Page 13 of Silver Fox's Secret Triplets
"I know what you told me." I kept my voice low and calm, but I could hear the undercurrent of frustration bleeding through. "But I need you to understand that I can't get you out of my head. Since you've been back, I feel like I'm losing my mind if I can't talk to you. Really talk to you."
Her hazel eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn't name. "Are you sex-starved? Is that what this is about?"
The question was blunt and unexpected, clearly intended to shock me into backing down. Instead, it made me realize that she deserved complete honesty, even if it made me vulnerable.
"Yes." She blinked, obviously not expecting such a direct answer, but she didn't look away, and I didn't stop the ball that was finally rolling in the right direction. "I haven't slept with a woman since you." I watched her face carefully as I continued. "But it's not because you were so amazing that I couldn't move on. It's because being with you made me realize I wanted more than physical release. Over time, sex for the sake of sex started to seem pointless."
She went perfectly still, and her breath caught in a way that told me my frank honesty affected her more than she wanted to admit.
"Duncan…" Ivy's mouth opened and closed like a fish gulping water, but she didn't say more.
"The elevator," I said, nodding toward the bank of doors twenty feet away. "Let's finish this conversation upstairs."
She nodded and resumed walking, her heels clicking against the concrete in a rhythm that matched my own footsteps. We reached the elevators in silence, and I pressed the call button while she stared at the floor numbers above the doors.
The elevator arrived with a soft chime, and we stepped inside together. I waited until the doors closed before reaching over and pressing the emergency stop button.
"What are you doing?" Ivy turned to face me, her eyes wide with alarm.
"I'm making sure we won't be interrupted." I leaned against the wall opposite her, giving her space but making it clear that I wasn't going to let her escape this conversation again. "I have a question for you."
"Duncan, this is?—"
"Have you ever thought about what would have happened if we had never slept together?"
The question stopped her protest cold. She stared at me for a long moment, her expression cycling through surprise, pain, and something that might have been longing.
"Of course I have." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I've thought about it a million times."
"And what about the other scenario? What would have happened if you had called me back or responded to any of my messages? If you hadn't run away? Was it because of the scandal? You were afraid of being the next woman dragged through the mud?"
"I didn't run away because of your scandal." The words came out sounding hurt and defensive. "If anything, the scandal was what made me think about kissing you in the first place." Her eyes dropped and she huffed out a sigh. "Otherwise, I'd have thought you'd push me away, that you'd think I was too young for you, but clearly, you were interested in younger women…" She bit her lower lip, and I watched it flush dark with arousal.
This admission caught me off guard. I had assumed that my past had frightened her, that the thought of being associated with someone who had already been through one highly publicized relationship with a younger woman had driven her away.
"Then why did you leave?"
She shook her head, her auburn hair catching the fluorescent lights of the elevator. "I can't tell you that."
"Can't or won't?"
"Does it matter?"
I studied her face, noting the way she avoided my eyes, the tension in her jaw that suggested she was holding back more than she was revealing. There were secrets here, layers of truth that she wasn't ready to share. But she hadn't moved away from me, hadn't demanded that I restart the elevator and end this conversation.
"What if we tried again?" I kept my voice gentle, non-threatening. "What if we had a do-over? Tried that moment again without anyone running away this time?"
"What about my father? What about your staff?" She gestured vaguely upward, toward the floors above us where our colleagues were beginning their workday. "People will talk."
"Only if we give them a reason to talk." I took a step closer, close enough to smell her perfume, the same floral scent that had haunted my dreams for four years. "We're both adults. We can keep our personal relationship separate from work."
"We work together, Duncan. People will notice."
"After hours means no public displays of affection on the clock. No special treatment in meetings. No one has to know what happens between us outside this building."
She was wavering. I could see it in the way her breathing had quickened, in the way her eyes kept dropping to my mouth before darting away again.
"What if there were parts of my life you couldn't accept?" Her voice was small, vulnerable in a way that made my chest tighten. "Things I've done that might make you not want me?"
