Page 88 of In Love with a Cruel Billionaire

He was blatantly seducing her.

And she was, darn it, happy to be seduced.

“I—-” Her words were cut off by a sudden loud creaking sound from one of the metal chains that kept them connected to their parachutes.

Damen saw Mairi’s face turn white.

Knowing she was seriously scared now, he asked tautly, “Mairi, look at me.”

She raised fear-darkened eyes to him.

Ah, shit. Why had he thought to take her parasailing when she was clearly scared out of her mind? What an asshole he was. This vacation on Crete was supposed to be an unforgettable memory for them, not a fucking nightmare for her.

“You’re safe with me.” He spoke in a quiet and firm voice, an unconscious reminder that he was her rock and he would do anything to protect her.

She nodded, the movement slight.

“I’m going to wave to the guides now,” he told her. “I’ll get them to reel us down—-”

Mairi quickly shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Just...” She smiled weakly. “Talk to me while we’re here?”

“Talk...to you?”

“It could be anything. I feel...” Color stained her cheeks as she mumbled, “I won’t be so scared if I hear you talking.”

Ah, fuck.

How quickly she could disarm him, her words something that not even the most professional gold digger could ever say convincingly. When she said things like that to him, when she looked like that at him, Damen’s cynicism disappeared like it had never existed.

When she was this fucking sweet, the past would come back to him but they were not memories that haunted Damen’s mind. Instead, they worked like fucking sunlight, making him remember that the person in front of him was no ordinary girl.

This wasMairi.

The girl who had never stopped loving him, not even when the whole world believed he loved another woman.

“Sometimes,matakia mou,I hate you, too.”

Mairi’s eyes widened, her face paling even more.

“I hate that with so few words, you have me twisted in knots. I hate that just by looking at you, I feel scared like I have never been scared before. I’m fucking terrified that one day you will wake up...” An ironic smile flitted over his hard, handsome face. “...andwise upto the fact that you’ve fallen in love with a bastard.”

As he paused, there was no other sound apart from the gentle whistling tune of the dying winds. Around them were blue skies, dotted by fluffs of white clouds and emerald peaks of mountains that rose proudly from the islands’ powdery white sands and turquoise waters.

Surrounded by such breathtaking beauty, the ugly memories of the past faded. Here, there were no sleazy reporters hounding them, no contemptuous gazes accusing them of infidelity – no one to tell them that they were not meant for each other.

Damen wiped the single tear that trailed down Mairi’s cheek. “Are you crying because I hate you so much?”

She nodded.

“And if I ask you to marry me,” he asked unevenly, “because I want to keep hating you for the rest of our lives—-”

Mairi’s lips parted in shock, disbelief written all over her face.

Uncertainty and fierce need turned his voice rough. “Will you marry me, Mairi?”

She stared at him.

“Mairi?”

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