The Italian's Bedroom Deal Page 0,56
it too painful?”
Turning her head from side to side, she tried to deny him but he held her close, pulling her into his chest and holding her carefully. She couldn’t take the sweetness of his embrace and her pride was gone. She couldn’t hold back the words anymore. “Because I’ve loved you so much, for so long and you lied to me. You told me you wanted me. Just me!” she exclaimed, stomping her foot for emphasis. “Do you know how seductive that is for someone who’s been an afterthought her whole life?”
He bent down so he could see her face. “You’re wrong, Clarissa. You’re father loves you dearly. He’s just terrible at showing it. He sent the papers to my office so you wouldn’t see them. He didn’t want you to know about what he was planning. He knew it would hurt you. It never occurred to him that my secretary would send them to my home office. He’s been so wrapped up in his own company and working his life away that it never occurred to him that I would bring my work home with me. But I do. I need to be with you even if you’re only across the room. I like working through details and looking up to see you in the chair in my office while I work, I need to see you concentrating so hard when you’re working on a difficult passage and I want you in my bed, in my life and across from me at breakfast and dinner, and lunch if you can endure me that often. I want to see you grow huge with our children and when they enter our lives, I want to raise them right beside you, not missing out on any of those incredible moments your father threw away because of a blind need to achieve something in the business world. You’re sweet and beautiful and you make me crazy with desire just watching you walk across a room.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. The tears that had been spilling out gently burst out of her in a cough of pain. “But you have my father’s company. You don’t need me!”
He held her closer. “That’s not true. You’re everything to me. You love me and I love you and there’s nothing we can do but figure out how to trust each other because we can’t live without each other. I won’t expect anything less, nor should you.”
“I don’t trust you,” she said adamantly.
He smiled over her head as his arms tightened around her waist. “Yes, you do.”
She pushed out of his arms and glared at him. “No, you arrogant bastard! I don’t love you.”
He chuckled softly, unable to stop the relief soaring through him as he watched her face. “Yes, you do. Otherwise, you never would have married me and compromised everything you believed in. You trust me for the same reason. You just need to learn to trust yourself.”
He pulled her closer but she shook her head and walked around him. “No, Max. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to feel like this ever again. It’s too painful.”
“I agree.”
She hadn’t expected him to say that and it stopped her. She turned in the middle of the room, the anger gone to be replaced by the hurt once again. “What did you say?”
“I agree. The pain is too much. But I can’t let you go. That would tear me apart and I can’t live without you.”
His words confused her even more. As did the sincerity in his voice. She told herself not to trust him, not to trust what he was telling her. She’d seen him convince others of his way of thinking and she couldn’t fall under the spell. “You want the money and the power,” she challenged, daring him to contradict her.
“No. I want the challenge of business. I don’t care about the money although it’s a nice side benefit,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
Despite the hurt and tears Clarissa couldn’t help but laugh. “You need to work on your humility.”
“I need to work on making you deliriously happy,” he countered and took a step toward her. “I need to work on making your father understand things about you that he’s too stupid to realize on his own. I need to tear up this document,” he said, referring to the will that was sitting on a chair by the bed, “and make sure your father finds his own successor because