Page 52 of Resisting the Bossy Billionaire

She understood it now.

‘I know this is terrible timing but there are things I need to say to you, and I want to say them toyou, not to a door. Please let me in.’

Shaking inside and out, she stared through the blinding tears at the door.

After she’d wiped the tears, it took a burst of impetus to make her body move and open it.

Bright but dull blue eyes captured hers. Broad shoulders rose. ‘Thank you.’

It hurt to even look at him.

Turning her face, she whispered, ‘I’m leaving in a few minutes.’

He closed the door.

She heard him take a deep breath. ‘I know, and I’m here to beg you not to go.’

The howl that echoed in the room came from her own throat.

‘Please,bella, come back to me,’ he begged. ‘Don’t go. Come back. I can’t function without you.’

Her heart and stomach plummeted to her toes. Ryan had confided that he was finding it hard to gel with Marcello and that he believed it obvious Marcello thought him a poor replacement for her.

Stumbling to the tumble dryer, she groped for the towels and hugged them tight to her chest. She had no idea how she made her mouth work. ‘Look, Marcello, I know Ryan can be a little earnest but he has great—’

‘Not as my EA,’ he interrupted.

She blinked hard.

He stepped over to her and gently took the towels she was using as a shield from her arms, and placed them on the edge of the table. Then he gazed down at her and, with a long sigh, stroked her cheek. ‘Victoria, I want you to stay with me as my wife. I want to marry you.’

His words were such a shock that it took a long moment to fully absorb them.

Absorbing them only added to the distress.

Swiping at his hands, she backed away from him so quickly that she bashed into the table.

‘I never thought you were capable of such cruelty,’ she cried. ‘To play on my feelings like this, just because you can’t adjust to having—’

The precariously placed towels fell to the floor. With them fell a glittering ring.

Marcello watched Victoria’s gaze fall on the ring he’d raced back to his apartment to get and had held tightly the whole way to her, the ring he’d forgotten he was holding the moment he’d looked at her for the first time in what felt like a whole life. He must have let go of it when he’d taken the pile of towels from her without even realising.

Crouching down in the stunned silence, he picked it up then slid onto his knees before her and gazed at her until her wide eyes slowly turned back to him.

It killed him to see the misery contained in them. The redness ringing them. The dullness of her complexion.

He took hold of her hand. It was cold.

‘I love you,bella,’ he said quietly. ‘That is why I want you to stay. I want you to come back tomebecause I cannot live without you.’

Her chin was wobbling. Her beautiful little chin with the faint little cleft.

He tightened his hold on her hand. ‘I never forgot you because you caught me spellbound the moment I saw the look on your face at the final piece of sabotage your old colleagues did for that pitch. I carried that look with me for months. I carried your name. I gave Denise a maternity package my finance team told me I was mad to give but I did not care, and do you know why?’

She gave the smallest shake of her head.

‘I did not care because deep down I knew it meant she would never come back and that I could bring you in as her replacement.’

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