Page 47 of Worth the Risk

‘What is?’

His gaze lingered on my face, my mouth. ‘Something else.’

‘I hope you don’t expect me to sit here and watch you get blind drunk to forget whatever’s bothering you. Because that wasn’t how I anticipated spending my evening.’

He regarded me for a long spell. ‘I got in touch with Bryce this afternoon.’

My breath caught. ‘Really? And...how was he?’

He shrugged. ‘We reconnected. There’s a strong possibility I’ll see him sooner rather than later.’

There was a throb of emotion in his voice. Fondness remembered.

‘I’m glad.’

‘You should be. It’s your fault,’ he said with a wry, fleeting smile.

I laughed. ‘I accept full responsibility, then.’

His gaze dropped to my mouth, charging the air with relentless lust as time ticked by.

‘What about your cousin? Damian? The one with the TV show—’

‘Him I most definitely do not want to talk about.’

The thick bitterness behind his words robbed me of breath. ‘He’s behind the betrayal you talked about, isn’t he?’

His eyes turned almost black and then his lashes swept down. ‘Yes.’ It was a cold, bleak word.

‘And is he why you’re feeling out of sorts tonight?’

When he raised his gaze again, his expression was chillingly neutral. ‘Enough, Leonora. It’s your turn to balance the soul-baring deficit.’

Tension clenched my belly. ‘I wasn’t aware it would be due so soon.’

He shrugged. ‘You’ll agree that a few things have taken us both by surprise since we met. This just happens to be one of them. So who was he, Leonora? Is he the reason you’re in a hurry to sell the yacht?’ he asked, his voice tight.

‘What makes you think I’m in a hurry?’

‘I’ve done my homework, too, Leonora.’

The arrival of our drinks stopped me from replying. By the time Maximo took our food orders and departed, I had myself under better composure. ‘I thought I was done with the South of France.’

‘Was? Why?’

‘Because this was never meant to be a long-term thing.’

Intelligent eyes rested on my face. ‘You’ve grown a multimillion-euro business, which you were just going to pack in and walk away from?’

I attempted to shrug away the unnerving sensation that I’d nearly made another mistake. Let betrayal get the better of me. ‘Yes.’

‘What was the plan?’

I watched him raise his glass and take a long sip of wine before I answered, ‘I wanted to prove a point to myself.’

‘To yourself or to him?’ His keen intuition threw me. At my gasp, his mouth twisted. ‘It’s written all over your face, Leonora.’

My fingers circled the rim of my glass as I debated my answer. In the end I went with opening up to him because what I’d achieved was nothing to be ashamed of. Adam’s betrayal had cut deep but I’d triumphed over it. I was a financial success, with a business I was damn proud of.

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