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“It was his money you couldn’t refuse,” Francesca muttered acidly under her breath, anxiety and irritation spiking her tone. What was he doing here? Why wouldn’t he leave her alone so that she could finish the process of forgetting him? Had he actually gone to the trouble of closing down this bar because he wanted to speak to her?

You’ll never forget him. Who are you kidding? she thought bitterly as she turned to deposit the lemon juice on the bar. Sheldon responded to her frown with a sheepish “What’s a man to do?” glance before he walked toward his office. She could only imagine what Ian had paid the bar owner to get him to clear the place out on his most lucrative night.

She took her time unloading the grocery sack and lining the bottles of lemon juice on the counter, her neck prickling with awareness of his gaze on her. Let him put up with the inconvenience of having to wait for a few seconds longer. He couldn’t have everything in the moment that he wanted.

He cleared out the entire bar just to talk to me?

She silenced the excited voice in her head with effort. When she could think of nothing else to do to avoid him, she turned and slowly walked to him.

“Out slumming, are we? This is going a little far to convince me that you don’t disdain a cocktail waitress’s service, isn’t it?” she asked sarcastically as she approached.

“I didn’t come here to have you serve me. Not tonight.”

Her gaze shot angrily to meet his stare at his innuendo. She expected to see his usual subdued amusement at her defiance. Instead, she saw fatigue and . . . was it resignation? In Ian Noble?

“Sit down,” he said quietly.

They regarded each other silently for a moment once she’d sat. A thousand questions zoomed around her brain, but she stifled them. He’d behaved outrageously, clearing out hundreds of people from the bar and shutting down a business in order to see her at the precise moment he desired it. He was going to have to be the one to break the silence after all that; she refused.

“It just won’t do,” he said. “I know that I’ll hurt you. I know there’s a good chance you’ll end up despising me . . . fearing me, even. But I still can’t stop thinking about you. I must have you. Completely. Frequently . . . and at all costs.”

She listened to her heart drumming in her ears for several strained seconds, trying to gather herself. How could she be so furious at a man and still want him so much it was like some kind of biological mandate, like breathing?

“I’m not for sale,” she finally said.

“I know that. The cost I’m referring to can’t be paid with money.”

“What are you talking about?”

Leaning forward, he rested his forearm on the table. He wore a dark blue cotton T-shirt shirt with short sleeves. The Rolex was absent. She recalled vividly how stirred she’d been the first time she saw his large hands and muscular forearms. She still was. More so now that she knew what he could do with them.

“I suspect I’ll lose a bit of my soul in this thing with you. I already have, just by the fact of my being here tonight,” he spoke intently, his stare boring into her. “I know I’ll take a piece of yours.”

“You know no such thing,” she countered, even though she feared he was right. “Why are you so convinced that you’ll hurt me?”

“Many reasons,” he said so surely that her heart sank another inch. “I already told you one—I’m a control freak. Did you know that when I sold Noble Technology Worldwide in a public offering, I was offered the job of CEO?” he asked, referring to the hugely successful social-media company that he’d founded and built, then sold. “It was a very cushy position, but I turned it down. Do you know why?”

“Because you couldn’t stand the idea of a board of directors being able to veto your decisions?” she asked irritably. “You have to be in complete control at all times, don’t you?”

“That’s right. You’ve come to understand me better than I’d realized.” Why was his smile both bitter and pleased? “I’ll tell you something else that you should know. I was with a virgin once. She became pregnant and I ended up marrying her. It was a catastrophe. She couldn’t abide my controlling manner, and I’m not just talking about in the bedroom, although that arena was bad enough. She thought I was the worst kind of pervert.”

Her lips parted in amazement. There could be little doubt, given his intense, almost angry expression, that he was telling the truth.

“What happened to the baby?” she asked, her brain sticking on that morsel of unexpected information about Ian Noble’s life.

“Elizabeth lost it. According to her, it was because of me.”

She stared, seeing the disdain in his expression, the flicker of anxiety in his eyes. He was quite sure that Elizabeth had been wrong in her assertion. Still . . . the seed of doubt remained.

“By the end of our marriage, my wife was afraid of me. I believe she considered me the devil incarnate. Perhaps she was partially right. But mostly, I was a fool. A twenty-two-year-old fool.”

“And I’m a twenty-three-year-old one,” she replied.

His expression flattened; his brow furrowed. She could tell he hadn’t quite understood her meaning. Some instinct inside her warned her of what he was about to say. The sinking feeling of inevitability she also experienced told her, loud and clear, how she would respond.

His mouth hardened. “To make things clear—I want to possess you sexually. Totally. On my terms. I offer you pleasure and the experience. Nothing else. I have nothing else to offer.”