LITMIR.BIZ

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won’t just hand them to me. You’re determined to make me miss my job interview. Look around. Getting me fired did nothing to my father,” she charged.

      “I know that I misjudged you,” he snapped back. “But your father and brother are on the attack against me. That’s not up for dispute. It’s reality. And it’s not common knowledge that you’ve lived apart from them all these years. Given the way things looked in the funeral photos, it was an easy mistake to make.”

      “I know,” she said with the same impatience. She could understand and almost forgive that part. She had plenty of unexpressed anger of her own toward her father and brother. “And I have no problem believing they stole from you.”

      His brows went up a smidgen. “Not many would take my word for it.”

      “Anton isn’t capable of writing his own email, let alone launching a high-tech start-up. I’ve always wondered how he managed it.” She smiled bitterly. “And I have a lot of experience with how low they can sink.”

      His gaze sharpened and she dropped her own, shielding herself, unprepared to let him delve into all the anguish and fury roiling inside her.

      “So get in.”

      “No.”

      “For God’s sake, why not?”

      “Because I don’t trust you!”

      His head went back and his expression grew carved and stoic. “I’m not going to touch you. I didn’t mean to sleep with you that day.”

      “Oh, that’s funny,” she choked, trying to end that topic before it went any further. She was mortified he’d brought it up.

      “It’s the truth,” he shot back, his energy like a living thing that whipped and raced on the tail of the wind, lashing her with its force. He was tense. Very tense as he confronted her, as if he was willing her to believe him. It was weirdly fascinating.

      She tore her gaze away, not wanting to get caught up in trying to decipher the truth from his lies. Not wanting to hear excuses and let down her guard. He’d already gotten past her defenses too easily, setting her back so she was as naked and defenseless as she’d been that day. It wasn’t him she mistrusted, but herself.

      She ought to be able to shut him out the way she had with her father and Anton. Roman meant nothing to her. Less than nothing. As bitter as she was toward her father and half brother, she went days, weeks even, without thinking of them, but no such luck with Roman. He was top of her mind every day, ambushing her with memories of kisses and caresses and wrenching pleasure.

      She swallowed, not wanting the recollections to surface now.

      Her blood warmed anyway. Her senses heightened, making her aware of his scent, masculine and sharp, beneath the sweet smell of rain and the comforting notes of damp wool. Clothing didn’t make a man, but everything about his appearance amplified his stark masculinity. His cheekbones were proud and chiseled, his nose a blade, his lips twitching almost into a closed-mouth kiss as he prepared to speak.

      “I slept with you in spite of who you are, not because of it,” he said in a growl.

      “Had a staggering crash in your standards, did you?” Insult blindsided her as she absorbed that he was saying she’d been willing and he had merely taken advantage. Any man would. “At least when I thought you seduced me for revenge, it was personal. I honestly thought I couldn’t feel worse about that day. Thanks, Roman. You’re a real guy.”

      “And you’re twisting me into a far more vicious bastard than I am.”

      She stared at him, astonished. “You made hatred to me.” The words swelled in her throat. She clenched her jaw, trying to hold back convulsive shivers, trying to hold on to control and not allow emotion to rise up and sting her eyes. “At least I had some respect for you that afternoon, before you started ruining my life.”

      “Would you get in the damned car?”

      She realized people were walking by, staring. Overhearing.

      She was freezing, and warm air radiated from the interior. With a sob of annoyed misery, she threw herself into the backseat.

      He followed and slammed the door, adjusting the vents so hot gushes of air poured directly onto her.

      She didn’t thank him, even though her legs were stinging and her fingers were numb. She attacked the box with her name on it, spilling her mother’s necklace into her lap. Picking it up, she pressed the treasured beads to her lips.

      “I only meant to do to you what they did to me, which was cut short your career and leave you with bills to pay,” Roman said.

      She dropped her hands. “But you accidentally slept with me, even though you hated me,” she charged, going hot again. Bristling with temper.

      “Yes,” he asserted, as if that proved some kind of point beyond the fact he was a conscienceless womanizer.

      “To humiliate me,” she confirmed in a jagged voice, looking over at him in time to see guilt flash across his expression before he controlled it.

      “I thought you were throwing yourself at me for their purposes. It looked as if you were trying to trick me into letting you stay in my house. I let you come on to me so I could turn you down,” he admitted.

      “But you went through with it,” she said, returning to that deep sense of bitterness that had burned through her with every step of her journey back to the hotel that day, as she’d absorbed that what had looked like a white knight had actually been the same blackened soul that the men in her family possessed. “How do people like you sleep at night? That’s what I want to know.”

      “Do not lump me in with them, Melodie,” he fired back, temper riled enough to darken his expression and press her into her seat. “Do you see them chasing you down the East Coast to ask about consequences? I am not just like them.” His jaw worked. “I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a good man, definitely not a great one, but I’m not as immoral as they are.”

      The way she’d set him on the same reprehensible shelf as the Gautier men ate at him. She could see it. That should have been more satisfying, but it just made her feel small.

      “Sleeping with you just happened,” he muttered.

      “Because I threw myself at you,” she provided, feeling the sting press forward from the backs of her eyes to blur her vision. “Because you couldn’t resist me.” Spider arms. Freak.

      She narrowed her eyes, turning her face away as she willed Anton’s voice to silence and willed her tears to dry before they squeezed past her lashes and fell.

      “Yes.”

      She hated Roman in that moment. Really hated him. Because he sounded so begrudging as he said it. Not smooth and charming and manipulative. Resentful. He sounded as confounded by his reaction as she was by hers. That made him sound truthful even though she was convinced he had to be lying.

      “I know I’m not beautiful. At best, I’m striking,” she said, straining to keep emotion from her voice. “I’m certainly not the type who inspires lust, so give it a rest. You wanted to hurt me. Which you did.”

      “I’m not here to hurt you again,” he ground out, flinching as though she’d slapped him. “I can’t take back what I did. If I could...” he began tightly, emotions so compressed she couldn’t read anything in his tone but intensity.

      He would take it back? Her heart clenched in a surprisingly strong contraction of agony.

      Of course she would take it back, too, she assured herself, even as their heights of pleasure danced through her consciousness, reminded her how rare and singular the experience had been. He’d ruined her for accepting anything less, if he wanted the truth, which left her feeling bleak and hopeless.

      “You told me that day that you were attracted

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