A Debt Paid in Passion by Dani Collins

Author:Dani Collins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin Presents
Published: 2014-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

RAOUL HAD GROWN up in New York, but he didn’t care for it. Too many dark memories. The climate didn’t help, always socked in with rain or buried in snow or suffocatingly humid with summer heat. The place forced on him a heavy feeling of a weight inside him that he couldn’t shift.

He was already struggling with that when he paused on his way into a meeting and instructed the receptionist to interrupt him if Sirena called.

“Ms. Abbott? I thought she’d left the company! How is she?” The woman’s warmth and interest were sincere.

His blunt “Fine” was rude. And a lie. He’d left the house before he’d seen her this morning, but he knew from the way Sirena had blanched last night that she was not fine. He almost suspected she was injured in a way he hadn’t considered.

Brooding while he half listened to his engineers develop a workback schedule, he did some math. He hadn’t added everything together since their talk over drinks that night by the pool because he’d been distracted by other revelations, but if it was true she hadn’t dated after that boy in college, she’d had exactly one lover since her first, ill-fated relationship.

Him.

...sex isn’t that mindless for me. I need feelings on both sides.

The way she’d practically grabbed the voice bubble from the air and gobbled it back indicated pretty clearly that she’d never meant to admit that to him. Which made it disturbingly sincere.

Of course, I’m given to self-deception, she’d added to cover up, but that only made him grind his teeth, wondering if he was as well. Despite her motives for stealing unfolding into a picture of a woman who hadn’t believed he’d help if she asked, he’d never wavered from believing she’d slept with him to cover up what she’d done.

He needed to believe it. Anything else was too uncomfortable. He wasn’t a womanizer. He didn’t take advantage of the vulnerable. He didn’t lead women on.

She hadn’t expected one hookup to be a marriage proposal, she’d said, but had expected to be treated with respect.

At the time of their affair, he’d been way past respect into genuine liking. Affection. Something deeper he’d never contemplated letting himself feel.

God, when he thought back to how those twenty-four hours had gone, it was like another lifetime. The sweetness of her, the relief of finally giving in to touching her, the powerful release that had shaken him to the core...

The doors opening inside him, a sensation like footsteps invading the well-guarded depths of his soul. Even as their damp, half-clothed bodies had been trembling in ecstasy, he’d crashed back to the reality of what they’d just done. Whom he’d done it with. How vulnerable he felt.

His inner panels had lit up with alarm signals. While Sirena’s plump lips had grazed his throat, he’d been withdrawing, deeply aware of a sense of jeopardy. His father hadn’t killed himself because he’d fallen for his secretary. He’d killed himself because he’d fallen. In love. Deep emotions drove men to desperate acts.

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