Owned By Fate(33)

“Oh, God, please stop calling me that.” He swallowed hard but remained silent. “I know what you’re thinking. That I don’t know my own mind. That I say one thing and do another. You’re right. About all of it. That’s why I’m leaving. That’s why I won’t come back.”

“Explain.”

She heaved a breath toward the ceiling in a mannerism he’d already come to associate with her. “Where does this end? With me getting flogged in front of an audience?”

“Never.”

His vehemence appeared to take her aback for a moment. “It’s a slippery slope, that’s all I’m trying to say.”

He shook his head. “You’re above clichés, Caroline. We’re above them.”

“Jonah…” He saw her consider being honest with him for a moment. Just a flash and it was gone, but it was enough to tell him something more complex lingered behind her panicked explanation as she searched for an excuse to fill the void her honesty had left behind. “I can’t be associated with you. It would be bad for my career. Bad for me personally.” She raised her hand and let it drop. “You brought me here tonight to enlighten me, but one night doesn’t make it something I could consider permanently. Or condone publicly.”

He ignored the second part, knowing she’d said it to push him further away. All he knew was she would leave in a minute, and it felt so infinitely wrong, he couldn’t get his head around it. “We weren’t meant to be limited to one night.” His gaze held hers. “Admit that much. Admit that what’s between us isn’t about some fucking article.”

Her lips parted on a shaky exhale, and Jonah felt arousal flood his belly. A wave of self-disgust followed. For wanting her, even as she stood there explaining why he wasn’t good enough. “If I admitted it, it still wouldn’t change anything. I can’t continue to do these things with you and still respect myself.” Before he could respond to that hurtful statement, she picked up her purse from the floor and swept past him, giving him a wide berth.

“Stop.” His command brought her up short in the doorway. “I’m walking you out.”

“That’s completely unnecessary.”

Jonah closed the distance between them, tilting her chin up and getting right in her face. Awareness shone hotly in her eyes, and he wanted to curse it. It proved he could have her again, but it would only prolong the inevitable. “If you think I’m going to let you walk through my club looking like you’ve been ridden hard and put up wet, you’re about to be terribly disappointed.”

Indignant color rose in her cheeks, but wisely she didn’t argue. “Fine,” she snapped. “Since you put it so nicely.”

They rode the elevator in silence, although her nipples straining against her dress and the rapid rise and fall of her chest told Jonah she still desired him. It was the worst kind of torture imaginable when the temptation to fuck her until she relented sang loudly in his head. He waved forward one of the black town cars idling outside Serve and waited until it disappeared from sight, wishing like hell she hadn’t turned around to watch him as it drove away.





Chapter Ten

The article she’d written about Serve was live.

Caroline stared at her computer screen, watching the Preston’s website log hit after hit. Hundreds of comments turned into thousands as she sat there, people reading her feature from the comfort of their own desks, probably horrified as they read about Serve.

While she sat there feeling hollow.

Last night, she’d come home knowing if she didn’t write the article and publish it on the website the same night, she never would. Every word of the article was true, she’d managed that much. Kept her journalistic integrity intact at the very least. The way she’d managed it? She hadn’t mentioned Jonah. Not once. If she had, the article would have been entirely different. Her distaste wouldn’t have shown through and it would have been softer. Less objective. Essentially, she’d written what she’d observed inside the club’s four walls in an uncharacteristically toneless piece that would likely hurt Jonah. If not his feelings, his image. An image that mattered when you were trying to get visitation with your daughter.

Caroline’s stomach turned at the reminder. She’d done what was necessary, though. Hadn’t she? Her father, the man who had built this magazine from the ground up, had demanded a negative article so Oliver would drop the merger idea. Oliver hadn’t demanded a positive spin the way her father had demanded a negative one, but the request had been made all the same. She hadn’t given in to either of them, really, since the article had no angle. None of her opinion, either, even though it was an op-ed. Why did that make it even worse?