Drew had always seemed a step above the salesmen she usually crossed paths with. A little too well groomed. A little too edgy.
And now…
Well, the instant she’d glanced into his eyes, she’d known the information was right. And that he knew that she knew.
She quirked a brow at him over her shoulder only to find his gaze lingering on her backside.
Her blood heated, but not in anger. Instead, desire ignited in her stomach and rushed through her veins. A reaction she was sorely unprepared for.
How could she still crave him sexually when he’d hit her with such a crushing emotional blow?
“Josie, I…you have to believe me when I say that the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”
He surely couldn’t be saying what he was.
She turned fully and leaned against the counter while the coffee brewed. The only sounds were the spitting of the machine and the uneven cadence of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Her voice was quieter than she meant it to be. “Is this where you try to convince me that you only had my best interests in mind?” She swallowed past the emotion clogging her throat. “Drew, you…you wanted to take away the Josephine. My hotel.”
Pain rippled across his handsome face. “I used the present tense, not the past.”
She tried to follow him but her brain seemed oversaturated, incapable of making sense out of even the simplest of statements, and his had been anything but.
He looked suddenly agitated, as if understanding that he stood on a sinking boat that was taking on more water than he could bail out. And stunningly, she felt a need to make things easier for him.
How could that be? This man had come to her place under false pretenses, had lied to her from the word go. Had schemed to take away the thing that meant the most to her.
Hot tears flooded her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispered, starting for the door so she could go up to her rooms and lock herself in where no one could bother her. No one could touch her. Lie to her.
She hadn’t expected him to grasp her wrist as she passed. In a knee-jerk reaction, she slapped him soundly across the face with her free hand.
He blinked at her, and she got the impression that his wince was as much due to the physical blow as to the crack to his ego.
“I suppose I deserved that.”
“You deserve much worse.”
He averted his gaze. “You’re right, I do.”
Josie didn’t know how she knew, but she sensed that he meant what he was saying. And hope lit anew in her stomach.
A hope she didn’t want. Not when what they’d shared had been temporary anyway. She’d always known it would end.
For some reason, she didn’t want it to end badly.
He looked up into her eyes again, his gaze intense. “I know all this-what you’ve learned about me-is a shock. And that right now you’re reacting on an emotional level…and that you’re hurting.” He lifted his hand to her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. When she moved so he couldn’t touch her, he dropped his hand back to his side, his eyes beseeching. “Think about it, Josie. Try to look beyond how you’re feeling right now.” She heard the click of his deep swallow. “Not once did I ever mention a word to you about selling the hotel. Not ever.”
She couldn’t fully absorb his words.
“What do you think that means, Josie? Here I am, a guy whose only intention, supposedly, is to get you to sell, yet I never mentioned the hotel and the many problems you’re having. Not once.”
From a place outside herself, she realized he was right. He’d never made the hotel or her ownership or possible sale of it the focus of any conversation they’d had.
Of course, most of their time together had been spent having sex.
Still…
She reached beyond the cloud of betrayal and hurt and tried to grasp something that was just outside her ability to get hold of just then.
“‘The Closer,’” she whispered. “I get the impression you’re very good at your job, Drew. At whatever you decide that job to be.”
He shifted on his feet and she noticed the way he held his hands tightly still, as if barely able to contain his longing to touch her. And suddenly, irrationally, she wanted that touch more than her next breath, despite her knowledge that he could be working her still, even at this moment.
His voice lowered to a rasping murmur that made her shiver. “If you can’t answer the question of why I never mentioned the hotel, Josie, then answer this one-what am I doing here? Why am I standing before you right now, out of my mind with the thought that I’ll never again be able to touch you? Kiss you? Taste your sweetness on my tongue? Hold you in my arms?”
She searched his eyes, her brain stalling, her body longing to surge forward, longing for him. But she had more to say. “You could be here because you didn’t finish what you came here to do.”
She watched his eyes close briefly. Then he lifted his right hand, put it down again, then raised it again so that he could trail his fingertips over the inside of her arm at her elbow. Goose bumps ran over her skin at the subtle yet powerful touch. Over her wrist, her palm, then he was lacing his fingers with hers. He lifted her hand so that the back of it rested against his chest.
“You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t finish what I started.” His pupils dilated, taking over the blue of his eyes. “Only my objective did a complete one-eighty the instant I kissed you. The moment you invited me into your body…and into your heart.”
The aforementioned organ had contracted to the point where it clutched painfully in her chest.
“And I am there, aren’t I, Josie?” He moved their hands so that they rested between her breasts. “Just as you’re in mine.”
A part of her didn’t want to hear what he was saying. Wanted words that would feed the ache in her stomach and help her shore up her crumbling defenses.
“Yes, I’m an independent contractor. Yes, I worked for a client that wants your hotel. Yes, I came here with the sole intention of getting it for him.”
She narrowed her eyes. Where was he going with this? Every word seemed to aim for and hit her where she was most vulnerable.
“But all that’s changed, Josie. None of that makes sense to me anymore. My job seems so unimportant.”
She licked her lips, unable to speak, unable to move, mesmerized by what he appeared to be saying.
“What is important is the fact that I’m falling in love with you.”
An almost unbearable pain mixed with hope inside her.
“Correction-I’m not falling in love with you. I’m in love with you. And falling deeper every moment I gaze into your eyes and touch your soft skin.”
His thumb was stroking her hand, sending sensations rushing up her arm and over her sleep-deprived body.
“I can’t…” she began, towing her gaze from his face and searching for something, anything, with which to pull herself free from the overwhelming emotions enveloping her. “I can’t deal with this right now, Drew.” She found a piece of strength within to draw from. Strength that had been in the Villefranche family for longer, much longer, than she’d been a part of it. “Maybe what you’re telling me is the truth. Maybe not. Maybe this is all just some sort of ruse to try to salvage a situation beyond repair.”
On a level she was loath to recognize, she sensed that this wasn’t the case, but her doubts needed to be addressed.
She smiled sadly, giving in to her own overpowering need to touch him and lifting her free hand to his face. She ran her fingertips over his strong cheekbone, over his jaw, the rasp of his stubble rough against her palm.