Her eyes widened in dismay. ‘What? No—!’
‘I know exactly what you’ve been doing, Elena—you’ve been playing me this whole time, hoping to seduce me into giving you what you needed when I’d already told you no,’ he bit out, anger and humiliation and heartache making his voice shake.
She gaped at him in stunned surprise, her face now bleached of colour. ‘No, Caleb.’ Her voice came out as a ragged whisper. ‘That’s not what happened!’
* * *
Elena felt sick.
How could he suddenly be acting so coldly towards her after the closeness they’d shared?
Who was she kidding? She knew how, because she’d done exactly the same thing to him fifteen years ago.
She swallowed hard, her mind whirring, trying to think of some way to convince him that she’d meant well by staying here to look after him and that she genuinely cared about him, but before she could say anything else he frowned, then shook his head as if another revelation had just struck him.
‘You only went to that dinner meeting with Carter with me so I’d feel compelled to say yes to your own partnership.’
Gritting her teeth, she let out a moan of frustration. ‘You asked me to go with you and I wanted to help you! Not for my own benefit, but for yours!’
He was nodding now though, as if he wasn’t listening to her and things were suddenly making sense in his head. ‘You guided me towards asking you to help me, planting the idea about me needing someone who understood the business. You manipulated me.’
‘I did not,’ she said as calmly as she could manage, trying like mad to control the shake of anger and hurt in her voice. ‘It was your idea and there was no way I could refuse to help and leave you alone with your head injury. And I wanted to help, Caleb. Genuinely.’
He let out a low, disdainful laugh. ‘Being genuine is not one of your strong points, Elena.’
‘Maybe not fifteen years ago but, I promise you, it is now.’
‘They why didn’t you tell me everything when we had all our heart-to-hearts? There were plenty of opportunities.’
‘Because I was afraid you’d kick me to the kerb. I was worried about you—about the fact you didn’t seem to have anyone else to look after you. From what I’ve seen, you still seem intent on pushing away anyone who gets even vaguely close to you. I don’t want you to end up old and alone. You deserve more than that. You deserve to be loved. And to be happy. You’re a good man; you just need to believe it.’
He snorted. ‘I know my own worth, Elena.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. I would never have slept with someone who couldn’t remember the callous way I’d treated them in the past.’
She shoved her fingers into her hair in frustration. ‘You told me you’d remembered.’
‘Did you really believe I’d forgive you for the way you treated me back then, just like that?’ He snapped his fingers, shooting her a look of disgust.
Dropping her head into her hands now, she let out a long, low sigh. ‘I guess I knew deep down that something wasn’t quite right, but I really wanted to believe things were okay with us again so I pushed any misgivings I had to one side.’
When she looked up again he was staring at her as if he didn’t believe a word of it, his expression dark and unyielding.
‘Yes, okay, I was being naïve,’ she said, frustration making her belligerent now. ‘It was wrong of me to let it happen.’
‘So why did you?’
His question brought her up short. ‘I—’
‘You could have stopped me.’
‘I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.’
‘Why not, Elena?’
‘Because I wanted you, all right!’ she blurted, furious with herself for losing her cool.
‘You wanted my battery, you mean,’ he bit out, leaning towards her.
‘No!’ She took a breath, trying to calm her raging emotions. ‘Well, yes. Okay.’ She leant forwards too, fixing him with what she hoped was an honest and open expression. ‘I need your battery because I have a lot of good people relying on me to find a way to save their jobs, but sleeping with you was a totally separate thing. I wanted to do it for me. For us.’
‘For us?’
‘Yes! I’ve missed you over the years and I didn’t realise how much until I saw you again. How unhappy I was without you.’
There was a heavy beat of silence where they stared at each other, their breathing rapid and the body language tense.
She thought she saw a flash of vulnerability in his eyes, but the next second it was gone, replaced with cool indifference. ‘If you’re saying that because you’re worried I’m going to back out of the partnership then don’t bother. I’m not that much of a monster,’ he growled, reaching into his jacket and withdrawing a sheaf of papers, which he tossed onto the table in front of her. ‘It’s a contract I had drawn up earlier today which agrees to a partnership with your company.’
She stared at it in shock for a moment before dragging her gaze back to his.
‘Caleb, thank you—’
But, before she could finish her sentence, he cut her off. ‘My colleagues will be handling it from here so we won’t need to have any more contact. I hope that makes you happy.’
She glared at him, her heart thumping against her chest and her jaw tight with frustration. ‘Don’t be ridiculous—of course it doesn’t make me happy to not have any more contact with you!’
He huffed out a disdainful laugh, the expression in his eyes hauntingly distant, then without another word he went to stand up.
‘Please, Caleb, stay,’ she said desperately, reaching out a hand in an attempt to stall him. ‘We need to talk more about this.’
‘There’s nothing left to say,’ he stated coldly, brushing away her attempt to touch him and standing up, and before she could utter another word he turned and walked swiftly away from the table without looking back.
Elena sat there, numb with shock, battling down a painful ache deep inside her, afraid that once she let it rise to the surface she wouldn’t be able to stop the tears that would inevitably come with it.
Everything might have just gone to hell but there was no way she was going to blub in the middle of a restaurant.
Gesturing to a passing waiter, she asked him to bring the bill for the champagne that she’d ordered and that neither of them had touched. She paid with her credit card, her movements jerky with anguish, then got up shakily and brushed herself down, setting back her shoulders before walking out of there, hyper-aware of the fascinated looks she was getting from the other diners.
Dumped on Valentine’s night. It didn’t get much more humiliating than that.
Once outside, she walked quickly down a side alley, away from prying eyes, and leant against the wall, burying her face in her hands.
But she refused to let herself cry.
She’d known, of course, on some subconscious level that Caleb had been lying about getting his memory back—that he’d been swept up in the excitement of closing the deal with the Americans and had wanted to celebrate with her the best way he knew how. And, to her shame, she’d let him, pretending to herself she believed that he remembered her even though he’d not remotely