“Sabrina,” Weston called through the open door, eyeing the stack of files in my hands. “Are those for me?”
Adrenaline shot through me at the shock of being “caught.” I looked down at the pile, having almost forgotten what my original agenda had been. “I was dropping them off at your office.”
He used two fingers to gesture me toward him. “I’ll take them.”
My heart was beating so loud I could hear it, and shit, I suddenly couldn’t remember how to walk in heels. Somehow I made it to him without falling on my face, and without obviously staring at Donovan the entire time.
“Executive meeting?” I asked as if speaking would make me look somehow more collected than I was.
“Just shooting the shit, really,” Weston said.
“Ah.” Dumb, but fine. It was all fine. I’d gotten through it just fine.
But after I set the files next to Weston, I looked up, and Donovan was right across the table from me, staring at me in that way he always did. That way that saw into me and knew me.
It always rattled me when he looked at me like that. But today when he saw me, I remembered that he loved what he saw and the butterflies fluttered again inside me.
“Hi,” I said quietly. Like a dork. Like a lovesick kid.
The corners of his lips pressed up just slightly, just for me. If we were alone I’d kiss him there. One kiss on each corner before—
“Donovan,” Nate said, interrupting my daydream. “I meant to tell you—I saw the early footage from the France campaign. Sun Le Chen looks stunning.”
And then it was all gone—the butterfly flutters, the racing heart, Donovan’s smile. Left was stark, bleak reality.
“Sun was with you in France?” My voice was even because this wasn’t shocking. This made much more sense than any of the amazing things he’d said last night.
He didn’t answer. The silence in the room was answer enough.
“Excuse me, fellows.” I turned and walked on steady feet out of the room, but not before hearing Donovan mumble “fuck” under his breath.
Unlike at the restaurant, he was right on my heels. “Sabrina, stop.”
I didn’t want to stop. But I could feel the eyes of the other men on me, and who knew who else was watching from their offices? So I stopped.
“What, Donovan?” I said through gritted teeth. “Go ahead and tell me what you’re going to say. You’re going to make sure I hear it one way or another anyway.”
“I explained last night that she is the spokeswoman—”
I interrupted him, my voice escalating. “You said you were negotiating terms. I didn’t know she’d been with you all along.”
“She wasn’t with me.” He was obviously frustrated. “She was—”
I glanced toward the conference room. Weston wasn’t even pretending not to gawk. “People are watching us.”
“I don’t care who’s watching us.”
“I care.”
Of course he didn’t care. He owned the goddamn place. I was the one who’d be laughed at in this situation. Not him. Never him.
Half a beat passed. Then without any warning, he grabbed me by the elbow and roughly escorted me down the hall. At the first open room, he dragged me inside and shut the door behind him. After a second, he locked it.
I folded my arms across my chest and fumed, my eyes locked on his. At least now we were in the privacy of the copy room, and I could say what I really wanted to say. Ask what I really wanted to ask. “Did you fuck her?”
“I haven’t fucked anyone since I last fucked you. And before that the only woman I’d been with was you since you showed up in town.” He stood in front of the closed door and braced his hands in the frame, barricading me from trying to go past him.
“You were only in France two weeks. Seems her campaign got arranged awfully quickly to get her there that fast. And then she got back to the States when you did? That’s awfully convenient.” Models were scheduled months in advance. They didn’t do shoots at the drop of a hat unless they were fucking someone.
But he had an answer for this too. “She’d been booked to do the campaign since Reach proposed to Elizabeth for Weston. You can look up the contract information yourself and check out the date. She was already in France when I got there. She left a week ago.”
Okay. More plausible. “Still gave you lots of time together there.”
“We weren’t together at all.” He took a step toward me. “What else? Ask me what you want to know.”
I inhaled then exhaled, my cheek twitching. “Did you kiss her? Stick your face between her legs?”
He shook his head sharply. “I barely saw her off the set. And I never touched her.”
God, it was maddening! There was no reason not to believe him. We weren’t even technically together, and even without a commitment, all signs had pointed to him being faithful.
It was just that we were unbalanced in our relationship in general. We were on a teeter-totter with him solid on the ground, and me dangling in the air. He had so much more of the picture than I did, and it left me to grasp and reach at anything and everything.
“Too bad I didn’t hire a PI to follow you around Europe,” I said, acting petty and rash. “I have to ask you these questions instead of reading a report. How am I supposed to know you’re not lying about all of this?”
“I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
I pouted. “Well that fucking sucks.”
“That does suck. Having to trust me.” He sounded a little annoyed and a whole lot dangerous.
He took another step toward me, and I started to step back, but there was a counter behind me, so I had to stay put. And maybe I wanted to stay put. He was only a foot and a half away from me now.
“But I haven’t lied to you, Sabrina.” His gaze never left mine. “And I’m not lying when I say I don’t give a fuck about anybody else’s cunt but yours.”
We stood there, not touching, not speaking, each of us standing our ground. But I had no basis to keep my position, and it felt like he’d won so much already.
I couldn’t back down.
“Prove it,” I said.
His expression flared, his eyes growing dark and mean, and I realized what I’d done. Donovan wasn’t one to be provoked.
I’d just invited the devil out to play.
“Unzip your skirt and put your hands on the counter behind you.”
My heart hammered and my belly twisted. My panties were embarrassingly drenched all of a sudden, and I wanted him. But I stood completely still. “I didn’t—”
He cut me off. “No talking and unzip your skirt.”
My mouth slammed shut, but I still didn’t move. If I moved, I’d be asking for this. But if I talked, I’d be telling him to stop.
And I didn’t want this to stop.
I just didn’t want to ask for it because I was stubborn and stupid for wanting him in the first place.
But he would give it to me without the words, without my obedience. Because he knew me. He knew what I needed.
With his eyes never leaving mine, he found the zipper at the side of my waist and pulled it down. After that, the skirt was loose enough that all he had to do was tug it once and it fell easily to my feet. He nudged his knee against my inner leg, and automatically I stepped that foot out of the pool of material on the floor, widening my stance.