Page 57 of Tempting Her Forbidden Boss

‘So you’re just going to run away? From me? From this?’ He threw Jack’s file at her.

She turned away as the pages scattered on the floor. ‘I don’t want it.’ Her voice broke. ‘I don’t want...’

‘Don’t want what?’

She turned back. ‘To stay.’

He walked right into her space. ‘I won’t let you go.’

‘You can’t stop me.’ She pushed past him and picked up her bag.

‘You think you’re so tough. But you’re not. You’re scared. You’re that total chicken.’

So what if he was right? So what if she was dying inside? She wasn’t going to hurt herself more by lingering in an affair that had no future. She couldn’t handle any more of the agony burning her through now. ‘I told you from the start I don’t do relationships.’

‘What the hell do you think we’ve been doing? We’ve been living together, being together,making lovetogether—that’s not a relationship?’

‘We didn’t make love. We had no-strings, uncomplicated sex!’ How could he say otherwise? It was him feeling bad for her—his caretaker duty on full steam ahead—but she wasn’t his new pity project. ‘We were flatmates trading favours— nothing more than that. Not a relationship.’

‘That’s ridiculous. What is it going to take, Dani?’ He gripped her arm. ‘When are you going to face up to your fears? When are you going to let yourself trust someone? When are you going to let someone in? Because until you do, you’re going to be alone and lonely.’

‘Alone is exactly what I want to be.’ Alone meant there’d be no more loss. No more crippling heartache. She yanked her arm free and raced down the stairs.

‘I want you to stay.’ He kept pace. ‘I want you.’

She ran to the front door.

‘Did you hear what I said, Dani?Iwant you.’

Yeah, but the want wouldn’t last—the want would die. Everything else had been based on him feeling responsible, feeling guilty, feeling pity. None of which would last, either. So she turned, faced him down. ‘Well, I don’t want you.’

‘Liar. You want me just as much as I want you. You can’t say no to me.’

‘No!’ she shouted. ‘I’m saying it now. I don’t want you.’ And it wasn’t all a lie. For she didn’t. She didn’t want him like this.

TWELVE

‘You haveto get out of this office, Alex.’

‘You’ll just have to manage alone tonight, Renz. I’m sure you can handle it.’

Lorenzo had his hands on his hips. ‘It’ll be a good night.’

‘Are we going to settle this the old way?’ A hard out physical battle might just be the thing. At least it might wear him out enough to crash.

‘I couldn’t do it to you,’ Lorenzo grumbled. ‘The way you look. I’d knock you out first punch. Haven’t you been sleeping at all?’

Three days. Three long, lonely, bloody miserable days that had dra-a-aged. No, he hadn’t slept at all. In his head that row played over and over and over—preventing any kind of wind-down of body or mind.

Could he have been more lovelorn teen? Throwing the most desperate lines at her—‘I won’t let you go’—what, like he was going to imprison her?

He wished he could have.

Damn, it still hurt.

She wouldn’t give them a chance. She wouldn’t let him in.

‘Have you heard from her?’

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