Page 29 of The Billionaire's Bargain
Isobel released a weary sigh as she pulled into an empty spot in the four-car garage.
Darius had moved one of his luxury vehicles so she could have a parking space, and had invited her to drive one of them. But she had yet to take him up on the offer. She’d already invaded his house, and she and Aiden were living off his money. Taking one of the cars as if she owned it edged her one step closer to being the gold-digging creature she’d been called. So no, she’d continued driving her beat-up but trusty Honda Civic. Even if parking it next to his Bugatti Chiron seemed like blasphemy.
Climbing out of her car, she inhaled the early evening air. Though she’d left work at the grocery store without wearing her jacket, she now drew it around her, the black collared shirt and khakis of her uniform not fighting off the nippy breeze.
Glancing down at her watch, she picked up her pace and strode toward the front door of Darius’s home. It was just nearing five o’clock, and like the previous days, she was hoping she’d beat him home from work. Since she no longer had to work a second shift with her mother to make ends meet, she’d switched her hours at the store. Four days a week, she left the house at eight to arrive for her nine-to-four shift. Isobel liked the nanny, Ms. Jacobs, just fine. She was grateful for her, because her presence allowed Isobel to continue working even when she couldn’t ask her mom to watch Aiden. Still, she missed her son fiercely when she left.
And yet over the last few days, she’d been thankful for her job. Concentrating on customers, price checks and sales prevented her from obsessively dwelling on...other things.
Other things being the cataclysmic event of sex with Darius.
A flush rushed up from her chest and throat, pouring into her face. She loosened her collar as the memories surged forth, as if they’d been hovering on the edges of her subconscious, waiting for the opportunity to flood her.
Her step faltered, and she stumbled. “Damn,” she muttered.
No matter how many times those mental images flashed across her brain, they never failed to trip her up—literally and figuratively. She vacillated between cringing and combusting. Cringing at the thought of her completely abandoned and wild reaction to him.
Combusting as she easily—too easily—recalled how his mouth and hands had pleasured her, marked her. How he’d triggered a need in her that eclipsed any previous sexual experience, rendering all other men inconsequential and mediocre.
He’d spoiled her for anyone else.
And she’d committed a fatal error in letting him know just how much she craved him.
So yes, she’d been avoiding him, trying to reinforce her emotional battlements. And surprisingly he’d allowed her to evade him. The few times they’d been in the same room since That Night, he’d treated her with a distant politeness that both relieved and irritated her. Pretending as if they’d never shook in each other’s arms, him buried inside her to the hilt.
Pinching the bridge of her nose as she entered the house, she deliberately slammed the door on those memories, and not just locked it but threw three dead bolts just for good measure.
“Where have you been?”
She skidded to a halt in the foyer at the furious demand, her head jerking up. Shock doused her in a frigid wave, and she stared at Darius. Anger glittered in his amber gaze, tightened the skin over his sharp cheekbones and firmed the full curve of his mouth into a flat line.
“Hello to you, too, Darius,” she drawled with acid sweetness.
“Where. Have. You. Been?” he ground out, his big body vibrating with emotion. It flared so bright in his eyes, they appeared like molten gold.
“At work, although I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” she snapped. “Which is becoming a common refrain between us. I might be in your home, but no clause in that contract mandated me having to run my every movement by you.”
A snarl curled the corner of his lips, and he shifted a step forward but stopped himself. “I beg to disagree with you on that, Isobel. When it has to do with Aiden’s care and no one knows where the hell you’ve been for hours, and you don’t answer your cell phone, then it most definitely. Is. My. Business.” He pivoted away from her, the action sharp, full of anger. His fingers plowed through his hair, fisting it, before he turned back to her. “Aiden started coughing and became irritable, and when Ms. Jacobs took his temperature, he had a low-grade fever. She tried to call you to see if you wanted her to make a doctor’s appointment for him. When she couldn’t reach you, she called me. Damn it, Isobel,” he growled. “I didn’t know if something had happened to you or if you were in trouble or hurt...” Again, he glanced away from her, a muscle ticking along his clenched jaw. “No one could find you,” he finally growled.
Worry for her son washed away her annoyance and propelled her forward. “Is he okay? I can take him to an after-hours clinic...”
“He’s fine. I had a doctor come out and examine him. He has a virus, probably a twenty-four-hour bug, but nothing serious. I’ve just looked in on him, and he’s sleeping.”
Relief threaded through her concern, but didn’t get rid of it. As a cashier, she wasn’t allowed to have a cell phone on the floor. When her mother had been watching Aiden, this hadn’t been a problem, as she’d trusted her mother to handle anything that came up. Not to mention that the store had been minutes from her mom’s place. Maybe she should’ve given Darius her work schedule, or told him she was continuing to work at the store, period. And she’d just told Ms. Jacobs she was going to be out.
Damn. She turned toward the staircase, her thoughts already on her baby. But Darius’s voice stopped her.
“I’ll be in the library, Isobel. After you look in on him, come find me. This conversation isn’t finished.” The “don’t make me come find you” was implicit in the order, but she ignored it, instead rushing up the stairs to her son.
Fifteen minutes later, after she’d satisfied herself that he was resting and breathing easily, she headed toward the library. Her heart thudded against her chest, her blood humming in her veins. Returning to the scene of the crime. She’d barely glanced at the entrance to the room since she’d last left it, and now she had to reenter it. Maybe sit on the same couch where she’d lost her control, her pride and possibly her mind.
She hated having to enter this room again and be reminded of how she’d come apart. Of how she’d cemented his belief that she was an immoral whore who would screw anyone. After all, she’d claimed not to want him, but at his first touch, she’d surrendered.
Break it... Break me.
Hadn’t those been the words she’d uttered as she begged him?Break the no-sex rule she’d instituted. Break her with his passion.
Briefly, she closed her eyes, attempting to smother the humiliation crawling into her throat, squatting there and strangling her.
