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Her expression morphs as she tries to take in what’s going on. “Yes, I am a virgin. What’s the problem? I thought you knew this.”

“I needed to hear you say it.” I back away from her and turn towards the bathroom.

“Wait, where are you going? Is this because you said I’ll have to beg for it? Cause I’ll get on my knees right now and do it.”

“No.” I spin around, holding a hand up as she’s about the get off the bed.

“I’m not going to sleep with you no matter how much you beg me. Not tonight, anyway.” I sigh and head into my ensuite, locking the door behind me.

I hit my head against the hard surface of the door.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I have her in the palm of my hands, ready to beg me to fuck her. That would be any man’s dream. But why do I have to go and fuck this all up by caring?

At the start of tonight, I thought it would be easy to just do sexual things together and not feel a thing for her, but I was wrong. So incredibly wrong.

The way she held onto me, her laughs, the way she whispered in my ear. Everything. It all feels too real, too natural. And knowing my brain, it’s going to be too much. Sinking into her will send me spiralling right to where I can’t be. To a place of no return where I will inevitably end up caring for Theá far beyond our prearranged agreement.

To the point of needing her far beyond sexual desires.

I made that mistake with Valerie without even being involved with each other sexually, so I can only imagine that if I feel this way with Theá how much worse it could get.

“Cazzo,” I whisper, rubbing my palms into my eyes. I’m still rock hard and all I want is to bury myself into her warm cunt.

Without a second thought, I turn on the shower to its coldest setting and step in. It didn’t work that first night when Theá was pressed up against me in the library at the manor, but I’ll foolishly believe that tonight it will.

Chapter twenty-two

Theá

Ilearntveryearlyinmy life that men will always use you for what they can get out of you. At first, it was painful, but the more it occurred, the more desensitised I became to it all. Thatwaswhat I thought would be the most painful lesson to learn, but somehow, looking a man dead in the eye as he rejects you seems to hurt far worse.

To have taken my innocence and offered it to him on a silver platter, just for him to say no and run off.

In the few minutes of silence where I sat and waited for Antonio to come out of the bathroom again, hope flooded me. That just this once, a man would come and take exactly what he wanted from me because, for the first time, it’s what I wanted, too.

But when the shower turned on and I realised that he wouldn’t be coming back, it was as if clarity washed over me. Suddenly, the entire room stank of my desperation.

I grabbed my dress and dug out my panties from the drawer I saw him toss them in, then bolted to my room.

How could I have been so stupid? So high off euphoria that I was willing to risk it all on a man I barely knew. That I was willing to just give it all up for him.

I should be counting my lucky stars that, for whatever reason, he decided to say no. Because any normal man would’ve probably jumped at the chance to take my virginity without me even having to offer it. Much like I had originally thought Antonio would based on his threats.

His mother’s words flood through my head. “Antonio is actually the softest of them all. He cares so much about other people that he’s often harder on himself if it means protecting someone else.”

The look in his eyes flashed between pure lust and intense worry, all in a matter of seconds. Especially the way he looked at me when I offered to beg like he had originally requested.

For a man who was full of ego at the beginning of the week, he truly did dissolve into a softer, more palatable version by the time we got home after the dinner.

Alas, whatever his reasoning was, how it all occurred has left me feeling hollow and empty till this morning. No amount of time in the shower drowning myself with vanilla shower gel helped erase the feeling.

If anything, the more time I spent alone, the more the clarity turned to rage as embarrassment set in. I wouldn’t be able to face him again after this. To look him in the eye and know he rejected me without any reason.

Dread has my stomach gurgling. To be fair, it may just be hunger, but knowing I have to go downstairs into a shared space makes the dread flare up nonetheless.

Vibration reverberates through my bed, and I furrow my brows as I flip the covers around looking for my phone.