Page 37 of A Diamond Deal
It was old, but it was new.
It was a rewrite ofthatlast time.
He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth, as if he was driving out the thoughts in her head and replacing them with nothing but sensation.
Her body yielded until her chest sought his. Her breasts pushed against him. The tightness holding her heart—her lungs—captive eased. It was a heat that trickled down her spine.And lower.
She ached.Everywhere.
Her breathing changed. No longer was it short husks of too shallow air, but it was deep and full. Air he breathed between her lips, and she accepted it. Her body responded to it. It eased her tight muscles.
‘Konstantinos,’ she breathed into his mouth again.
She couldn’t think. She could only feel.Him.The swipe of his tongue—the feel of his hand on the back of her neck holding her steady.
And then he was pulling away—abandoning her lips…
Her eyes opened. Her fingers clenched, tugging at his shirt—pulling him back.
Black eyes found hers.
She couldn’t look away.
Her heart pulsed. It hadn’t felt wrong to kiss him. It had felt like coming back to her own bed after too many nights away. And her body had unfurled, leaned into every dip of the mattress that knew her body.
It was like…coming home.
‘We are here,’ he said, the breathy edge to his words the only sign he’d kissed her.
Her fingers unclenched. Her head snapped towards the window. Lights flashed from a sea of camera lenses. They couldn’t see them behind the mirrored windows, but what had he been doing? Warming her up for the press?
He was not…home.
He was a bastard.
Tonight he’d done what he always had. She was honest—open—and he’d shut down any attempt to share in her vulnerability. His inability to talk had got them here. If he’d opened up to her about his feelings about the baby, shown his concern about the pregnancy not going well, if he’d shown her his own vulnerability, would she have hired the investigator?
It didn’t matter.
Shehadhired them.
He hadn’t been unfaithful to her with somebody else. But hehadbeen unfaithful in all the ways that mattered to her. He hadn’t been the person he’d promised to be. She hadn’t been able to rely on him. He’d provided medical care, yes, but not his own presence. He’d left her alone to be treated by clinicians. Buttheydidn’t know what she’d lost. They couldn’t understand her pain. Butheshould have.
She’d asked him to help—help her prepare for the arrival of their son, and he’d paid someone else to help her. And after, the funeral, he’d arranged it all, but he’d stayed away from her. Pulled his hand from hers when she held on. When she’d needed him to stay with her.
He should have been by her side.
‘I hate you,’ she said, because it was her armour and she would keep it.
He smiled. ‘I know.’ His thumb pressed beneath her lower lip, and he swiped. ‘And we’ll use it to our advantage.’
Her shoulders heaved. ‘Advantage!’
‘The chemistry between us.’ His hand fell. ‘We’ll show them nothing butthat.’ He held the evidence of their forbidden kiss between them: a red smudge covering the pad of his thumb. He reached for a tissue from his inside pocket and removed the proof of their kiss from his fingers—his mouth. ‘This…connection.’
She wanted to deny it. Tell him whatever energy lingered in the air between them was all in his head.
It wasn’t.
