Not Just the Boss's Plaything(68)

His voice was low, and there was an intense light deep in the dark of    his gaze. He reached over and traced a lazy pattern just above the    waistband of her linen trousers, where there was a gap between them and    her top. She sucked in a breath, so attuned to him that even that    faintest touch unleashed the fire in her, made her body ready itself for    him, as if on command. When he looked at her again, there was gold in    his eyes and the faintest curve on that cruel mouth of his.

"I think you should marry me," he said.

The world stopped.

No breath. No sound. No air.

But somehow, she didn't faint. She didn't fall. She only stood there, staring back at him. "What did you just say?"

"Don't play that game." He took her chin in his hand, his gaze piercing    into her, seeing far too much-and she couldn't allow that. She  wouldn't   survive it if he knew she loved him. Dru jerked her head  back, and he   let go, but not without reminding them both, wordlessly,  that he'd   allowed it.

"You can't be serious," she said, her breath, her voice-all of her    ragged. Uneven. Trembling as if what he'd said was some kind of    earthquake and she was still swaying in the aftermath.

"I have never been more serious in my life," he grated out, his dark eyes flashing.

And this, she found, hurt worst of all. It was everything she'd ever    wanted-more than she'd dreamed possible-but not like this. Never like    this. Two weeks ago he'd tricked her onto that plane, claiming they were    bound for Zurich. This was no different.

It just hurt more.

"No," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "I can't."

"Why not?" It was the voice he used to do business, to make deals. To    convince whoever dared say no to him that they should change their    answer-and they usually did.

Dru felt bruised. Battered. Torn apart by what she knew was the right    thing to do, and that treacherous part of her that wanted him however    she could get him. Why couldn't she simply jump at this chance, her    masochistic side wondered. He might learn to love her. Maybe he already    did, in as much as he was able. And wasn't maybe good enough?

But there was another voice in there now, a new one. Fragile and tiny, but hers.

"I deserve better," she heard herself say.

The effect on Cayo was immediate and dramatic, though he didn't seem to    move. It was as if all that power, all that ferocity, was suddenly    burning in his exotic eyes while the rest of him went terribly,    alarmingly still. As if she'd wounded him beyond measure.

" 'Better'?" he echoed.

Dru's hands shot out, as if to touch him, to hold him, but at the final    moment she found she didn't dare. Her throat was thick with grief, her    chest hurt, and there was nothing she could do. She couldn't make  this   better-and he was making it worse.

"I have a promise to keep to my brother," she whispered. "Nothing is more important than that."

Not even you, she thought miserably, while everything inside her revolted.

"Marry me." But it was less a command than a plea, wrapped up though it    was in his ruthless delivery. "It's the only solution." When she only    stared back at him through eyes that grew blurrier by the moment, he    looked almost desperate. "I don't know how to lose you," he said, his    voice near a whisper. "I can't."

"You'll have to learn," she managed to push out past the constriction in her throat.

"Dru-"

"I can't settle, Cayo." She threw that out, through the riot inside of    her, through the tears that threatened. And it just kept hurting more.    "Not even for you."

"Dru."

Even the way he said her name hurt. As if she was the one who'd mortally    wounded him. He reached over and took her face in his hands, and that    was when she noticed the tears wetting her cheeks, despite her best    efforts.

But he didn't love her. He didn't even pretend. Not even now, to marry    her. To keep her. He didn't love her. So she could tear herself into    pieces by leaving now, or she could stay with him and marry him and fall    apart by degrees, year by loveless year, until she really did hate  him   the way she'd only wished she could two weeks ago.                       
       
           



       

"I am not the monster you think I am," he said, soft and dark and straight into her heart, like a knife.

"Your two weeks are up, Cayo." It was the hardest thing she'd ever done.    The greatest sacrifice she'd ever made. She stepped back, watched his    hands drop away, and knew she would never be whole again. "You have  to   let me go."





 CHAPTER NINE

IF THIS WAS what it was like to care, Cayo thought some weeks after he'd    returned from Bora Bora and Dru had left him on the tarmac without a    backward glance, he had been right to discourage the practice for the    whole of his adult life.

When I decide to sabotage you, she had told him once, there will be    nothing the least bit passive about it. He couldn't help but wonder if    this was what she'd meant. This...aching sense of loss that colored    everything a dull gray.

He hated it.

He glared at one of his many vice presidents across the wide expanse of    his London desk, and managed, somehow, to refrain from wringing the    man's neck.

"I don't understand why I'm having this conversation," he said coldly.    The other man winced. Cayo drummed his fingers on the glossy expanse of    his desktop. "Surely I hired you to make decisions at this level    yourself."

He was being far kinder than he felt. Personable, even. But he knew he    was measuring himself against the kind of results Dru could have wrung    out of this man with a few smiles and a supportive word or two and, by    that tally, he was a failure.

That was something he was getting used to, however gracelessly. And she    still wasn't here. She had disappeared completely after his plane had    touched down on British soil, just as she'd promised she would. He    supposed he hadn't believed it would happen, that she would really do    it. He still didn't.

"Of course, of course, I would be happy-" the vice president in front of    him stammered out. "It's only that you always wanted to hear every    detail of every potential negotiation before-"

"That was before," Cayo said, and sighed. He rubbed at his temples and tried to stop glaring. "If there's nothing else...?"

He sat back in his mighty chair behind his massive desk and watched the    other man sprint for the safety of the outer office. And then, like    clockwork, his new assistant appeared in the doorway to update him on    his schedule and his messages.

Claire was everything anyone could want in a personal assistant, he    thought then, eyeing her. The agency had placed her the day he'd arrived    back from French Polynesia, and she'd acquitted herself beautifully  in   the weeks since. She was a quick learner. She was eager to please  and   yet didn't tremble every time he spoke, like so many of his  executives.   She was even pleasant enough to look at, in a very blond  and vaguely   Nordic sort of way, which he knew always put the potential  investors and   various clients at ease. She'd been with him a month  now and he had  yet  to detect a single flaw.

Save one. She wasn't Dru. She hardly knew how he took his coffee, much    less how to finesse his fractious and demanding board of directors with    seeming ease and nonchalance. He didn't ask for her thoughts on   delicate  business negotiations. He would never trust her to have his   interests  at heart while tending to long calls filled with unhappy   executives.  Claire was, he supposed, a perfectly decent personal   assistant.

Which forced him to consider the fact that Dru had been far more than    that. She'd been more like a partner. And she was gone now, as if she'd    never been at Vila Group at all. As if she'd never been with him.

What had he expected? He kept asking himself the same question, and    there was never any answer. Dru hated him. She'd told him so. Had he    really believed that sex could change that? Or that it might change who    he was-who he had always been? This monster who did not even know when    he was crushing the life out of the only thing he'd ever really cared    about?