I cover it with a smile, a slow, easy roll of my shoulders that feels stiff and false. “I'm sure you managed."
“I did not,” he says, and his gaze is heavy now, pinned on me, and it feels like he’s seeing past the dress and the makeup and the carefully constructed armor. He’s seeing the want. He’s seeing the ache. He’s seeing the lie. “I thought about you all day.”
I can feel my control slipping, the carefully constructed cracks in my composure widening. I’m the one who’s supposed to be in charge here. I’m the one who’s supposed to be dictating the terms, the one who’s supposed to be the one leaving him wanting, not the other way around.
I need to stop this.
I need to get control back.
I need to stop feeling like I'm the one about to fall apart.
I look at him, at the heat in his gaze, at the slight curve to his lips, at the way he’s looking at me like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
And I know, with a certainty that’s almost painful, that he’s going to win again.
I pick up my glass, my fingers tight around the stem. “That's a line,” I say, teasing. “I've heard better."
“Have you?” he asks, and he’s not smiling anymore. He’s just watching me, and it’s intense, and it’s unnerving, and it's doing things to me I don't want it to do.
“Many times.”
“Not from me,” he says.
I don't answer.
He leans forward again, just enough to make it a private conversation, a secret. The space between us feels charged, like the air before a storm. "You think this is a game,dolcezza?"
"I think you think it is," I shoot back, but my voice is breathy. I hate the sound of it.
“I don't play games,” he says, and his voice is low, serious. “I make moves.”
I’m silent.
He’s getting to me. He’s getting under my skin, and I don’t know how to stop him. I don’t know how to make him stop seeing me. I don’t know how to make him stop wanting me. I don’t know how to make him stop making mewant him.
I’m losing.
I can feel it in the way my heart is hammering against my ribs, in the way my body is thrumming with a tension that’s been building since I walked in the room, in the way I can’t seem to look away from him.
He’s a predator. I know it. I saw it last night. I felt it. And I walked into his territory again, dressed like bait, and now I’m shocked that he’s closing in for the kill.
I look at him, at the dark intensity in his eyes, at the way he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the room, in the world, and I’m terrified.
And I’m so, so turned on I can barely think straight.
I’m a fool.
I’m a stupid, reckless, foolish girl.
The betrayal hits me again, sharp and bitter. He knows who I am. He used me, slept with me, made me feel things for him.
All for an acquisition.
That fuels me, gives me the strength to pull it together. I lift my chin. “And what move are you making now?”
A slow, predatory smile spreads across his face.
“This,” he says.