Page 87 of Guarded King

I should want the same.

My cheeks burn with humiliation. I need to get away. Since he’s given me an out, I take it. “You’re right,” I say, my words stilted. “I’m tired. I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. King.”

His fingers tighten around the glass he’s holding, and his head dips, dark hair hanging over his forehead, but he doesn’t look at me. “Good night, Chloe.”

Blinking back tears, I beat a hasty retreat, pushing through the crowded bar and all but running to the elevators. Once I’m locked inside my suite, I rush out onto the balcony, hoping the fresh night air will cool my hot cheeks.

Pressing myself up against the stone balustrade, I take deep breaths and stare sightlessly at the Eiffel tower glowing in the distance.

I thought getting caught watching him jerk off was embarrassing, but tonight? Blatantly telling him I wanted his mouth on me and being sent away? It’s so much worse.

It was a straight-out rejection, and I have no idea how I’ll face him tomorrow.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

ROMAN

Itake another slug of my whiskey, gripping the glass so tightly my knuckles turn white.

The desire raging inside me is a physical force, burning me from the inside out. The spark that ignited in my gut the moment I first saw Chloe in the elevator, before I even knew who she was, has grown into an inferno destroying all my boundaries, charring any control I thought I had into ash.

Just last night I assured Ellis I wasn’t fucking my assistant—that I’m not following in my father’s footsteps—but only moments ago, I was one heartbeat away from sliding my fingers into her panties to find out how wet she was right here in the middle of a bar.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Specters of my father rise in my mind. The day I saw him with one of the maids bent over the table, the time Mom threw a party at our estate, and I caught him doing up his fly as he came out of the library, followed by a woman from the catering staff, who was buttoning her blouse.

The cold smile he gave me when he “confessed” the truth about Katherine.

And yet none of those thoughts are enough to erase the memory of Chloe’s soft skin under my fingertips. None of it can wipe away the needy way she breathed my name as I slid my hand up her thigh.

Still lost in my thoughts, I turn automatically when a woman inserts herself into the empty spot next to me. For a second my mind conjures the image of Chloe coming back to tempt me some more. But it’s not her. It’s a beautiful brunette with smoky brown eyes and a seductive smile aimed squarely at me.

“You are American?” she asks in a heavy French accent.

“I am.”

She tilts her head to the side, unbothered by my short answer. “Would you like to buy me a drink?”

I signal to the bartender, who arches a brow as she notes my new companion.

I nod at the brunette.

“Un martini avec du vermouth sec, s’il vous plaît,” she orders. When she turns back to me, she’s wearing a sultry smile. “Merci.”

I raise my almost empty glass between us. “Je vous en prie.”

Once she has her drink in hand, she takes a sip. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”

Good fucking question. After tonight, I have no idea, but I give her the easy answer, anyway. “Business.”

Plump mouth pursed, she surveys me. “Perhaps that is something that can be changed.”

For just a moment I consider taking out all my frustration, all my pent-up desire, on this stranger. But even as the idea forms, I’m rejecting it.

It’s not brunette hair I want gripped in my hands. It’s not brown eyes I want looking up at me, hazy with pleasure. It’s not some random woman I want moaning my name. The only woman I want, is the one I just told to go. Fucking someone elsein the futile hope it will help me forget what Chloe offered me with such innocent seduction would be madness.

If I’m going to do something mad tonight, it’s not that.

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