Not Just the Boss's Plaything(71)

Did it really matter how he wanted her, as long as he did? Dru found    herself pacing the small space that was her kitchen in agitation. She    wished he'd handled it differently back in Bora Bora. She wished he'd    lied and told her he wanted her, needed her-and not only as his    assistant. She might not have believed him, but she'd have wanted to.    And maybe it would have been enough.                       
       
           



       

But she couldn't marry him when he couldn't even pretend to love her. It    turned out that was her line in the sand. Her single remaining    boundary.

"A girl has to have some standards," she said out loud, shaking her head    at herself. At the things she'd clung to all her life, like her  belief   that she would never be like her mother-and here she was, alone  in her   flat, halfway to Miss Havisham, arguing her way back to a man  who  could  never love her the way she deserved to be loved.

But that was the problem. Dru didn't simply want to be loved. She wanted    to be loved by Cayo. And she couldn't see how it made any kind of   sense  to do without him entirely. Maybe a sliver of Cayo really was   better  than nothing at all-because nothing else would do. The thought   of  another man was laughable. What would be the point? Another man   wouldn't  be Cayo.

Why couldn't they continue as they'd been? She considered it now,    scowling fiercely into her sink basin, and the truth was, she couldn't    even remember why she'd been so angry with him. Or why she'd been so    desperate to get away from him. These weeks were the longest she'd gone    without seeing him since she'd started to work for him five years ago.    And she hated it. She craved the simple solace of his dark gaze, his    impatient voice. Him. She missed him.

He might not want her the way she wished he could. He might only have    proposed to her as some last-ditch effort to hold on to something he    didn't want to lose, the same way he might feel about a particularly    limited-edition racecar, for example. Dru understood that. And it wasn't    that it didn't hurt. It was that being without him hurt more.

She wanted him more than she wanted her self-respect, it turned out,    whatever that made her. A fool. Her mother. A very sad woman destined    for a sad life of slivers. She supposed she would spend the rest of her    life dealing with the fallout of this choice she couldn't seem to help    making today. One way or the other.

But in the meantime, she knew exactly what she had to do.

* * *

Dru strode back into his life, and into the center of his office, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday afternoon.

She looked casual and chic in tight black trousers tucked into high,    gleaming boots with dangerous heels and a very complicated sort of    burgundy jumper that tied like a scarf and was somehow carelessly    elegant. Her glorious hair was swept back into a low ponytail. She'd    clearly spent more time in the sun, and it suited her. She had a healthy    glow about her, and her eyes were clear as they met his.

Mine, he thought, with a nearly vicious surge of desire.

He wanted his mouth on her. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted her    with a savagery that should have taken him out at the knees. Instead,    Cayo thrust his hands into his pockets and stood there behind his desk,    watching her, as the fury he'd been tamping down began to boil.

"I know how little you like it when people drop in on you without    appointments," Dru said in that calm, easy voice of hers that had been    haunting him for weeks. "I apologize." She smiled that damned smile of    hers. The one he hated. "Your new assistant seems lovely."

"She is perfect in every way," Cayo agreed, his voice all but a growl.    "A paragon, in fact. Truly the best personal assistant I've ever had."

"I'm delighted to hear that," she said, so very pleasantly. As if he was    just another rich man she had to placate. As if she was working.    "Though, if memory serves, you are a bit free with that particular bit    of praise. It does render it rather meaningless, I'd say."

He didn't say anything. He couldn't.

"I went back to Bora Bora, as planned," she told him quietly, her gaze searching his, though he didn't know for what.

"I hope your flight was pleasant." He couldn't help his sardonic tone, or the way his brow lifted. "Fly commercial, did you?"

"It took over forty hours." There was the hint of a rueful smile on her lips, which was closer, at least, to something real.

He was meant to respond to that, he knew. He should have. Her eyes met    his as if she was encouraging him simply to talk to her, as he might    have done before. But he couldn't do it. She'd wrecked him in ways he    still didn't understand. She'd left him. He'd let her leave. He still    couldn't comprehend either one of those things.                       
       
           



       

And beyond all that, he wanted her. Pure and simple. Despite knowing exactly how much wanting her destroyed him.

"Dru." He said her name with all the fury and betrayal and longing    inside him, letting it pour out of him, not even caring how it hit her.    "Why are you here?"

He watched her swallow, hard, as if she was nervous. It became physically painful that he still wasn't touching her.

"I've come to interview," she said, and her voice didn't quite shake but    still, he heard emotion there beneath it. A better man might not have    taken that as some kind of victory-but he had no such pretensions.

"Interview?" he echoed. He could hear the chill in his own voice. "For what?"

Her chin rose, those gray eyes of hers glittered, and once more, she was hiding from him. He could see it.

"My old position, of course."

He'd dreamed of this. Exactly this. He couldn't help but smile, and he    didn't have to see her reaction to know it wasn't a very nice smile at    all.

But she didn't break. Not his Dru.

"I'd like my old job back," she said, very distinctly. Politely. She    folded her hands in front of her like the passive and obedient underling    she had only ever pretended she was, and walked straight into his   hands  with her head held high. "I've come to beg for it, if necessary."





 CHAPTER TEN

HE LOOKED AS though he wanted to take her apart with his teeth. Dru    fought to control herself-her pounding heart, her galloping pulse, that    heaviness in her stomach that couldn't decide if it was desire or    anxiety. Or some combination of both.

"If you would like to beg, don't let me stop you," Cayo bit out after a    long moment, though his midnight amber eyes gleamed. "You can begin on    your knees."

She remembered that day in Bora Bora with picture-perfect clarity. She    remembered crawling to him across the polished wood floor, smiling up  at   him from between his strong legs. Wanting him more than her next    breath. She still did. Heat flashed over her, and she was afraid she    turned bright red. His eyes were narrow and hot, and she knew beyond a    shadow of a doubt that he was remembering the same thing.

"Sweet memories," he said, deliberately provoking her, but she couldn't    seem to react the way she might have before. She couldn't seem to    breathe past the sheer force of him. It was if she'd dulled the    intensity of him in her memory, to protect herself. He was shocking and    bold, dark gold eyes and jet-black hair, and all that mouthwatering    muscle and masculine grace. His suit was perfectly tailored and made him    look sleek. Predatory. But not at all tamed. Not Cayo.

And now she knew what he could do with every last inch of that beautiful body. She found she'd lost her voice completely.

His eyes gleamed even more molten gold than before. He stepped out from    behind his desk and roamed around to the front, leaning back against  it   so he was only a foot or two away from her. She schooled herself  not  to  react, not to step away or show anything on her face, even as  the  back  of her neck prickled in warning. In desperate, mindless want.