38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Eight
M y heart leaps into a tap dance against my chest, but my mind is absolute mush, unable to process what I’ve just been told. “Your fiancée?”
“ Ex -fiancée,” he corrects.
“But she’s married to your brother,” I say, and it’s not a question. Impossibly, I know this statement to be true.
“Half-brother,” he amends.
“She’s in love with you,” I say, a wall crawling up between us. What is this? What am I in the middle of right now?
“She’s in love with the family money, and she means nothing to me.”
“You were going to marry her.”
“And I was saved from that bullet, Sofia. The only reason I’m telling you any of this before your meeting is I know you read the room. I do not want her between us, and I do not want that encounter to impact your decision when you attend this meeting.”
“Understood,” I say, and I try to duck under his arm.
His hands capture my waist, the heat of his touch and the intimacy of the small alcove are as alluring as they are intimidating at present, and my hand flies up in stop sign fashion. “I don’t know why this bothers me as much as it does, but it does, Ethan. It does. I’m probably what you would call vanilla and basic—a good girl from Colorado who loves her father and is loyal to her dreams. I don’t know how to do this. ”
“ This ?” he challenges. “What is ‘this,’ Sofia?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the point.”
“Good,” he replies. “That’s what it is. We feel good, Sofia.”
There’s a tight ball in my chest of emotions I cannot explain, a wall climbing between us, that sense that I’m going to end up crushed and emotionally bleeding over this man expanding inside me. “I know,” I whisper. “I don’t know why I’m reacting to this the way I am. I just—am.”
“She means nothing to me.”
“You were going to marry her,” I repeat. I can’t beat back the accusation in my voice that I don’t want to exist, nor does he deserve. I’m confused. I am not in touch with my own emotions.
“And I ask myself every time I’m forced to cross paths with her, how that is even possible,” he assures me. “She was the past. You are the present.”
I am the present. The implication of that statement is that we are together, and I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, where I expect more than this man has to offer me, a thought that makes my reaction to Anna illogical. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Neither do I,” he says. His fingers slide into my hair, and he tilts my gaze to his. “But I want to find out. Do you?”
When he touches me like this and speaks to me so intimately, I’m lost in him, and nothing else matters. It’s terrifying. He’s terrifyingly addictive, and I know I’m going nowhere but somewhere else with him. “I don’t want to want to find out.”
His thumb strokes my cheek, a gentle caress I feel in every part of me. “But you do? ”
“You terrify me, Ethan. You’re a part of my career and my personal life. I’m all in with you, and you could so easily destroy me.”
“That’s not how this ends,” he promises me. “And, baby, you clearly just can’t see how all in I am, or you wouldn’t believe that.” His lips brush mine, and the touch is tender, sexy, and pure fire.
His tongue dips past my lips, and I moan, my hands finding his jacket, and unbidden, I moan with the taste of him that he denies me far too soon. “Let’s get you to this meeting. Afterward, we’ll go to the passport office.”
“You assume I’m signing the contract?”
“No.” A smile tugs at his gorgeous mouth. “I simply plan to convince you to come to Paris with me.” He captures my hand and guides me out of the alcove and onto the busy New York City street, bodies bustling about, hurrying here and there.
We step left and right around people and find a clear path. “How far is the office?”
“Two blocks,” he says, and I’m hyperaware of my hand in his bigger one, of the eyes that could be upon us.
“Do you really think your brother is following you?”
“He’s got someone following me.” He glances down at me. “Yes.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s the game he plays. He’s not good enough on his own. He’s always looking for a way to manipulate me and everyone else. And make no mistake, baby, so is she. That’s why they make a great pair.”
“Which is why he married her.”
He halts in the middle of the crowd and turns me to him, his hands on my shoulders. “He wanted what was mine. That’s how he operates. Which means he’ll come for you. And we have to talk about that. Just not now.”
“Come for—me?”
He strokes my hair behind my ear. “I didn’t want you exposed to them this quickly. And I didn’t want to have to prepare you for what being on his radar means, now or ever. We can’t do this now. You really have to make this meeting.” He kisses my hand and leads me back into the pace of the crush of the sidewalk rush hour. What does he even mean by he will come for me ? I’m confused and nervous, and I don’t know Ethan well enough to know where his head is either.
We travel another block, and my mind races. Ethan made a point of focusing on me in that restaurant, and so easily a man like him, powerful and good-looking, could have played two women at once. He did not. And he pulled me into that alcove to make sure I knew what was going on, though I’m still fairly flustered and confused, but not for his lack of effort otherwise.
My reaction to what happened is my inherent insecurity, which is not Ethan’s fault. And the truth is, if that woman married his conniving brother, how much dirtier must this story be? My mind replays the interactions I’ve had with Ethan, and I’ve always felt there was a deep betrayal in his life—a reason he is single, a reason he values honesty so very much.
We halt at a high-rise building before entering a compact lobby without a security desk, which pleases me. I do not need a checkpoint and red tape right now. Once we’re at the elevator banks and he punches the call button, he says, “I will introduce you, and then I’m going to run to the bank. I’ll be back by the time you’re out.”
The doors open, and we step inside. He punches in the proper floor, and when the doors shut, I step in front of him. “I’m not like them, Ethan. I’m not used to being around people like them. And thank you for making me feel like I was the only woman at that table this morning. I just want you to know it mattered to me.”
He stares down at me for these long, intense moments, his handsome face unreadable, in which I begin to let insecurity kick back in. Maybe I said too much. Maybe I should have left things alone. The elevator dings, and I start to move away, but his fingers dive into my hair, and he lowers his mouth to mine. “You were the only woman at that table to me, Sofia. Don’t doubt that. No matter what happens, don’t forget that.” He kisses me, a deep, passionate kiss, and suddenly, I’m aware of us being watched.
I whip around to find a pretty brunette smiling at us. “Good morning. You must be Sofia.”
And this must be my new attorney, but all I can think about is what Ethan just said to me.
No matter what happens…What does he think is going to happen?