No response, and her heart clenched. “I refused to do anything to hurt you.”
Passion and fury warred on his face as agonizingly long seconds passed, the two of them facing each other like gunfighters at high noon. The moment held in pained suspense until he walked over and cupped her jaw. Stroked it with a gentleness belying those storms in his eyes.
Relief made her dizzy. He understood.
“It’s okay, Emma,” he whispered, his breath sweet. Drugging. “I forgive you.”
She blinked as if that could change the words into something comprehensible. “You—you forgive me?”
“You needed money, were desperate. You’ve been living your whole life on the make. You don’t have to do that anymore.”
She jerked back out of his grasp. “You think I’ve been playing you? After everything I said?”
His brows snapped together. “Baby, we’re all playin’ each other. This is the game of life.”
The game of life? This—this—ass*ole
! “You’re going to put two and two together and come up with ‘We’re all getting screwed anyway’?”
“And you’re going to pretend Grigson didn’t insert you into my life without expecting you to do your duty? You said yourself you’d do anything for your sister.”
She had said that, but betraying Brody had never been an option. Running. That’s what she’d planned to do. Remove her poisonous presence from Brody’s golden life.
The raging silence between them smothered her to the point breathing was barely possible. What she felt was raw and hurting. She had trusted him with her body and her love, and he took it and burned it to ash.
Tears thickening her throat, she headed back to the guest room, every step a mile because the journey was the equivalent of ten football fields. She grabbed a hanger from the closet and walked into the bathroom, where she stripped and changed into the clothes she arrived in five days ago. Her overwashed underwear. The thrift-store suit. Those chunky shoes. She left the clothes he’d bought for her on the vanity and deposited her newer, sexier lingerie in the bathroom wastebasket. In a daze, she donned Ms. Strickland and left that other girl—the one who’d made the cardinal error of showing her real self to this man—in a fetal heap on the carpet where he’d made love to her.
Extreme Makeover: Life Edition, Part…damn, she had no idea.
Back in the bedroom, she found him pacing. On seeing her appearance, his eyes flew wide.
“Emma—”
“Maybe you should frisk me to see if I stole the silver. Grabbed myself some of your nerd dolls to sell on f*ck
ing eBay.”
“Dammit all to hell, wouldn’t you rather I told you the truth about what I’m thinking than keep it festering inside? Are you seriously taking offense because I want you to stay, warts and all?”
“What would I be staying for, Brody? Hot nights with the billionaire, who’ll be sleeping with one eye open because he doesn’t trust me not to stab him in the back.”
“How do you want me to answer that? Tell you I can overturn the habits of a lifetime, forget every lesson I’ve learned from my parents, the women I’ve known—”
“And me, Brody. Don’t forget me. I’ve done nothing but lie to you from the moment we met. Enhanced my résumé, omitted telling you about my second job, kept my true reason for needing money from you, probably faked all my orgasms, too. Of course you’re not going to trust me. What have I done to earn your trust except worked my ass off and loved every single moment that we’ve been together? Yes, I’ve told lies but sometimes the lies are necessary to break water, Brody. Sometimes a little white lie is the difference between drowning and breathing.”
Where the eff was her damn cat? Heart slamming wildly, she looked around for that curmudgeonly piece of shit.
“So you admit you’ve lied?”
“Yes, but not about what happened at the club and not about us. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. More like plastic. But I’ve fought like hell. For me, for my sister.” She walked back toward the living room, eyes blurring with tears, which was really inconvenient. She needed to find Kevin. Now.
“And you know what else,” she said, spinning to face Brody. “I don’t need your f*ck
ing forgiveness. I don’t need your approval. You want to know how I was going to fix this mess with Ray? I’d planned to run. Leave Ray and you and this skin that doesn’t fit behind.”
He blanched. “You would have left?”