The Billion Dollar Bad Boy (10 page)

No. She couldn’t say no. He wasn’t going to let her. “You can’t walk away from me. Not after this. Not again.”

“What do you mean, not again?”

“The limo.”

Her lashes fell. “Nothing happened in the limo.”

“Bullshit.” His chest felt tight, aching, and he couldn’t seem to find the charm that had always come so easily before. The usual smile. The seductive words. They were gone. Like she’d stripped his mask from him, too. “Everything happened in the limo and now it’s happened again. And if you think I’m going to let you walk away from this like you got out of that car, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Slowly her lashes rose, her eyes wide and dark. “I can’t, Donovan.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with coming home with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with going home with you but … It’s too much. Too fast.”

“I’m not asking for marriage, for fuck’s sake. Just a night.”

She glanced away. Again.

Christ. He’d made a mistake. He’d fucked up. He’d revealed too much, been too desperate. He’d let it matter and that was the one thing he must never do.

Well, he wasn’t going to compound the error by begging, that was for fucking sure.

“Okay,” he said before she could speak. Before yet another refusal could remind him again of the dangers of opening himself up. “I guess it’s your loss.” He pushed himself away from her, dealing with his pants, then throwing the condom in a nearby wastebasket.

And he smiled. To show her just how much he didn’t give a shit. “As long as you understand that was a one-shot deal. I’m not going to offer again.”

She stood in the alcove, a dim shadow. But he didn’t need to see the expression on her face. All he needed to know was in the sound of her voice. Cool and level, the businesswoman once more.

“I understand, of course. Good-bye, Mr. Morrow,” Victoria said. “I’ll be in touch.”

And before he could move, she slipped by him and was gone.

Victoria checked her watch yet again. Ten minutes late. Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. This was probably another Donovan Morrow power play. Like the whole damn week had been a Donovan Morrow power play.

She’d tried to change their Friday meeting numerous times, at first calling him and then, when all she’d gotten was his voice mail, sending him e-mails. Eventually his secretary had given her a call back, telling her that Mr. Morrow was very busy and there wasn’t a gap in his schedule any earlier.

Which was a lie. He could have called her back, organized another meeting if he’d wanted to. But he didn’t want to. And she suspected she knew why.

She’d hurt him the night of the engagement party and now she was being punished for it.

Victoria swallowed, turning from the table and walking slowly over to the huge windows, with their view of the New York skyline. Buildings glittered in the afternoon sunlight, the sky hazy.

He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what he’d done to her that night.

He’d shown her what more there was and she hadn’t realized how badly she’d wanted it until he’d whispered in her ear,
I’ve got you. Trust me
. And even though she’d only met him for the first time hours earlier, she’d given herself over to him, trusted him. Enough to give him control, scream out her climax into his hand in the middle of a public club.

It was too much. For a woman used to the small crumbs of attention her father cast her way, who was used to being always on the edges of things, to be right in the middle of all that feeling, to be the sole focus of his attention, was far too much.

Easier by far to pull back. To be the businesswoman. To be the ball-busting de Winter ice princess.

But how could she explain that to him? How could she make him understand without revealing about herself that even one night with him would be too hard? That she was afraid of keeping off the mask for too long in case she didn’t know how to wear it again.

And if she wasn’t a de Winter, then who was she?

No one. Nothing.

Victoria stared at her reflection in the glass. There were shadows under her eyes. Shadows from restless nights spent aching for something she told herself she didn’t want.

God, she was slipping. She hadn’t even done what she’d threatened at the party and taken the De Winter offer to Jax. And she didn’t know why that was.

Of course you know why. For some reason he doesn’t want to sell the land. It’s important to him. And you don’t want to hurt him again.

Pathetic. Scruples like that wouldn’t get her the deal, that was for goddamn sure.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Victoria reflexively smoothed a stray red curl back into her bun and turned around as the meeting room door opened and Donovan walked in.

And her heart stuttered in her chest.

