Page 112 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

I lifted my chin. “You’re too bossy for your own good.”

Without any warning, he bowled me over onto the bed, rolling with me until I was sandwiched between him and the pillows. Duncan lay over me, stroking my cheek with his hands.

“Tell me,” he said. “Please.”

My smile grew. “Please? You’re using that word?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I remembered a previous conversation in the weight room. He’d said if he loved me, I wouldn’t know what hit me. That he would give in to everything I wanted because he loved me. He was doing that.

And, boy, was he right. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this affectionate, loving Duncan. He was going to consume me if I wasn’t careful.

He kissed me long and hard, stroking my hair away from my face. “Please, Rosabel. If you love me, tell me.”

“I thought you said it didn’t matter.”

He rested his head on the bed beside me. “You’re killing me here, Rose.”

I grinned, holding his face in my hands and reading the request in his eyes. Before I could speak the words, I felt them coursing through me, filling me with more certainty than I knew I had until that moment.

“I love you,” I said. “I’ve seen this other side of you, Duncan, a side I couldn’t understand because it contradicted the mask you put on for everyone else. It was like you were trying to hide how good you were or something. I never understood it.”

“But now, you do.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He rolled with me again, and this time, I settled against his chest. I wrapped my arms around him and rested my cheek against his chest, hearing his heartbeat.

“Let’s leave. I’ll take you away,” he said, stroking my hair away from my neck so he could trail his fingers along the skin there.

I shuddered at the way my skin tingled. “I thought you already did.”

“Farther. We’ll go somewhere far, live in Fiji or on the coast of India until this all blows over.”

Running away with Duncan Hawthorne was a savory temptation. I pictured it, living off the grid like Jason Bourne, away from anyone we knew, relying solely on one another. The thought was delirious.

But like any dream, it faded all too quickly. I couldn’t leave Dad. Wherever we went, we’d have to take him with us. And I wasn’t sure we could hide sufficiently while getting him the care he needed.

There was another barrier to that plan as well.

“What about your grandma’s birthday party?” I said. “What about your business—and all the people who work for you?”

He lifted a hand to prop it behind his head. “You always did keep me in line.”

“It’s my job. Assuming you still want me.”

“I want you.” His mouth trailed along my throat, his voice deepening and growing throatier. “I want to scandalize everyone at work. I want to do exactly what they think we do while we’re locked away in my office.”

His mouth trailed its way to my collarbone.

I should push him away. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

I could just picture Gale and the others in the breakroom and the gossip that would swirl then. They would actually have something valid to talk about then.

“You’re right,” he said, kissing his way up my throat. “After this, I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself. You’d better not come back to the office.”

“You’re firing me now?”

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