Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
How wrong we’d both proven each other. Her believing she wasn’t capable of loving me, and me believing I couldn’t physically express my love for her.
We lay unmoving, even after our breathing returned to normal. My muscles shook from the effort to keep my weight off her, but I could feel nothing except where we were still joined. She wasn’t crying this time. Her eyes were clear and full of love.
I reluctantly withdrew and collapsed beside her, exhausted. When she didn’t curl up under my arm, I glanced at her.
“I’m not cuddling with you. It’s a thousand degrees in here,” she said.
“Yes.” It probably hadn’t helped that she’d been trapped under an enormous man. “I’ll go turn on the ceiling fan.”
But I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to leave her. She set her hand on my bare, sweat-covered chest, right over my heart, like she wanted to be close but was overheated. I covered her hand with mine.
“This house should come with a warning.”
“What?” she murmured, her eyes closed.
“Are you aware this is where Jason fell in love with your sister?” I let my thumb brush over the back of her hand. “And now that you’ve told me you love me—”
She propped herself up on an elbow and cast her gaze down on me, a sultry smile on her face. “Was that your plan? To bring me here and make me fall in love with you?” She leaned down and her lips hovered just over mine. “Sorry to disappoint, Shawn, but I was in love with you long before we came here.”
44
KARA
I sat on the bed, fighting my anxiety. Shawn leaned against a dresser, his handsome eyes fixed on the half empty glass of wine he swirled absentmindedly. “Everyone loves a surprise visit by the CEO.”
I gave him a plain look. “If by ‘everyone,’ you mean no one.”
He’d taken me on a tour of the Madison plant this afternoon, and the employees had scrambled around, frazzled. I could see the satisfaction in his eyes during it. He liked flexing his power in front of me.
Our week together had gone much, much too fast and, making matters worse, he seemed completely unaware of the dread that filled me now. It probably would have helped to tell him. To give him some clue that I didn’t want to leave the States.
But if I did that, he’d push. He’d persuade. He’d wear me down until I relented and gave him what he wanted.
He’d been dropping hints for me to come work for Osterhägen all week, but I was determined to stand on my own and keep my professional and personal life separate. I would not repeat the mistakes I’d made with Paul.
After dinner, we’d checked into a hotel near the airport that housed his plane, waiting to return to Munich in the morning. He’d had a bottle of red wine and two glasses sent up, but I didn’t touch it. The impending conversation was going to be difficult, and the worry was I’d drink too much and then say something I’d regret.
“I want to ask you something,” he said with a serious look, sending my heartrate skyrocketing. “Move in with me when we get back.”
I sighed. “I can’t.”
“Come work for Osterhägen. It’s not like you’d report to me.”
“No.” That wasn’t a remote possibility.
“All right. There are plenty of other opportunities in Munich.”
I’d been right. I knew exactly where this conversation was going. “I don’t speak German.”
“You could learn.”
My eyes narrowed to slits. No. This had been my fear from the beginning, that I would lose myself in him. Bend my desires to match his. “I’m not going to Munich.”
“How do you see it working, then?” At that moment, he picked up on the fact that I’d said ‘going’ and not ‘moving.’ His rich, brown eyes blinked slowly. “What are you saying?”
My voice trembled. “I’m saying I can’t go back to where he . . .”
I was swept up into his embrace, where he tried to comfort and make me feel safe. “We don’t have to leave tomorrow. We can give it time.”
But he needed to get back, and we both knew it. Plus, the kind of time he was talking about wasn’t adequate. One or two more days wouldn’t make a dent. I had to be honest with him.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to go back.” It hung in the air for an impossibly long time. So long, I wondered if he was all right.
“That’s . . . unacceptable.” His voice wasn’t cold, but the words were.
The sadness I had was replaced with annoyance that if left unchecked would grow into anger. “I’m sorry?”
“The idea of us apart. I find that unacceptable. You tell me what you want, and I will make it happen.”
But what I wanted wasn’t possible, unless he could go back in time, and if he did, how would we have ever met? We were from separate worlds. I came from a poor family in a town that was so small, it didn’t have stoplights. He was from the bustling city of Munich, born into unbelievable wealth.