Page 45 of The Billionaire's Beauty

A crisp nod from Bellamy. She heads for the door, leaving me to collapse in my chair, rest my elbows on my desk and press my face to my hands while I get my heartbeat regulated.

This is exactly why I never let people in if I can help it. It takes too damn much out of me.

I can’t see what’s going on, but I hear the quiet swish of her dress as she comes around to my side of the desk. The next thing I know, she puts a hand on my neck and curls her fingers into the hair at my nape.

This unexpected tenderness is more than I can take right now. Making a crazy strangled sound, I swivel my chair, wrap my arms tight around her waist and press my face to the fragrant valley between her breasts so I can gratefully breathe in her scent of roses and reset my mood now that all is right with my world again.

This whole thing is crazy. I know that. But I’m seriously beginning to wonder how I cobbled together an existence without her in my life exactly like this.

As for the question of what kind of existence I’ll have when she leaves? I can’t even go there.

Speaking of not going there…

The familiar need starts to bubble inside me. I remind myself that we’re at work and loosen my grip on her enough to push her back and look up into her face. It’s gratifying to see the rising color in her cheeks and the sultry light in her eyes.

“Your place or mine tonight?” I ask her.

“Yours.”

“Great. I’ll give you my extra key. Fair warning, though. I only bothered with the bare minimum furniture, since I’m never there.”

“Noted.”

“You go home. Grab some stuff. I’ll meet you there after work. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Okay,” she says, looking pleased but stunned.

But not half as stunned as I am. I just promised to give the woman I’m dating a key to my apartment. And I don’t regret it. At all. And speaking of stunned, I repress a laugh at the thought of what Claire would say if she were here now.

“Don’t steal anything,” I warn Bellamy.

“I won’t,” she says, laughing.

This is a lie, I decide as I watch her go back to work.

She’s already well on her way to stealing my heart.

Not that I have a real heart that anyone would want.

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