Page 70 of Prelude To You

Incredulity spread through me. “Jesus, Isabel. You really think that’s all this is?”

She stared at her hands for the longest time, and I knew the moment she regained some control of herself. Her chin lifted defiantly and the gleam in her eyes sharpened as her defense mechanisms boldly marched in to take the reins.

Even so, her voice faltered slightly. “I have no idea what this is. None. I mean you’ve been very honest about what this is to you. I’m just not the right woman for what you have planned tonight.”

I could clinch a hundred-million-dollar deal before lunch, and tell a board of directors to go to hell in a way that made them look forward to the trip. But I had no idea how to tell this woman that she took my breath away and made me feel things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling. And that, inconceivably, she was rewriting the story of my life.

Selfish bastard that I was, I wanted to cling to her for as long as she was willing to stay. “I had no plans tonight,” I said, raking a hand through my hair. “And there is absolutely no other woman I’d rather be with. It’s as simple as that."

If I thought she was going to be awed by that declaration of devotion, I was so very very wrong.

Her expression declared me to be the fool here, and her tone dripped with scorn. “It doesn’t change the fact that this is still nothing but an inconsequential quickie in the penthouse with a man I don’t know. No matter how hard you try to mold it into something meaningful.”

That thought drifted between us. God, if it didn’t sound downright terrible the way she said it. There was no whitewashing the whole affair. I’d run out of justifications for her to be mine for one night.

“You want to tell me you’ve never had a fling with a man,” I said, desperate and curious, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about another man touching her or enjoying her the way I wanted to. Needed to.

A sentimental tune drifted up from below, soaking up the silence while Isabel contemplated me with a look that suddenly had me wishing I hadn’t pried.

“No, I’ve never had afling. I’ve only been with one man… Sergei. That is if you don’t count the incident in the hallway earlier.”

Incident?Surely she didn’t mean the transcendental affair that almost convinced me of God’s existence. The moment that I, as a man of great power, had to bow with reverence to his queen.

I let it slide. How did I explain to her that she’d opened a whole new world to me, and that giving her pleasure had become my all-consuming purpose?

“And where is this Sergei now?” I asked, as casually as possible.

She harried a ringlet of hair that escaped her chignon, curling it and uncurling it around her finger. Cool, reflective, the picture of virtue. “We’re not in a romantic relationship anymore but we’re very good friends,” she said, nonchalant. “We still dance together.”

Jealousy twisted inside me and dug its talons into the soft membranes of my chest. As if my initial goal hadn’t been to wipe all thoughts and desires for Isabel from my mind. As if I had the right to claim her exclusively for myself, even if it was only for one night.

And since when had I ever been jealous of anyone or anything? I didn’t know what it was to not get something I wanted. “And dancing together is all you do?” I asked, ignoring my instinct to just let it go.

A frown touched her brow, and her body coiled into annoyance. “Ask me again when I owe you an explanation, Roman.”

The luminous nymph was not to be queried.

“Fair enough,” I said. “It has nothing to do with me.”

That’s when her eyes dipped below my waist, where my bespoke pants did a bad job hiding my poor neglected cock. I would have given my birthright to know what was going through her mind just then.

When the tiniest smile of compassion for my obvious predicament grazed her lips, a small seed of hope that all might not be lost lodged itself in my chest. Maybe she would stay for a little while longer.

“Let’s give you a minute,” she said softly, as if to absolve a desecration. “Then we should get to the auction before it ends.” She turned around and resumed her fascination with the doomed wedding below, leaving me to battle the erection with the splinter of willpower I had left in my arsenal.

20

ISABEL

That kiss.

That incredible, horrifying, soul-melting kiss. His fingertips exploring the soft sensitive place below my ear and the hollow in my throat. As if his entire purpose on earth was to give me pleasure, touching me in ways that said he knew me better than I knew myself.

And if I hadn’t pulled away, he would have taken my body hostage along with my soul. This was the kind of kiss that made me want to reconsider submitting completely to this man, even if it was only for one night.

As I watched the dazzling celebration in the ballroom below, my thoughts were scattered, fragmented with no place to take root and make sense.

There was no rationalization for having a one-night stand with Roman simply because sex with him might possibly be magical and mind-bending. I needed more, or I would have nothing at all.

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