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She did, taking the olive without touching his fingers. She layered a piece of cheese on salami and stabbed it with the forked end of the knife, hovering it close to his mouth.
“Your turn,” she said.
He reared back to examine the offering, then bit it from the knife with strong teeth. “Good job with the cheese,” he complimented. He held his hand out. “Bottle opener?”
She pulled it out of her pocket, and he quickly uncorked the wine, offering the bottle to her. “No glasses, so you’ll have to lower yourself to drink out of the bottle,” he said.
“Lower myself,” she echoed, giving him a sarcastic look. Then the memory of her unsuccessful meeting with Davos flashed in her mind and tied a knot of tension in her stomach. “I’ve done worse things than drink wine out of a bottle.”
Her voice sounded choked, and she cleared her throat. She reached for the bottle, but he held it a second longer.
“We’ve all done things we’re not proud of,” he murmured, releasing the bottle.
She took a long drink, wiped the corner of her mouth, and took another before passing it back to him. “I feel like the list of things I’m not proud of got exponentially longer this last year,” she said with a humorless laugh. Suddenly she felt on the verge of tears.
He took a quick drink and shifted closer to her on the bed, setting the bottle on the table behind her. He leaned in close to her but without touching. “You can tell me anything, Hart,” he said, the rumble of his voice painting goose bumps up her arms.
The threat of tears hung thick in her throat. She’d always told her sorority sisters her problems, but lately, with each of them finding different paths to happiness, she couldn’t bring herself to burden them with her issues. She felt more alone than she ever had. And she made it a point to never feel that way.
“I tried to persuade Davos, my investor, to…to—” The memory of her failed seduction came back a hundred-fold.
“Davos wanted to call in his investment?” Monty prompted. “But you persuaded him not to?”
“I tried, but it didn’t work,” she managed, letting herself lean closer to his warm arm. “Then Yuki met me in Dallas, ready to take Cavendish back. It has not been a good week.”
“It’s only money,” he replied.
“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Billionaire.”
“My board was ready to challenge me as CEO if I didn’t get my ass to Beijing ASAP, so nobody’s exempt from making mistakes.”
She leaned away to look at him. “Because you were hanging around here the last few months?”
“Exactly that.”
There was so much in his eyes—eyes that usually wanted sex or wanted to fight. Now they wanted something different. To understand, maybe?
You can trust me, he’d texted at her. Maybe it was time to test that.
“I tried to seduce Davos, and he rejected me,” she blurted. She hung her head. Not because she didn’t want Monty to see her tears, but because she didn’t want to see the coldness she was sure would be in his eyes.
She crumbled completely when he gathered her against him. She let it all out, not caring how wet his shirt got or how disappointed he might be. The kindness he offered was all she cared about.
“You’re fine,” he murmured into her hair.
“It’s a slut move, and I’m better than that,” she said, hating her shaky voice.
“Let me tell you what I think. You’re a businesswoman facing what you think is disaster. Whatever happened between you and Davos, I bet the single thought in your mind was saving Cavendish because of your Sigma sisters. I know you feel they’ve invested in this, which by default is investing in you. And you haven’t had an easy time of it.”
She melted against him, because that had been the exact thought in her mind when she’d kneeled on a pillow in front of that silk-robed asshole. That was her biggest worry with Cavendish failing, that she’d lose the sisterhood she thought of as family.
She cried quietly, and Monty comforted her. Finally, she dried her teary face on his shirt and pulled away. “How puffy do I look?” she asked, dabbing her fingertips under her eyes.
“Pretty puffy,” he said, scanning her face. “Also strong.”
“A strong baby with all these tears.”
He smiled, but his expression hinted at something deeper. “I’ve never seen you cry.” He touched the corner of her eye to dab away a tear she’d missed. “Have you ever cried before?”
