Page 38 of Caught Between Two Billionaires
He growls. “You know what I mean. Why do you need to pay for a damn butterfly garden when she’s in remission?”
“You must have been keeping tabs on her to know so much.”
“Apparently they left something out.”
His bluntness makes me laugh, though nothing is funny right now. “There’s a pretty high chance that it will come back, and then we’d have to do it all again. The radiation… God, it nearly killed her on its own. She won’t do it again. She already said so.”
He stares for a moment. “She’ll change her mind.”
My stomach clenches, because that’s what I want. “Contrary to what you think, people don’t work like machines that do whatever you program them to do.”
“She’ll change her mind if it’s the only way.”
“You don’t know her,” I say sharply. “And you sure as hell don’t care about her, so don’t pretend to me. But there is another way. There’s an experimental treatment. A study that’s already full, but they’re going to make an exception.”
He makes a rough sound. “Oh, that’s rich. Trading the chance to live for a new goddamn butterfly garden. Very noble of them.”
“That’s the way the world works. The only reason they even made me the offer is because they knew I could afford it. Or at least they thought I could.”
Christopher turns away, looking out at the dark window. It’s too reflective, showing his silhouette and my shoulders at the forefront of the city. “I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t change anything, though. Does it?” He’s still not going to let the trust fund pay for the butterfly garden. It has nothing to do with money.
Everything to do with control.
He swings back to face me, at least doing me the courtesy of looking into my eyes when he shakes his head. “No. I can see why that made you grateful to Sutton, the offer he made, but he’s doing this for our project. Or to get under your dress.”
It doesn’t even occur to Christopher that he’s basically calling me a prostitute, suggesting that the only reason I let Sutton touch me is out of gratitude for a job. There’s no anger in me, because even though Daddy made me messed up about men and money, he also helped me understand them.
“What I do with Sutton is my own business,” I say, before adding, “You made sure of that when you pushed me away after the will reading.”
His throat works. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”
That makes me smile, bittersweet. There’s an old thread in my chest, worn and threadbare, one I could have sworn was broken years ago. Trust for the man named Christopher Bardot, that thread. It tugs in this moment, somehow still there. “Oh sure, you should have. Your goal was to make sure no part of that stupid crush survived, and it worked.”
“I do… care about you,” he says in the most awkward declaration ever.
And then I have to stand up, because I’m not the woman who’s going to take orders from this man. He would have to work a hell of a lot harder than that. It makes me angry to hear these things I would have swooned over four years ago. Where was he, then? It’s too late now. I’m older and wiser. And a hell of a lot more guarded. “As a sister?”
He shakes his head, eyes glittering. “Never.”
“As a friend?”
There’s an unsteady laugh. “You were more of a friend than I deserved.”
There’s too much of the old Christopher in those words. Too much of the boy who looked up at the Medusa painting with awe for me to breathe easy. It makes me want to push him away.
“If you wanted to have sex with me,” I say, running a finger down his white collar. “You only had to ask. When I was on the yacht. Or in front of that Medusa painting. I would have done it, Christopher. Don’t you know that? I would have done anything you asked.”
“Hell,” he says, tight and broken.
“I think you did know, but you walked away.”
He looks furious. And despairing. “It was never simple between us.”
“So don’t you dare show up now and tell me who I can touch. If I want to let him press me up against the wall, if he gets down on his knees and puts his mouth on me until everyone on this floor knows what we’re doing, that’s my business. You had your chance.”
My body heats at the words, at the remembered pleasure of Sutton’s mouth on my sex. Christopher looks down at me, as if he can feel the heat emanating from between my legs. His expression turns stark, as if he’s in pain. That’s only fair, because I’m in pain too.
“You deserve better than that,” Christopher says, but there’s no way to pretend he’s talking about Sutton. He’s talking about himself and we both know it.
