Page 13 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

What was going on? Typically, when I sparred with her, Rosabel was all claws out, ready to spring. I loved that fire in her. I loved our verbal tiffs.

“Why not?” Her voice was deadly soft.

“What?”

She tilted her head upward toward me, examining my face. “Why don’t you ever tell me nice things?”

I was a clod. Unable to move. Unable to do much else but lose myself in the sparkle in her eyes.

The way her head tilted. The way that angle displayed her throat and her collarbones. They begged me to bend down, to breathe her in.

“What?” The word came out clogged. I cleared my throat, though I wasn’t sure it did much good.

“Why don’t you ever tell me nice things? You helped me a few minutes ago, back with the coffee in the breakroom. Why not be nice like that all the time?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and it was such a terrible lie Itastedit as the words came out.

I knew why.

I knewexactlywhy I refused to be nice to her, and I could never confess as much.

Not to her face. Not ever.

I needed to douse the heat in her gaze before I ended up doing something stupid. Like pulling her to me and kissing her.

“Look. I’m headed out of town.” The words fought me on the way out.

It was now or never. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to ask her. Either she would shoot me down, or she would accept.

I wasn’t prepared to handle either scenario.

“And?” She folded her arms across her chest.

“And…I need you to pick up my dry cleaning,” I said, blurting the first mundane thing that came to mind. “I have to start packing.”

“Dry cleaning?” The words broke.

Her jaw quivered. Tears welled in her eyes, taking me aback.

“I thought we were having a moment. I thought you— If you had any idea what I just?—”

She slammed her eyes closed, holding out a hand to stop me as though I were about to make a move on her. After drawing in a long, slow breath, she gradually lifted her long lashes.

What was wrong? Picking up my dry cleaning was something she did for me on the regular. It shouldn’t have been enough to set her off.

Her jaw was set. Her eyes were fire.

“Fine. You want me to quit? I quit.”

A bomb going off in my office would have surprised me less. “What?”

Without answering, Rosabel whirled around. She yanked open the door and stormed from my office without answering.

FIVE

duncan

The air left my lungs.I felt as though a brick had struck me.

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