood sang with the most unbearable frustration he’d ever experienced. He still couldn’t quite believe the way the evening had ended—with Erin refusing to have sex with him, even though her body had been screaming out its objections as she’d pushed him away.
When had a woman ever done that?
Walking over to the unshuttered windows, he stared out at the clear night sky of Jazratan. With no light pollution, the stars were impossibly bright and they shone down over the desert plains like blazing beacons. He had left the bedroom windows open and the scent of the exotic blooms in the palace gardens drifted in to mingle with the heavy fragrance of the roses which perfumed the room. It was over two hours since she’d kicked him out of her suite and yet still he couldn’t sleep.
In the old days he might have seen off a shot or three of vodka to chase away the uncomfortable feelings which now gnawed away at the pit of his stomach. If he’d been in a city, he might have ordered a car to drive him to a casino, where he would play cards until daybreak. But it was nearly seven years since he’d drunk vodka or gambled away his money, and so far he hadn’t missed either.
Until tonight.
Tonight he would have welcomed the oblivion of something—anything—to blot out these dark thoughts. What he wouldn’t give to forget the accusations she’d flung at him, or to work out why they had cut so deep.
Because they were true?
He stared into the sky as a shooting star shot through the inky stratosphere, leaving behind a blurred and silvery trail. Had he treated her like a commodity by kicking her out of his apartment the morning after he’d bedded her—or had he simply been protecting her from the kind of man he really was? He hadn’t wanted to drag someone like Erin into the seedy world he’d inhabited at the time. He had looked into her shining eyes and known that he couldn’t take away any more of her innocence. She deserved better than him.
