Billionaire Boss, M.D.(33)

“Stop.” His admonition was exasperated, almost pained. “Stop jumping to conclusions about me and what I mean. I don’t want you on my project because I don’t want your efforts and focus divided. I want them on your own work, where you’re making remarkable progress.”

He did? And he knew that? How?

“But when you conclude your work successfully, if you’re still interested in any of my projects, there’s nothing I want more than to have the benefit of your vision and expertise.” He paused, exhaled, the searing blue of his eyes suddenly darkening. “But I’m not here to talk about work.”

The heart that had been expanding with his every word felt as if it shriveled again. He was here to clear that personal land mine that now existed between him and an employee he wanted to keep.

She nodded. “I understand.”

“I doubt you do.”

“You must want to talk about that night two weeks ago. That’s the other thing I’d hoped to talk to you about. I want you to forget that embarrassing episode ever happened, and be sure nothing like that will ever happen again. Just chalk it up to pathetic inexperience and let it go at that, okay?

As if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said, his gaze focused on her eyes with such intensity, she felt them misting.

“Do you know why I’ve stayed away these two weeks?” he asked quietly.

She forced everything in her to go still, refusing to jump to more conclusions, especially ones laden with false hopes. She’d already accepted that he’d streak through her life like a meteor, affording her a brief blaze of splendor before he disappeared. She should be thankful he’d hurtled on before he’d done more damage. She should cling to the shield of resignation, even if every cell in her body still popped with the electricity of anticipation.

When she said nothing, Antonio answered his own question. “I retreated to give you space, to reassess the damages I caused when I pursued you, besieged you, forced you out of your comfort zone and into what you might come to regret.”

That was why he’d stayed away? Not for the horrible, degrading reasons she’d been torturing herself with?

“But there was another reason, too.”

Her heart hit Pause, dreading his next words.

“I had to rethink everything I’d intended for this lab, to make decisions that would benefit everyone the most, by letting them resume their work or make their own choices, with my adjustments.” He started walking closer, the gaze fixed on her filling with so much she couldn’t bring herself to believe. “I had to prove to you, and to myself, that I can do what you can approve of, can be someone you can truly value and admire. You made me reconsider everything I do, professionally and personally.”

By the time he was close enough for her to reach out and touch him again, she was ready to collapse at his feet. And that was before he made his closing statement.

“And that’s why I’m here now. To tell you I want to hit a restart button with you. At your pace, on your terms.”

* * *

Antonio had never dreaded anything in his life, a life filled with horrors and dangers and catastrophes. Not really.

But he dreaded Liliana’s answer. He didn’t know what he’d do if she rejected him.

Could he just walk away? How, when the thought of losing her sent him straight out of his ordered, controlled mind?

For two weeks he’d forced himself to stay away, until he could provide her with tangible proof of what she meant to him, how she’d changed him. That time apart from her had been almost more than he could bear. He’d spent every moment struggling not to charge after her, to carry her back to his bed and keep her there until he’d branded her, made her unable to walk away from him ever again.

But first he had to prove to her he could become a man she could trust and respect for his ability to change, to do the right thing, not only a man she could admire for his abilities or lust after for his body and the unstoppable chemistry they shared.

Waiting for her verdict as if it would decide his fate, believing it would, he struggled to keep his expression from betraying the upheaval inside him. The last thing he needed was to scare her off with the intensity of his need.

“Why?”

After every scenario he’d played out in his head, she managed to surprise him yet again with that one-word question for an answer. She neither jumped on his offer, nor made him grovel some more, nor rejected him outright.

“You’ll have to help me here, Liliana. Why what exactly?”

“Why me? Really? Now that the element of my surprise, my novelty, is gone, not to mention my resistance? When I never considered those reasons enough for you to pursue me in the first place?”