Page 64 of The Scandal You Started
The switch was being pushed to the middle, neither dropping this way nor that, but balancing precariously and causing her to be conscious of its agitating, nagging pull.
Still, she jabbed a frustrated finger at him. “That’s your own problem, Dominic. My life doesn’t revolve around your bloody feelings.”
A bitter, dare she say even hurt, smile quirked his lips. “Yes, I can see how little regard you have for myfeelings. But are you truly shocked that I am not jumping for joy having seen you embrace a man who has felt the touch of your lips and so obviously longs for more, while you lie to my face, telling me he is your friend when I am able to see the contrary evidence before me?” He threw a hand out. “He cares for you, and you know that. In fact, it rather seemed like you were happy to encourage his attention, and where does that leave me then?”
The pinch of anger burning her skin dulled, and she leaned back in wary confusion. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His hand went limp at his side. “You had led me to believe my attraction was reciprocated, but you stand before me, defending your relationship with Jake as if my reason for feeling betrayedis absurd.” He shrugged tiredly. “I was convinced you only wanted my attention, yet you are unwilling to reject his, so where does that leave me, Rayna? How am I to feel?”
Rayna couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason her heart lurched up to her throat before collapsing back into place, sending a tremor through her stomach.
It was shock, but it was more. It was denial, but it was disagreement too. It wasn’t quite realisation, but it wasn’t confusion either. It was panic, but it was like something clicked into place too.
“What are you talking about?” she said almost fearfully. “I didn’t lead you to believe anything.”
He smiled wryly. “Are you to deny this as well?”
She bristled. “Deny what, Dominic? I’ve told you multiple times that nothing would happen between us—”
“Yes, you have,” he agreed, then shook his head. “But you never claimed it was because you did not wish for something to happen. Because you found me unappealing or bothersome.”
She opened her mouth to tell him he was wrong, but only a puff of air came out.
I did. I had.She had, hadn’t she?
All those times she’d told him—she’d said—she’d warned him of…of…
The consequences of being caught. The rules of her job.
But she’d never told him to stop because she didn’t like it.
She’d never told him to stop, full stop. That was how they’d ended up here in the first place.
“Just because I—I didn’t say it, that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to you,” she said, fumbling over her words.
“Then what did it all mean?” he asked, his piercing eyes searching her face with the slow, intent perusal of a hunter. “Because I was not simply dallying with you, Rayna, and I believe I made that quite clear. I did not hide the way I lookedat you nor the way I longed to touch you. So why have you not refused me if you did not care for my attention?”
“Would you have listened if I told you to stop?” she snapped.
“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes when she scoffed. “I have told you before, I would never force myself upon a woman. Had you said I was making you uncomfortable, I would have locked my feelings in a box so that they may have never bothered you again.”
You didn’t.
He didn’t say it. But the accusation was there at the end of his sentence.
Rayna found herself at a loss for words as her mind ran in jagged lines, crisscrossing between all the moments she’d spent with Dominic, replaying their conversations, trying to decipher her own reactions to him. All while trying to deny his case against her.
Dominic wasattractive. But that didn’t make itattraction.
It didn’t.
So what if he ignited sharp sparks of lust in her belly? And it didn’t matter that his embrace was always warm and comforting. Maybe she enjoyed teasing and talking to him and listening to his cheesy compliments. Perhaps there were moments when his laughter and curiosity made the thing in her chest, the thing on the left side, do odd, meaningless dances. And if the way he looked at her, with deep desire that bordered on yearning, made her stomach swoop and rise within the same breath, that didn’t mean she…itcouldn’tmean that…that she…she…
She gulped as her mind stuttered on one blaring, obvious conclusion.
No. No. No.For fuck’s sake, no!
She wasn’t attracted to him.I’m not.
