Page 25 of Forbidden Desire

She was right about that.

The elevator doors ding.

“I have your pizza here,” a voice calls out.

I’m annoyed by the interruption. It feels like we were getting somewhere, but I’m also starving. I leave Erica in her office and go to meet the pizza delivery guy. After I pay him, I carry thelarge box of pizza to my office, setting it on my large wooden desk. She carries in some paper plates and napkins from the breakroom. We both serve ourselves a few slices of pizza and eat in a famished silence.

When my stomach is no longer screaming for food, I wipe my mouth with a napkin and sit back in my chair. I watch as she carefully avoids my gaze. The tension in the room is building and I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I might explode.

“What’s up with you?” I ask, shaking my head frustratedly.

“Excuse me?” she asks, looking taken aback.

“You’re mad at me, but I don’t know for which reason. The fact that I bought out the paper or because of what happened between us…”

She presses her lips together tightly as she looks at me. I’m sure she’s mad at me for both, but I can’t help but think she’s holding a grudge over the latter. I do feel bad for what happened. I had purposefully lied about who I was and that probably left a bad taste in her mouth. Now that I think about it, she probably thinks I lied to get information from her to use to my advantage. It sure looks like it now that I’ve taken over the paper.

I wonder if she would understand that I lied to her because it’s what I always do. It’s easier when people don’t know who I am. I can just be a normal guy, rather than someone people want to get their hands on for the wrong reasons. She has to know how that feels. She had carefully omitted her last name too. The way Ihad to find out she was Bryce Gunner’s daughter through her file makes me think we are the same in that way.

It makes me regret leaving her even more that morning, after the night we shared. The night I still can’t get out of my head and has been even more vivid now that I see her almost every day. It’s torture of the best kind knowing I have seen what lies under her clothes. Felt her. Kissed her.

When I woke up next to her, I planned on coming clean and telling her who I was. There was something about her that made me want to be honest. Made me want her to stay, and I never wanted that with the woman I slept with. My one-night stands hardly ever even lasted until morning. I usually had some excuse like I had to work early or had a red eye flight to catch for a business trip. With her, it was different.

Which was why leaving her was so hard, but when I got that call from the hospital, nothing else mattered. My mother had suffered a heart attack and was going into surgery. I didn’t have time to think, let alone say goodbye, before I was out the door and on my way to her. After staying most of the day in the waiting room with a pit in my stomach, I was able to join my mother in the recovery room where I held her hand for hours.

When I finally got back to my penthouse around 9 p.m., I found it empty. I felt stupidly disappointed, but wasn’t surprised that the woman in my bed had left when she woke up alone. I looked around for any sign of her, maybe a phone number or an email, but there was nothing. She was probably too upset at me for leaving without a goodbye. I didn’t blame her, but I didn’t think she’d still be holding onto that anger a year later.

She’s sitting there in silence, looking beautiful and perplexed, and I just want her to say something. Anything.

“Look, I’m sorry I left you that morning in my apartment. The night I had with you was incredible. Like I can’t get it out of my damn head. It’s like it’s consuming me. And it’s driving me crazy that you either don’t remember or are acting like you’ve never met me.”

Her green eyes find mine. “I remember,” she murmurs.

My heart stops for a moment. All the doubts I had about her forgetting about me wash away.

“I remember you lied about who you are,” she says, her voice narrow.

I feel a knot in my stomach.

“It wasn’t why you think. I try to keep a low profile. It’s easier that way.”

“Easier to get information for your business conquests.”

“That’snotwhy.” I shake my head. “It’s hard to trust people when they know you have something to offer them.”

She looks at me quietly.

“I get that,” she says softly, her eyes trailing up to the framed photo of her family on the shelf before looking back to me. “Whydidyou leave that morning?”

“There was a family emergency. I had no choice.”

She lets out a laugh through her nose and I know she doesn’t believe me. It does sound like a poor excuse, but I don’t want to get into what really happened. My mother, Rose, is someone I hold close to me. Talking about her health issues is just too personal. Too painful.

“It’s true,” I say adamantly.

“Okay, so why didn’t you call?” She crosses her arms and leans back in her seat, waiting for an explanation.

“Call?” I ask in confusion.

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