He was dressed in an impeccably tailored dark suit with a deep blue shirt, no tie, the color of the material contrasting with the tanned skin of his throat. His black hair looked like someone had run their fingers through it one too many times, making her own fingers itch to do the same.

The man gave new meaning to the word
sexy.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away as he stalked over to the meeting-room table, threw some papers down on it, then pulled out a chair and sat down in an easy, fluid sprawl. And she understood that there was another reason she hadn’t gone to Jax with the offer.

She’d wanted to see Donovan again. Wanted to know why he didn’t want to sell. Why this land was so important to him.

“I have to tell you, Ms. de Winter,” Donovan said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, fingers clasped, “that this will be a very short meeting. My stance on the Morrow docklands hasn’t changed. I will not be selling at any price.”

Victoria folded her hands carefully in front of her. “Then why did you agree to meet me in the first place?”

“I thought it was only fair to tell you personally.”

“You could just as easily have e-mailed me your decision earlier. I presume you got all my messages? And e-mails?”

He smiled, the meaningless, charming smile of the playboy. “Of course. I think you single-handedly crashed my inbox.”

“Then why didn’t you respond?” She tried to make the question neutral and not like an accusation. “You’re obviously very busy and you could have saved yourself a meeting with me.”

“Like I said, I wanted to see you face to face.” That empty smile widened. “I find the personal touch to be so important in business, don’t you think?”

A strange thing to say when there was nothing personal in his smile. Or in his cold blue eyes. Like she was just another minor bit of business he had to tidy up and not a woman he’d been inside of. A woman he’d had screaming against his hand in pleasure.

A woman he’d asked home in a desperate, ragged voice.

What do you expect? You refused him. You hurt him. And you know what it’s like to be hurt.

Her throat felt tight, sore. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About last Friday. I didn’t mean—”

“Apologies for interrupting, Ms. de Winter, but is that it?” He stared at her over his steepled hands. “I have business deals to do and women to screw, you know how it is.” The look in his eyes was guileless but she was under no illusions.

He was shocking her, confronting her.

Punishing her.

She didn’t know why that should hurt, or even why it should matter. But it did.

“So that’s it?” she asked coolly. “De Winter doesn’t get a chance to argue? Make a better offer?”

“I thought I made myself clear when I said ‘not at any price.’”

“Everyone has a price, Mr. Morrow.”

He smiled again. “Not this time. Not when there’s nothing you have that I want.”

She didn’t miss the subtext. He’d made it so easy to spot, after all. But if he thought she was going to lie down and take it he was wrong.

Victoria walked slowly over to the table, put her palms down on the edge of it, and leaned forward, meeting his hard gaze. “Are you so very sure of that? Are you sure there isn’t something I can do to make you change your mind?”

He laughed, a soft, distinctly un-amused sound. “What part of ‘not at any price’ don’t you understand, Ms. de Winter? Points for determination, I admit, but determination isn’t going to get you that land if I don’t want to sell it.”

“I think you underestimate the power of my determination.” She lifted a brow. “Tell me, because I’m curious. Why don’t you want to sell? It’s just a bit of rundown docklands real estate. Nothing special.”

A ripple of something she couldn’t interpret crossed his face. “It’s Morrow land, like I told you. It needs to stay in Morrow hands.”

“That’s not what your brother thinks.”

“My brother doesn’t understand. That land has history and selling to someone else won’t make that history go away.” He leaned back in his seat and the flicker of something intense glowed in his eyes, the empty smile fading. “It’s a legacy, Ms. de Winter. The Morrow legacy. And I will not let someone else have it.”

She hadn’t been wrong. As she suspected, this was important to him.

Which made things so much more difficult.

It wouldn’t be difficult if you didn’t care.

But that was the problem. She was starting to.

“You care about it,” she said. “It’s personal to you.”

Another flicker in his eyes. His mouth curled as he smiled again, his shoulders relaxing as he folded his arms. “We’re territorial bastards, us Morrows. Everything is personal to us.”

Yet Victoria wasn’t fooled. He was minimizing. Deflecting. Yes, he cared and, yes, it was personal.

