“Why?” he asked, needing to know more.
“I can’t figure it out. There’s always been something about you that makes me feel…I don’t know, like I’m about to jump off a cliff. I know that it’s going to be an exhilarating ride but I’m not sure my parachute is going to open in time.”
It was different for him. He’d spent the last ten years protecting his emotions from the women with whom he got involved. It hadn’t even been conscious at first, but the last woman he’d broken up with had said that he was the coldest man she’d ever slept with. White-hot in bed but stone-cold out. And Hayden had realized the truth about himself. The truth that had probably been there the entire time. He couldn’t do things by half measures.
“We agreed to dinner,” he said.
“I know. But I got nervous when I saw you watching me.”
“Wanting you,” he said.
He closed the distance between them and bent down on one knee. Up close he could see the smooth, lightly tanned skin.
“Do you want me to want you that way?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, because that gives me something real to cling to.”
He shouldn’t touch her. Not now. Yet he couldn’t help himself. He reached out, scraping one nail along the edge of the material that covered her leg. She shivered, but didn’t pull away.
Her hand fell to his shoulder, holding on to him while he touched her. Stroking her was addictive. Her skin was softer than anything he’d touched in a long time. Her muscles weren’t hardened by hours in the gym, but softer. It was a very feminine thigh.
Taking the fabric in his hand, he drew it up over her leg and uncovered her. She dropped her hand to the top of her thigh, lightly resting it on top of his.
“Sit with me, Hayden. Let’s talk.”
He didn’t ask why. He knew that she wanted that sweet feeling that had always been between them. The real reason he could never forgive Shelby wasn’t so much because of the money she’d taken. It was because of the lesson she’d taught him.
He’d never been the kind of man who had let anyone inside him. Never let anyone see the real man behind the trappings of the spoiled rich-boy facade. But he’d been tempted to let her in and she’d walked away.
“Why’d you do it, Shel?”
She trembled and lifted her hand from his. She pushed away from the chair and walked a few steps from him, looking out over the railing up toward the stars that were playing across the wide ceiling.
He stood but kept the distance between them. When she spoke it was almost too soft for him to hear, but he could make out the words.
“I needed security.”
“That’s it?” he asked, sensing she was hiding something. He knew then that subterfuge was a big part of what was going on here and it had little to do with sex. It was all about who they both were and who they didn’t want the other to see. “Lay it out for me, babe. Because that just sounds like a line.”
“I left because I knew that you were twenty-four-carat solid gold and I was that spray-on stuff they use at fairs that wears off after a few days and leaves a green mark.”
She turned her head away from him. “I wanted to leave before I left a mark on you that you’d have a hard time getting rid of.”
Hayden led Shelby out of the planetarium to a very exclusive restaurant on the fifty-fifth floor of the Chimera. They were led to a private booth that faced the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows overlooking Las Vegas. The view was breathtaking. She slid onto the bench and straightened her skirt, looking casual and at ease.
But Hayden wasn’t. Tension rode him like a gambler trying to find a winning streak.
Knowing it tightened the knot in his gut. Why did this woman still have a hold on him? And would revenge be enough to loosen her hold?
His mind warned that logic didn’t play a part in his actions here and now, but he wasn’t really listening with his mind.
The curve of her neck was looking fragile and vulnerable, and he realized that talking about her past was one of her weak points. They’d never really talked about where she’d come from. Perhaps he’d been too shallow to care or too arrogant to think any of that mattered. But now, with the years between them, he realized that her past very much shaped the kind of relationship they’d had.
“Thanks for showing me the stars tonight,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Would you like some more wine?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Let’s get down to business. I believe you said you want to get what you paid for, right?”
When she said it like that he sounded like a bastard. It didn’t matter that they both had been acting true to form in those days. He had been a spoiled young man who’d picked a pretty, shy girl who needed him. He’d liked the way she’d clung to his arm, let him pay for everything and make all the decisions. That wasn’t politically correct but he wasn’t really a PC kind of guy. Despite the money he’d always had, sophistication had always eluded him.
“Yes. That’s what I want.”
He saw in her eyes that she knew it as well. Knew that she was sitting across from a man who wasn’t quite the gentleman he pretended to be.
“You make me feel very feminine when you look at me that way. And I’m not at all used to it. Most men I date are intimidated by me.”
“Why?”
“Who knows,” she said, but bit her bottom lip.
She knew. Shelby always knew why people acted the way they did. She made it her business to pay attention to those details. “Just guess.”
“Because I’m driven to make my company a success. I made too many mistakes when I was young.”
“Like you’re old now?” he asked.
“You know what I mean. Sometimes I’m amazed at how immature I was when we were together.”
He leaned back, resting his arm on the seat behind her. He wanted to pull her closer to him, to cradle her against his body and protect her. But Shelby didn’t need him to do that. He imagined that was what she’d been talking about. That men realized that Shelby was an independent woman who made her own way. It was a bit intimidating.
“You’ve done really well. I read an article about your company in Entrepreneur. The reporter said you were one of the savviest business minds he’d ever encountered.”
She shrugged the comment aside. “I think he was just being nice.”
“Reporters are never nice. He respected what you’d done.” Hayden realized he did, too. She’d taken the hand that life had dealt her and rolled with it.
“Well…” She shrugged. It was clear to him that Shelby wasn’t there yet. She didn’t really respect herself. Had he played any part in that?
“Let’s get back to us. I think your dad paid me off so—”
“No, Shelby. I paid that money to you.” He hadn’t meant to say it but it was best she knew the facts. He wasn’t playing around this game—the stakes were high and he wanted to be damn sure Shelby realized it.
“What?”
“Old Alan wanted to make sure I never forgot the lesson he was teaching. He gave you the money, then made me pay him back every cent.” His father had always been real fond of that kind of demonstration—one where the lesson was reinforced by humiliation. It didn’t help that Hayden had played on his father’s biggest weakness: a woman with big soul-filled eyes and an empty