“Really? Are you sure he knows that?”
“I’m quite sure.” She stood ramrod straight, clearly offended. “Is that why you were being such an ass to him? Because you thought we were…flirting?”
Trent sat on the corner of Zander’s desk, the only spot not covered in files and papers and junk. “No, I was being an ass to him because he is a cocky little loser who hasn’t ever done an honest day’s work in his life, and I can’t believe you were dumb enough to hire him.”
She’d gone slightly pale, which he knew from long experience was a sign of fury. He braced himself for the storm, and as he did he realized that, in some strange way, he welcomed the fight.
At least it would be real emotion. A real connection.
And, God help him, he still craved that. All that crap about being too exhausted to desire her? He’d been sunk the minute he saw the curve of her back as she’d bent over Eli’s hand, and the way the sunlight created a halo around her head.
It had been enough to send the hunger raging through him all over again. He wouldn’t get what he really wanted, of course. But a good, rousing battle might at least siphon off some of this tension.
She took a couple of deep breaths, obviously determined to hold on to her temper. She placed herself behind the desk, as if she thought its scarred oak surface could provide the buffer zone she clearly needed.
But it wasn’t a very big desk.
“How I run Everly is none of your business.” She straightened some papers on the desk, a ridiculously futile gesture. “That wasn’t part of our deal.”
Her fingers trembled as they nudged another sheet of paper into line. The pause stretched until it shimmered in the room like ectoplasm.
“Oh, yes,” he said slowly. “The deal.”
She didn’t look up. But her grip tightened, crumpling the edge of the file she held.
“The deal,” he repeated. He reached out and took her wrist between his fingers. “We did have one, didn’t we?”
She tensed, though she didn’t try to pull back her hand. “Trent, I don’t think we should—”
“I do.”
She lifted her chin. “Look, I know you’re angry.”
He ran his thumb across the inside of her wrist, until he found the pulse, jumping and skittering between the delicate bones. “Am I?”
“Well, you’ve been gone all weekend. I’m not a fool, Trent. I know what that means.”
He thought of Peggy, of the secret trips he’d been making to Darlonsville for five years now. He hadn’t wanted anyone to know. He hadn’t wanted to look as if he did it only for the good public relations it might bring.
“And what do you think it means?”
“It means…” She bit her lower lip. “I know where you must have been, who you must have been with. Even though, when we agreed to do this, you promised me that there would be no other women, not while we were married.”
He tugged her wrist slightly. She either had to wrestle herself free or come around the desk to meet him. She chose to come around, though it brought her close enough that he could see the nervous twitch next to the corner of her mouth.
Ah…she felt more fear now than anger. In a perverse way, that pleased him. It proved he still had power.
And he saw something else, too. A physical awareness of him that heated the surface of her cheeks.
It made him ache, being so close to her, smelling her, hating her and wanting her all at the same time. It was as if someone had shoved a hot brand against the small of his back.
“I did promise I’d be faithful,” he said, careful to keep his tone lightly ironic. “But that was when I believed I’d be getting what I needed here at home…within the marriage bed, so to speak.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, of course I see the difference. So that’s why I wanted to make you an offer. I understand that it’s a…a hardship to have to…to do without sex for a full year, and…”
He smiled. Her pulse had tripped on itself from the effort to even say the word sex.
“And?”
She swallowed, blinking as she tried to hold his gaze. “And I’d like to make it up to you. Financially, I mean. I was thinking ten thousand dollars for every month we’re married. That’s one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, when the year is up, when I can sell the acres I need, and—”
He tilted his head, chuckling softly. “You’re offering to pay me not to have sex with you?”
“No…I’m paying you for not having it with anyone else, not while we’re married. It’s hard to—” She swallowed and tried again. “If you have a mistress while I’m your wife, it’ll be—well, everyone will say it’s just like before. I’ll be the laughing stock of Texas. I’d prefer not to be shamed like that…not again.”
He cursed inwardly. It always came back to that, didn’t it? Eleven years ago, he’d made a mistake, and, in her eyes, it would forever define the man he was. He felt his hand tighten on her wrist, as the frustration, the anger and the hunger tied every muscle in his body into knots.
“You must agree it’s generous, Trent. A hundred and twenty thousand—”
“Oh, sure. It’s generous.”
He couldn’t stand it anymore. Without thinking, he pulled her toward him. She wasn’t expecting it, and she stumbled, practically falling into his arms. Her body was stiff, but her flesh trembled. He let his palms encircle her waist, and they met around the slim curves, just as they used to do.
She stared up at him. He didn’t apologize, didn’t let go. He stroked her rib cage with his thumbs.
“Trent…”
“Your offer is generous as hell, Susannah. But money isn’t what I want.” He angled her even closer, close enough to feel the heat that throbbed through him. “You know what I want.”
“But what you want—you can’t…what about the paper?” She seemed to be struggling to catch a breath, inhaling softly between each word. “You won’t…sign it?”
“No, I won’t sign it, Sue, but there are other ways.”
“Other ways to…what?”
Her lips were half-open, peach-pink wet and glimmering in the sunlight. They were ripe and soft. And he remembered exactly how they had tasted. How they had felt, on him, around him. For eleven long years, even in dreams, he had been haunted by the memory of their warmth, their hidden strength.…
A painful heat swelled inside him. She might hate him, but he must have this. He refused to go on burning and wanting, and being forever denied.
Though she wouldn’t admit it, she burned, too, and he would follow that fiery path until he found his way in.
“Trent. Tell me what you mean.”
He let his body answer her. He placed his palms against her buttocks, and moved her hips toward him slowly, by agonizing inches, letting his heat find hers. He watched what it did to her. He watched her eyes struggle not to lose focus, watched her throat hold back the moan that wanted to break free.
Somehow she hung on to her question, as if it were a life raft, as if it could take her to a different answer. “Other ways for what?”
“Other ways for husbands and wives to know each other. Please each other. Ways that don’t risk making babies.”
She stopped breathing entirely. “You can’t mean—”
“Yes,