Talking Dirty with the CEO - By Jackie Ashenden Page 0,64

you handle that?”

The determination in her face didn’t falter. “No.” Her voice sounded small and quiet. “But I could try.”

Yes, she could. It wouldn’t work, though.

He remembered his mother shouting at him. Remembered the punishments she’d dealt out. And the bewilderment he’d always felt because he hadn’t been able to help the things he’d done, driven by the restlessness he couldn’t control. He’d tried to explain it to her once but she hadn’t listened. He still remembered trying because she’d shut herself in the bedroom and wouldn’t come out.

She’d hated it. She’d hated his behavior. And he knew that because he’d heard her crying sometimes. Usually after something he’d done wrong.

And the day she’d left, he knew that she’d hated him, too.

Christie could end up like that. Hating him. And he knew if she did, he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

The weight on his chest moved, compressing his heart. Making it feel like it was wrapped in barbed wire. He made himself hold her gaze. “Yeah, well, that’s the thing. I can’t. It’s bad enough with Jude. I couldn’t handle hurting you. And that’s why you have to leave.”

She stared at him. Determined. Fierce. Then she reached out a hand toward him.

And he knew that if he took it, if he touched her again, he wouldn’t be able to let her go this time. That the selfish part of him would want to keep her as long as his ADHD would let him.

So he moved away.

Her hand dropped. “I don’t want to go,” she said thickly. “Please don’t make me.”

He swore. “You have to.”

“Joseph, I’m in l-love with you.”

The barbs around his heart sank in deep.

Too late. Too late.

“Don’t, Christie. Please—”

“That’s really why I’m here. To tell you that. To tell you I love you. That you make me feel so strong. So good about myself. “ She searched his face. “And that I want to do the same for you. Make you feel the way you make me feel.”

Tell her the truth. How good she makes you feel.

No, he couldn’t. What he had to do was stop procrastinating. End this now. And save them both the pain later on.

“I’m sorry, Christie,” Joseph said, and he made his voice sound hard and flat. “But you don’t make me feel anything at all.”

…

A punch to the gut. No, more like a bus.

What could she say to that? Nothing.

She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t plead. She’d spent too many years wanting her family’s approval, their praise and their love, to do the same with Joseph.

Maybe, at one stage, it would have been enough to have a week or two. Or even a couple of months. But it wasn’t now. She wanted more. She deserved more. Hadn’t Joseph himself shown her that?

Christie swallowed back the pain. Ignored the cold little animal that had nested in her heart. Lifted her chin. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked out.

Chapter Twelve

Joseph ran. The steady thump of his feet on the treadmill normally soothed him, but not today. Four weeks after Christie walked out of his office and he couldn’t settle. Not on anything. He upped the pace, the sweat pouring off him, running harder, faster.

But his mind was like the treadmill, going over and over the same old ground. Christie’s pale face, eyes gone dark. Pain clear in the depths of them. And her voice.

Okay. If that’s the way you want it.

Liar. It wasn’t the way he’d wanted it. When she’d told him he’d made her believe in herself, he’d felt like more than an against-the-odds success story. More than a brilliant IT genius. More than a guy with ADHD. More than a label.

She’d made him feel like a person. She always had.

But he’d done the right thing in sending her away. He had. If he kept telling himself that often enough, maybe one day he’d believe it.

The door of his office opened and Jude came in.

Joseph cursed. He’d ordered Amy, the receptionist downstairs, to run interference on any visitors, especially visitors like his sister, but something must have gone wrong. Still, he didn’t stop running.

“Did we have an appointment I forgot?” he panted out.

She’d been trying to contact him for weeks now, asking him what was wrong. For some reason she wouldn’t take his “nothing” for an answer.

“No. You’ve been avoiding me so I thought I’d go direct. Beard the lion, etc.”

“How did you get past Amy?”

“I told her there was a courier outside with a