Caught Between Two Billionaires - Skye Warren Page 0,81
know he saved the library. “Why?”
“Hell,” he says roughly. “You know why.”
I don’t want to hear this, but I can’t make myself walk away. It’s everything I ever wanted from him. Too late, too late. “Spell it out for me.”
“The only reason I was in this city was for you. Because you loved it here, with Avery. Because I thought you belonged here. Turns out you do belong here—with someone else.”
“Why would that matter to you?”
An uneven laugh. “Because I’ve loved you every day since that goddamned will reading. Every day since I dived into the water after you. Probably from the moment I saw you walking up that dock the first day.”
My stomach pitches. “Then why didn’t you fight for me?”
“Oh, there’s a million answers to that one. Stubbornness. Stupidity.”
“And at the end?”
“At the end, you wanted Sutton to be the one to save the library.”
“So you gave it to me,” I whisper, my heart fracturing.
We’re standing only an inch apart. His eyes might as well be a fathomless night sky, deep in the city without a single star. With nothing to guide me. We stood like this in front of Medusa, and he kissed me. She watched us without judgment or fear, the same way the city watches us now.
His head lowers. There’s not time to breathe or think.
When his lips touch mine, there are a thousand stars lit up. I’m the one burning inside the open space of him. I’m the one made hot and raging. He dips his tongue against my lower lip, testing me, tasting me, soothing the wild heat inside with a smooth, dark movement.
A sound comes from the door.
It takes me a while to come back into my body from the places I’ve been. To feel the mechanics of my bones and joints and muscles. To make myself step back. When I do, I can see the door which hangs open behind Christopher.
Sutton stands in the doorway, his blue eyes stark and cold. A lake that’s frozen over. There’s no way to explain what’s happened here, not when I don’t understand it myself. No excuses for the fact that Christopher’s hand is clenched in my hair. He releases me slowly, finger by finger. Prying himself away. That’s how it feels. He takes one step back. Another.
I watch as he becomes the man from after the will reading. I watch as he becomes a stranger. An enemy. “You were just leaving.”
There are razors in my chest. They turn against me, leaving only ribbons of wanting, the remains of a pointless dream. “Is that why you were kissing me? Because the only way you can touch me is if you know it means goodbye?”
The words hit their mark, an arrow in the heart of a stone. He turns cold. “Does it matter? You have what you wanted.”
Hurt crowds my throat. I cover it up with suspicion. “Sutton?”
“The trust fund. It’s your money. Use it however you want. Buy a thousand goddamned butterflies.”
He leaves me with that terrible victory, having won control of the fortune that should have been mine, having lost the man who never belonged to me. The man I’ve always wanted more than he wants me. Sutton turns sharply to give Christopher his exit, careful not to touch him. No punches thrown. That should be a relief to me. It feels like I took the hit to my stomach instead.
I half expect Sutton to storm out of the apartment, but he stands in front of me. Stands with me in the rubble of trust around us, figurative dust floating in the air, the way we were at the library. He’s the past, he said then. Christopher’s taste is still on my tongue.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Sutton says, his gaze past my shoulder, to the wall of windows beyond.
Words crowd my throat, words of apology, but loss steals my voice. I should have learned this by now, that life couldn’t be trusted.
That anything good was only temporary—especially men.
I could say that I didn’t initiate this, that I didn’t come here for this. That it was Christopher who kissed me. But I didn’t stop him. And in my secret heart, I know the truth—I didn’t want to stop him. Sometimes a woman has to face a wrecking ball coming toward her with steady eyes. She knows what’s coming. That’s what I told Christopher. The library might recover. Cleopatra won’t.
“I’m sorry.” My voice comes out raw. “That shouldn’t have happened.”