He was still a mark. That was all. And she would never make such a mistake again.
She picked up the phone that was by the bedside and dialed the front desk. “Yes,” she said when the woman on the other end answered. “I’m in Mr. Amari’s room. I need a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Medium. Some sneakers. Size eight. And a bra. Thirty-six B. Just charge it to the room.”
She hung up and sat back down on the bed. She wasn’t touching that dress, those shoes, or the lingerie again.
The sweats were a fair trade.
It was the last thing she would ever take from Rocco Amari. The very last thing.
After this, she would forget about him. About this hotel room. Where she had lost her pride and her virginity all at the same time.
From this moment on, Rocco Amari was dead to her. She would leave this experience here, over and done.
She’d used her body to escape, so she would damn well see that it was an escape. No more cons. No more helping her father out with one last thing.
She would leave here, and go into her new life, with a fresh start.
After this, she would not speak of him. She would not think of him. She would take nothing from him ever again.
ROCCO AMARI WAS a bastard. In every sense of the word. He’d been aware of that from an early age. From the time he’d first been teased by other neighborhood children for not having a father to the moment he’d watched his mother, a grim look of wounded pride on her face, accept money from an employee of the man who’d sired him, to help them keep the modest house they called home. Provided they never made contact with him.
Yes, he had known, then and always, that he was nothing more than an illegitimate child born to a rich man’s unwanted mistress. And as time had gone on he had learned that playing the part of the bastard in the colloquial sense served a man well in his ascent to success.
Though, in his case, the role had become his reality. There was no place in his life for conscience, no place for compassion. He had learned, long ago, that a man had to look out for himself because when push came to shove no one else would.
Venture capital was not the sort of business that lent itself to being sentimental or soft. Yes, it was about building businesses, but you had to be willing to cut dead branches. And Rocco was more than willing.
A man had to protect what was his, because other men wouldn’t hesitate to try and claim it for themselves.
And given that he was a bastard, and given that he took a dim view of compassion, he found himself irritated by the fact that the conscience he had no place for felt seared by his encounter with Charity Wyatt.
He had never meant for it to go so far.
The plan had been to bring her into the hotel room, strip her bare, humiliate her and leave. Perhaps, not an overly sympathetic plan, but nowhere in his planning had he imagined he would actually... No. Trading sex for his stolen money had never been a part of the plan. Yes, he had intended to flirt with the line. He had always intended to do that. But Charity was a thief, and in his mind she was just lucky he didn’t believe in more medieval forms of punishment.
But things had not gone according to his plan. He had lost control.
Which was, perhaps, the most unforgivable part about it.
The rest he could have forgiven himself for. But not the loss of control.
By taking her to his room, by commanding her to strip, by making her beg for him, he had been proving to her that she was in over her head. That he commanded the situation, as he did all things. But her rich, dark eyes had met him in challenge as she’d taken the expensive, overtly sexual clothing off her body, revealing the perfection beneath. And something had flipped. He had not proven his control. She had broken it. Yes, he was certain he had humiliated her, but at what cost? At what cost to his own pride?
It had been nearly two months since their encounter, yet at night he still woke up drenched in a cold sweat, dreaming of soft delicate fingertips trailing down his stomach. Of rich, dark curls spread out over his chest. Coal-black eyes looking up at him with wonder.
It was the wonder that got him. Because it wasn’t anything he had never seen before. Certainly, women had looked at him with desire, with satisfaction, but never with the kind of awe he had seen in Charity’s eyes. And he knew why.
He clenched his hand into a fist. He shouldn’t care. What did it matter if a woman had made love to a hundred men, or one? It didn’t. It shouldn’t. Not to a man like him.
And yet it mattered.
It made his sin feel that much greater, when he didn’t wish to feel as though he had sinned at all. Normally, he lived his life exactly the way he chose to, conducting affairs with women as he saw fit, spending his money as he chose, drinking as much as he desired. He didn’t answer to anyone, least of all the archaic idea of black-and-white morality. Life on the streets of Rome had taught him early on that morality was only for the middle class.
Those who had nothing couldn’t afford it, and those with billions could pay to bypass it.
And yet here he was, regretting a sexual encounter with all the guilt of a choir boy. Concerning himself over the virginity of a woman who had been far from innocent regardless of her past sexual experience.
It was unacceptable as far as he was concerned. As it was unacceptable that the woman was still taking up so much space in his mind. It was also unacceptable that he was still without his money.
He had not intended to let her off the hook on that score, either.
But as he had deviated from his plan, he had yet to regroup and decide what he would do now.
He could not pursue prosecution now. As he had promised absolution in exchange for sex. However, he’d never intended to actually have sex with her.
But he had. And that limited his options.
That damned conscience again. Where the hell had it come from? He should have no qualms about either one of those things.
His intercom buzzed and he pressed it, annoyance coursing through his veins. “What?”
“Mr. Amari—” his secretary, Nora, sounded harried “—there is a woman here who refuses to leave.”
Rocco gritted his teeth. This was not the first time, nor, he imagined, would it be the last. It was either Elizabeth, a woman he’d ended his association with a little over three months ago, or it was someone entirely random, hoping to fill the currently vacant position of mistress in his life.
Too bad for whoever it was he didn’t enjoy being pursued. He liked to be the one directing the pursuit.
“Tell her I am in no mood.”
“I did. She is still sitting here.”
“Then have security remove her.”
“I thought I should call you before I resorted to that,” Nora said, her tone conveying that she found the idea of having a woman forcibly removed from the building distasteful. He didn’t find it distasteful in the least. If she didn’t want to be carted out, then she should have obeyed the command to leave in the first place.
“Next time don’t bother. Have security remove her as a matter of course. You have my permission.”
He heard a muffled shout, and response from Nora. She must have put her hand over the receiver. And then she was back. “Mr. Amari, she says her name is Charity Wyatt, and she says you will want to see her.”
His blood ran cold. Rage following closely, thawing out the ice.
He didn’t want to see Charity Wyatt unless it was in hell.
Of