Page 53 of The Billionaire's Princess

14

Carly

He takesoff his jacket and tie and lays them across the nearest chair before rolling up his shirt sleeves, small domestic gestures that provoke a powerful response inside me. It’s almost like he’s home with me. Well, he is home with me, clearly, but it feels like his home is with me.

“Everything okay?” he asks quietly.

“Course,” I say in my best impression of carefree nonchalance. My thoughts aren’t completely together, and I’d rather not get into it with him until they are. I can’t decide whether I should ask him about the women or the networking first, or whether I should mention any of it at all. The one thing I’m determined not to do? Tell him about the lump of jealousy that’s sitting heavy in my chest right now.

“Good,” he says before resting his ankle on his knee, folding his hands in his lap and watching me, waiting.

I shift uncomfortably. Flip my hair off my shoulders because it seems to be getting hot in here. Struggle with my words. Come up with nothing.

“Because if it’s about the women I’ve dated…”

“Yes, and what a rich and varied assortment of them you’ve had,” I snap before I can stop myself. “You’ve applied yourself with gusto, haven’t you?”

One corner of his mouth twitches with unmistakable amusement, the bastard. “Not that you’re jealous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Good. I’m sure you recognize that those women are in my past, so it would be a waste of your time and energy to be jealous.”

I try to be satisfied with that reassurance, but the silence and his steady gaze unnerve me. As does the primitive power of my jealousy. Which is, I admit, something I’ve never felt before.

“Only there did seem to be such a large number of them. A simple calculation based on your age and the number of pictures I saw would seem to indicate that you hook up with a new woman approximately every 2.4 days. I’m sure my clock is already running down.”

He laughs. Laughs.

“What’s so bloody funny?” I snarl.

“Where should I start?” he says, leaning his elbow on the back of the sofa and resting his head on his hand. “With the fact that the most exciting woman I’ve ever met thinks she has something to be jealous about?”

I blink, startled.

“With the fact that you’re jealous about insignificant relationships that don’t begin to compare with what you and I have already built? Or how about the fact that whatever you’re feeling can’t be a millionth of what I feel when I remember how close you came to marrying someone who belongs in your world better than I do?”

We stare at each other, my heart thumping as I absorb both his words and the reluctant vulnerability in his expression.

“You make it hard to maintain a good sulk,” I tell him.

“Why sulk?” He gently takes a strand of my hair, wraps it around his fingers and lets it slip back into place. “I already told you once. What we did before doesn’t matter. You were with Percy. I was with…everybody.”

I let out a startled laugh.

His expression softens until the warmth in his smiling eyes could best be described as naked adoration. It makes my heart melt.

“None of that matters now, princess. Does it?”

I think about the time spent with Percy, for which I’m grateful. My experience with him taught me what it’s like to be loved by a good man and took me from girl to woman.

Then I think about how alive, excited, hopeful and special I feel when Damon looks at me like that.

Absolutely no comparison.

“No,” I say. “Doesn’t matter. Not at all.”

He takes my hair again. Tugs me in for a kiss that’s sweetly lingering. Infinitely promising.

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