Page 60 of The CEO

“Believe this.” He swept her into his arms and kissed her, a divine, devastating kiss that demanded more than she was willing to give.

For all of two seconds.

Powerless to resist, she responded by softening her lips, allowing him access to her mouth, the logic of pushing him away shattered by the hunger of his kiss.

Her eager response shocked her more than the kiss itself and she broke away, dragging in breaths to clear her fuzzy head.

“Damn it, I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He raked a hand through his hair, adding to his rumpled state, and she clenched her hands, shaken by how much she wanted to reach out and smooth it for him.

Shrugging, she wrapped her arms around her middle to ward him off. “I guess it always came down to that for us, didn’t it? A chemical reaction, nothing more.”

“You’re wrong.”

Grabbing hold of her arms, he left her no option but to look up, and what she glimpsed in his eyes sent sadness through her.

Pain. A soul laid bare. A soul lost and confused and reaching out, just like hers.

“I didn’t want to fall for you. I didn’t want to get emotionally involved. But I did.”

“Just not enough?”

His declaration should’ve had her running outside, vaulting the rail, and doing a perfect dive into the water, but it merely served to widen the gap. Too little too late, considering she could never trust him now.

“It happened to me once before. In my early days while I was still working the ships. I fell for a passenger.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “I fell so hard I ended up marrying her.”

Shock speared Lana and she tightened her arms around her belly to ward off the pain.

“I gave up my job for her, left the ships for a year. I gave the marriage everything, paid her the attention she demanded but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t handle my career when I went back to it, hated my absences. She changed. Her appearance, her outlook, her needs, her lover—”

Lana’s gaze snapped to his, not surprised by the hard, unyielding blue or the sadness underlying his bitterness.

“That’s why I over-reacted that night you had the makeover. Another woman I loved changing before my eyes. Stupid, I know, but I’m a guy. We don’t do emotions real well.”

Her befuddled brain backed up a sentence or two, wondering if she’d heard him correctly.

He must’ve seen the confusion clouding her eyes, because he took advantage of her bewilderment by caressing her arms before his hands slid up to cradle her face.

“That’s right. I love you. Whether you’re a fitness fanatic or a curator or dressed to the nines or in nothing at all, I love you.”

Her heart soared at the sincerity in his voice, the tenderness in his eyes. She wanted to fling her reservations to the wind and leap into his arms.

But she couldn’t. It looked like her two weeks of being frivolous ended when the ship docked and now she was back in Sydney she couldn’t shake her conservative ways.

“I appreciate you telling me. But what about the rest? Why didn’t you come after me last night, explain all this then?”

Instead, she’d spent a sleepless night, alternating between cursing him, herself, and the great cosmos that had brought them together in the first place.

“Because I had to tie up loose ends.”

“Loose ends?”

Her heart sank. She knew his declaration of love was too good to be true.

“As you know, I’m the new CEO of Madigan Shipping. When I ditched my job for a year to be with Magda, I didn’t know my uncle was about to hand over the corporation to me. I let him down and because of ongoing job stress, he had a heart attack.”

She touched his arm, sorry for his genuine regret.

“Uncle Jimmy raised me, funded my education, has been like a father to me and I owe him. And now he’s dying…” he shrugged, pain pinching his mouth. “I’ve discovered our spy and set plans into action to rectify the situation, but I still need to prove to my uncle I can do this, prove I’m trustworthy, prove I can make his legacy the best in the business, and ultimately make this difficult time less stressful if possible.”

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