Page 42 of Handsome Devil

“Because you want your mother to live, and as easily as I put her in this program, I can also remove her.”

Tears clogged my throat and burned the backs of my eyeballs.

I hated him. Yet I was attracted to him in the same way the moth longed for the flame, knowing it’d kill it.

He reached to me slowly, giving me time to retreat, and cupped the side of my neck. His touch was warm and rough and comforting.

God, it made no sense. Why couldn’t my body be in tune with my mind?

I realized depressingly that a broken egg cannot be unbroken. A bitten apple could never be whole again.

Now that I knew what Tate’s touch felt like, I could never erase it from memory, could never resist it.

“Would marrying me really be the end of the world?” Tate asked silkily, fingers traveling along the column of my neck.

“Yes,” I choked out. “It would. I’ve lost so much already. My only hope is to choose a good-hearted, faithful husband and to choose him well.”

“You could be happy.” His gaze dropped to my lips, his fingers still lightly caressing my neck, his thumb circling the skin just beneath my ear. “You’ll be the richest out of your friends. Draped in the most lavish of frocks. I will be faithful. As long as you open those pretty legs for me, anyway. You will have children to fuss over.”

“Yes.” I swallowed. “I’ll have all those things, but I won’t have love.”

“Sweetheart, love is like God. An abstract invention for poor people to cling to in lieu of better, materialistic things.”

“Yet that’s all I want and the only thing you cannot give me,” I croaked.

“I could grow to tolerate you,” he said.

Smiling miserably, I shook my head. “No, you won’t. You’re not the type to protect, to shelter, to piece someone back together. To…to…give cute nicknames,” I explained. “You’re a villain.”

My words seemed to sober him. “It is pointless to negotiate with you.” His upper lip curved into a snarl. “I want your word that you’ll behave.”

I stared out the window, silent.

“You’re making a grave mistake, Apricity.”

“Apricity?” I whipped my head his way.

“The warmth of the sun in winter.” He smirked fiendishly. “It was what popped into my head when I saw you for the first time. There’d been a snowstorm. It was freezing. And you looked…” His eyes rested on the faint pulse of my neck. “Well,hot.”

Snowstorm?

He’d first seen me in August. More specifically, he was present when I walked into an interview for a position at Fiscal Heights Holdings, a hedge fund company, where he sat with the man I was supposed to be interviewed by, named Baron Spencer.

“My apologies, Miss Bennett,” Spencer drawled, surly, not even a bit remorseful. “My assistant forgot to inform you the position has been filled.”

“Oh.” I stood there, smiling awkwardly. “No worries. I’d better—”

“But I shared your CV with my friend here, Tatum Blackthorn.” He gestured to a tall, darkly handsome man who looked like a young version of him. “And he’s been thoroughly impressed, which doesn’t happen often. He’s looking for a PA.”

“I am looking for a job in finance.”

“You’re looking for whatever people like us are willing to give,” Spencer corrected me. “And you’d be wise to remember that.”

Was this premeditated?

More than a coincidence?

When did he first see me?