A pressure settled in her chest. Because this was going to leave her with even fewer options.

Donovan clearly wasn’t going to agree to sell, which meant she would have to go over his head and take the De Winter offer to Jax directly. It was either that or leave it, find some other land for her development. But that wouldn’t mean anything to her father …

“So what’s De Winter’s interest in this?” Donovan asked. That smile played around his mouth but his gaze had turned sharp, piercing. “There are other pieces of real estate in New York. You don’t need Morrow’s.”

Victoria pushed herself away from the table, abruptly turning and walking back to the window again, staring unseeing through the glass.

It would be a risk to tell him, to reveal that this was personal to her, too. Hand him a weakness he could use to his advantage. And yet …

I’ve got you. Trust me.

She focused on a helicopter coming in to land on the rooftop of a nearby building, hovering like a giant bumblebee as the pilot lined up the helipad. “No, De Winter doesn’t need Morrow land. But I do.”

“Why? What does this land matter to you?”

“It doesn’t matter to me, at least not in the way you think. But …” She turned around. “It matters to my father. He wants a piece of the Morrow legacy, and that particular piece, with that particular history, is pretty much perfect.”

Donovan didn’t move, still in that relaxed, easy sprawl. But his eyes were cold. “That piece of land has nothing to do with your father.”

“Actually, it does. Dad is pretty certain his grandfather used to own it and was cheated out of it by a Morrow. He thinks it’s de Winter land and he wants it back.”

“How interesting. That’s not in any of our history.”

“Yes, well, that’s the story Dad tells.”

“So presumably it’s your job to get it back?”

Victoria took a breath. “He didn’t send me after it if that’s what you’re thinking. Buying the land was my idea.”

“Why? What do you get out of it? A nice fat bonus? A promotion?” He lifted one dark brow. “A pat on the head for being such a good girl?”

He’ll finally see that blood doesn’t matter. That you’re a de Winter and always have been.

But how could she say that? What would Donovan know about the need to belong? About the need to prove yourself in order to feel part of something? He was the rich and privileged son of a rich and privileged family. A family he’d been born into. He wouldn’t understand what it felt like to have your acceptance into your own family conditional. Because you didn’t have the blood. Because the one person who wanted you died and you were a walking, talking reminder of that death.

Because you were an unwanted gift that couldn’t be returned.

He didn’t know. He had no idea.

Victoria glanced away out the window. “Dad said he’d admit me to the De Winter board. And formally make me his successor.”

“So, a promotion then.”

No. It was so much more, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. It was too personal, gave away far too much. “An important promotion,” she amended carefully.

Donovan let out a breath. “Well, as much as I’d love to sell my birthright for your important promotion, I believe my answer stands. Not at any price, Ms. de Winter.”

She hadn’t expected to change his mind so his response didn’t surprise her.

Turning once more from the window, she stared at him. “Your brother wants to sell.”

He shifted in his chair, put his hands behind his head, legs stretched out underneath the table, his long body in one careless, indolent sprawl. As if he didn’t have a care in the world. Yet those eyes of his were so sharp they were like shards of glass. “.” And I’ll tell him if he sells it to you I’ll leave the company.”

“You think he’d stop the sale if it meant losing you?”

“I don’t think it, Victoria. I know it. Morrows stick together.”

So did de Winters. But she knew if she threatened to leave her father’s company, if she gave Cameron de Winter a choice between herself and the land deal, he’d choose the land deal.

She wasn’t his blood. She wasn’t his choice. She’d never been his choice.

A longing broke open inside her, a longing so intense she had to turn away so Donovan wouldn’t see it.

What would it be like to be chosen? And what would it be like to be able to trust that choice so completely you knew down to your bones that you’d never be left. Never be abandoned. Never be unwanted.

Her throat closed, the pressure in her chest increasing.

She’d never had that kind of security, at least not since her mother had died. But she’d hoped this deal would go some way toward proving to him. That she was worth choosing.