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She opened heavy-lidded eyes and curled her fingers over his forearms. He hadn’t meant to sound angry, but there it was, blistering his skin, ten years’ worth of regret scraping out of his throat.
“Eighty-seven thousand six hundred hours.”
He shook his head and sat back on his heels.
“Eighty-seven thousand six hundred hours is ten years. I’ve missed you every day. I told myself I hated you, but it’s me I’m angry with. I never should’ve run from you, I should’ve let you find me, because we could’ve been something.”
Oh fuck. He went for her mouth. She’d said almost everything he’d ever wanted to hear from her, and it was too late.
When she was made of nothing but noodle limbs and the spice of their coming together, he flipped her over and hauled her hips up, taking her from behind with a thrill of hot fury, one hand to her scorpion belly and the other wrapped around her hair, too craven to meet her eyes, desperate to give her what he’d be unable to at twenty, desperate to take what he’d never have again.
His own staved-off orgasm hit him like eighty-seven thousand six hundred pounds of pleasure and relief so profound he was stunned silent, motionless, only dimly aware he was crushing her, rolling them and then fighting to stay awake as she slipped toward sleep.
Limp and warm and snuggled to his chest, she was seconds from gone when she said, “Don’t even think about going near that coat.”
He murmured something deliberately unintelligible and she responded with, “I trust you,” a crooked smile on her face.
It was the most devastating thing she’d ever said to him.
When her breathing went slow and deep, he pulled out of her arms. He took his cell to the bathroom and made a call. He dressed, used a steak knife to open the lining of her coat, and he stole the Sweet Celestia right from under her, easy as he wrecked their chance to ever be anything together again.
Chapter Nine
Nothing was too much trouble for the hotel: extra towels, a pillow menu, give your wayward pretend husband a room key, collect a left-behind coat worth sixty-one million dollars and some chump change, provide hair-clippers.
The sink was full of Aria’s hair, and strands of it were all over the floor. Housekeeping was lucky it wasn’t blood, viscera and body parts. She’d wanted to dismember Cleve when she’d woken alone. Taking her stupidity out on her own head was her version of trashing the room in a fit of rage.
She’d gone to sleep knowing she’d have to negotiate a partnership with him to get the sale done because what he’d said about her vulnerability rang true. She was a minor player breaking into the big leagues and as much as it irked, she hadn’t paid her dues and since she operated as a lone wolf, she didn’t have protection.
She’d trusted him.
She’d given him her body and opened her heart to him. She’d fallen asleep tangled in him and expected to doze and wake in his arms, to leave the hotel with him, to run with him, and if it worked out, to keep running with him, because he was right about that too—what they could be together.
Nothing.
They could be a black yawing pit of flaming nothing.
She called Pari while she packed. Got factory noise in the background before Pari answered.
“Hi, can you talk?” she said.
The grinding sound faded. “Can now. How’s my investment?”
“About that.”
“Yakuza bitch giving you trouble? You expected that. You’ll find a way to sweat her.”
Aria scrubbed her hand over the top of her head, feeling the soft stubble. “I may have overestimated my ability to do that. It’s over.”
“It isn’t over till the fat lady sings.” Pari broke into Adele’s “Hello.”
“Adele is not fat.”
Pari snorted. “She’s no size zero.”
“Fuck size zero. She’s beautiful. You wish she’d wear your shoes.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Fuck size zero. I’d kill to have her wear my shoes. What’s the deal?”
