Page 44 of Cinderella's Fling with the Off-Limits Billionaire

She glanced away. He was right. If he’d asked her over, she might have refused.

“I want to see you again. Are you free tomorrow?”

“I have Harper in the day.”

“Bring her. Let’s do something—we can take her to the zoo, then spend the night together.”

Skye’s stomach was in knots. “No,” she shook her head. “No play acting with her.” It was bad enough that her own heart was feeling vulnerable and exposed, she wouldn’t risk Harper’s.

“It’s not play acting.”

“But it’s not real. I’m an adult woman who understands the way the world works. I can accept there’s no real future for us, but she can’t. I don’t want her getting used to you. Staying with you before was a blip, something I could explain away easily enough. She’ll get confused if you dip in and out of her life and then eventually just disappear. Like she’s not already confused enough with everything going on with Jay.”

“What’s happening there?”

She waved a hand in the air. “He’s spitting venom towards me, but your lawyers have him in a corner.”

“What kind of venom?” Leandro demanded.

Skye squared her shoulders. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Then, conscious that she was still naked, she looked around for her clothes and began to pull them on.

“Skye,” he said her name heavily, as though he’d been carrying it in his mouth for eons. “You don’t have to handle it alone.”

“Oh, yeah? Because you’re here for me?” She responded archly. “You literally disappeared out of my life.”

“As we had planned,” he reminded her.

“I’m not saying you did anything wrong, but please don’t act as though I can count on you. That’s not what we are.”

“I thought this was real and genuine,” he repeated her own words back to her.

“Real and genuine passion,” she acknowledged. “But let’s not pretend it’s more. I need to think.” She tucked her shirt in then checked her reflection in the mirror.

“Come and see me tomorrow. Name the time and place. You know it is not over between us.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” And it was. In her heart of hearts, she was terrified of how much she wanted him, terrified of how much he’d become a part of her despite her attempts to contain this.

She knew better than that, didn’t she?

“I do not want you to fear me,” he said with obvious disgust.

“Not you. This.” Her eyes were huge. “I don’t want to get caught up in something that will break me when it ends.” There. She’d said it.

Her biggest fear.

And he smiled. A smile of relief and ease.

“It won’t. Haven’t I promised you that I will never hurt you?”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that he already had.

Eleven

UP UNTIL SHE ARRIVED, HE had felt zero confidence that he’d see her again. He’d gambled everything on last night and it had backfired. No matter what he’d said, it had gone wrong. He didn’t know what else he could do, beyond the impossible…he didn’t want to talk to her about his life in Italy. Even when he did.

He needed for Skye to exist in a bubble that was completely distinct from the mess that was his family life. He needed her to look at him and see Leandro, not someone she pitied, not someone who had become divorced from everything he’d once known.

Somewhere along the way, he’d lost sight of the fact this was supposed to be fun though.

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