emotions in her! “You bastard! You thought I was the kind of woman who would appreciate this kind of gesture! You thought I would actually agree to become your mistress! No strings attached, you can come and go as you please, do as you please and I’ll just wait here, wondering when you might have time for me.”
“All that has changed, Gabriella. I’ll be living here with you! And I’ll marry you if you’d just say yes!” He honestly didn’t understand why she was upset by his assumptions.
She was shaking with her anger, livid that he would think she was so low. “You can live here all you want, but there is absolutely no way I’ll be living here with you! I’m not some….” She couldn’t even say the word, tears forming in her eyes. She angrily wiped them away and almost ran out of the bedroom. Her pride was wounded because she’d thought he was different! Yet again, she was disappointed in her assumptions, her dreams cruelly crushed by his arrogant assumption that she would be thrilled with this kind of arrangement, that she would actually like it!
She’d honestly thought that she’d glimpsed a small bit of vulnerability in that arrogant man but all she’d done was delude herself into thinking that he might have some emotions deeply buried. She was such a sap to think that he might need her, that she could help him and heal something that had happened so long ago that had made him into this hard, unyielding man.
He was handsome and wealthy and had confidence oozing out of every pore of his body. But the tender side of him was non-existent. He was just a bastard and she’d allowed him in, once again giving him the opportunity to hurt her and humiliate her!
She ran down the stairs and outside into the sunshine, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she cried out her mortification.
“Gabriella, if you don’t like the house, I’ll find another,” he said, right behind her and completely confused. He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms and make everything better but he didn’t understand why she was upset. All the other women he’d been with had been begging, needling, cajoling and doing everything in their power to get him to offer them this kind of relationship. All of them would have been thrilled at what he was offering to Gabriella but none of them had tempted him in the smallest way to make this kind of commitment. She was the only one that had made him think that a long term relationship even had a chance. And he would go even further by marrying her if she would consent to the marriage.
She spun around on the thick grass, not even ware that it was perfectly manicured without a dandelion in sight. All she saw was this great big man who thought that a shameful relationship was the best she could get, and worse, the best he could offer. “The house isn’t the problem! The implication of what the house represents is the problem. You thought I would be happy to be your mistress? To hang out here, waiting patiently for your time and attention. That’s the problem, Damon. You thought I was mistress material and nothing more.”
She shook her head when he started to argue with her. “Don’t even try to say that you’ve already proposed. You didn’t propose, you demanded that I marry you but that was only because of the baby that we only found out about this morning. No! Before we knew that this baby existed, you only wanted me on standby and were willing to pay me a very large salary, housing included, for my services. Do you understand how it makes me feel t o know that you think of me as a wh…”
“Don’t you dare say that word,” he interrupted, furious now because she was right. He’d messed up. Unknowingly, but he’d been wrong nonetheless. He hated being wrong and normally, he could fix anything. Hell, ordinarily he didn’t mess up. In business, he never made a mistake. He took advantage of other peoples’ mistakes. Women had never been a problem and Damon always knew exactly how to handle each of them until Gabriella came long looking all cute and sexy with her curves and her freckles. This woman threw all the rules out the window and made him start from scratch. She didn’t fit into the box he’d made