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Mind flailing, she battled to process this latest punch. Jack thought she planned that video—with Marco? He thought she purposefully made herself a laughing stock and invited a storm of torrential hate to rain down on her. And for what? A few extra bookings for her family’s restaurant.
That was wrong on so many levels she didn’t know where to start. She didn’t have to. Suddenly, he appeared taller, larger, then she realized it was because he was closer. Looming over her with those green-gold eyes dark as burnt caramel. The freckly smudges she had worshipped with her mouth, all thirteen of them, were practically transparent against the high color in his face.
Trying to parse gradations of the truth would be futile. She had stopped Gina—she had fired her—but the actions of her cheating family were down to her. The buck stopped here, she thought grimly, like she was the President or something.
“I had nothing to do with that video. My family made a mistake and I take full responsibility for it.”
In his fury-stoked eyes, she thought she saw a flash of the Jack she knew but it vanished before she could grasp it.
“Which part, Lili? Which part was a mistake?” A couple more steps and he had sealed them together, his forearms trapping her against the countertop. All banked heat, his body vibrated raw power, a contrast to his unyielding mouth, cruel and unforgiving.
Still beautiful, though. Always that.
He rubbed his thumb across her lip, soft, devastating, and she gasped at the tenderness, another electrifying difference from the hard, unbending lines of his face. It shamed her to admit it, but that simple touch was enough to rev her body up to all systems go in zero point zero seconds flat.
“Which part was a mistake, Lili? Kissing me senseless in that bar? Playing hot nurse at my hotel? Letting me stroke and tease you until you could barely stand it? Biting me when I wouldn’t fuck you fast enough? Was that a mistake?”
He pushed his thumb past her lips and the heat in her belly turned to want. And the want turned to need. And the need turned to heat again. She moaned.
At the sound, he dropped his hand from her face as if her touch made his skin crawl. His eyes dimmed, like all the lights in the city had blacked out in one fell swoop.
“I think the mistake was that you were found out. I’ve just been a pawn in your games. Promote the restaurant. Win back Marco. Take your pick. And if you get your rocks off along the way, that’s a bonus. Cara told me all about the plan. How I was brought in to show you a good time.”
Now her gasp was from shock instead of pleasure. She couldn’t get a full breath. Only useless little bursts of air made it to her lungs.
“We could have been so good together. So damn—” He raked his hair fast, but not so fast she missed the tremor in his hand. “I should have just screwed you when you threw yourself at me.”
A choked sob caught in her throat. Whoever said words could never hurt hadn’t the first idea what they were talking about. She felt hollowed out, her chest a large, empty cavity. No heartbeat, no breaths, nothing.
Then he was gone.
She wiped her eyes. No tears, but her hands shook and she slumped against the countertop. Her skin still burned from where his thumb had branded her.
A few hours ago, she had felt she could do anything because being with him had that effect. She could get the restaurant back on track and finally apply to grad school. She could fix things between Jack and his sister. She could give herself to the most exciting man she had ever met and revel in his naked desire for her. The thought of seeing more of him had scared her, but she could withstand a lot, even insults and jibes from people she had never met. But not from him. She was strong, but not that strong.
Because if she were stronger, she wouldn’t be feeling like her entire world had crashed around her ears and the one person who could make it better despised the floor she stood on.
Thirty
This hotel suite is too bloody small, Jack decided.
And there was nothing on TV. A Kilroy’s Kitchen episode sighting resulted in a resounding strike of the off button on the remote. At the moment, he couldn’t stand his real self, never mind that impostor on the small screen.
Since stalking out of DeLuca’s a couple of hours ago, he’d fought an internal battle, trying to push from his memory Lili’s injured expression when he’d lain out his indictment of the DeLucas. Either she was good enough to give Meryl Streep a run for her Oscars or he’d got it so wrong he had destroyed everything.
But damn, he wasn’t wrong. A mistake, she’d said about her family’s cheatin’ ways. Sure was. One big mistake, yet, somehow he was the one left feeling like shit. That kind of math made no sense. Not getting laid for months, that was the kind of math he understood because when you haven’t had sex for an eternity, it blocks up your brain. Lili was the first woman to spark his interest since he’d started this ludicrous sex fast and he had let her burrow under his skin.
No.
More.
He should watch porn. That’d teach her, but although he’d demanded the indiscreet, snap-happy employee who had uploaded photos of his breakfast banquet be gifted his pink slip, Jack still couldn’t be sure that tasty morsel wouldn’t get passed on to the press. Jack Kilroy watched Busty Babes of Baja Beach. Twice! Anyway, who needed porn when his brain was jam packed with one gorgeous Italian girl wearing a come-hither smile that guaranteed a permanent hard on? Oh, and he was clearly a masochist because the object of his obsession didn’t just despise him, she’d flat out used him. Just like Ashley with her tell-all. Just like John Sullivan with his upturned palm. Those heart-crushing disappointments should have taught him to calibrate his hopes.
But she sacked Gina.
Big deal. She protected Marco. No doubt she was enjoying the comfort of his Armani-suited arms right this minute.
Arms you drove her into.
