Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [72]
When she was finished, she blinked a few times, cleared her throat, then met his stare. “So the auction last week. That wasn’t such an unusual thing for you.”
Feigning a nonchalance he didn’t feel, Sean leaned one hip against the standard hotel-room desk and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Actually, it was quite unusual. No woman ever paid five thousand dollars for an evening with me.”
She frowned, then, understanding, muttered, “No, I imagine they paid a lot more.”
The kind of women he’d been dealing with? Oh, yes. They most definitely had.
As if she couldn’t bear to look at him, Annie crouched down, reaching out to her cat. Though usually aloof, the animal seemed to sense her need, because he immediately came to her, curling against her, letting himself be stroked by Annie’s hand.
Her beautiful, vulnerable, shaking hand.
He turned away, unable to watch. Sean wanted to bend down and lift her to her feet, to kiss away her shock, to tell her the whole story—why he’d done it, what had driven him—everything.
Something stopped him. Maybe it was the way she’d repeated her mother’s words in the car. Almost whispering, sounding stunned—and maybe a little wishful.
Sean couldn’t make those wishes come true. Not now that she truly knew who he was…who he had been.
“I never expected to tell you any of this,” he admitted. “Never dreamed there would be a reason.”
She looked up, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “And now there’s a reason?”
“Yes. There is.” That whole “cruel to be kind” motto had always annoyed him, but he suddenly knew that was the way this had to go down. He didn’t want her crying over him, shedding a single tear. He simply wasn’t worth it.
“I saw it in your eyes when you told me what your mother had said.”
Her lashes lowered a little in pure self-defense.
“Don’t mix up sex with emotion, Annie,” he urged. “It’s obvious you’re a little confused, and considering what that asshole Blake did to you, that’s pretty understandable. But you aren’t in love with me.”
He did not continue. Did not say the next natural sentence, And I’m not in love with you either.
Because Sean was many things, but he wasn’t an outright liar. Saying that would, he believed, be lying not only to her but also to himself. Though he’d never completely understood the emotion, he knew what he was feeling for Annie was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He wanted to be with her, wanted to make those dreams of hers come true, wanted all the things he’d been running away from for so long.
But when it came right down to it, she was just too damn good for him.
This way was best. It would end now, they’d both save face. They’d put their relationship back on a level they could both handle—that it had been a wild and wonderful fling, not soon forgotten, but nothing to write love songs and vows about. He’d walk out of her life, and she’d find someone else who fit into it much better than Sean Murphy ever could.
She finally rose to her feet, her throat visibly working as she swallowed down whatever emotion had risen up inside her. Her tone hard, she said, “I can separate sex from love.”
It had worked. He’d hurt her, challenged her, and she’d reacted as he’d hoped she would. So why his throat felt as though he’d swallowed a mouthful of glass, he had no idea.
“But there’s something you should know.”
Seeing a sudden stiffening in her spine, he waited, wondering if he’d been congratulating himself—and mourning at the same time—a bit too soon.
“Despite what you think you know about me, I’m not easily shocked. And what you just told me…well, I don’t like it, but I certainly can’t hate you for things you did long before I ever met you.”
“Don’t you get it? Those things say a lot about who I am.”
“Who you were,” she clarified.
“Semantics.”
She stepped close, brushing the tips of her fingers across his lips. “No, they’re not. I don’t know how many women you slept with in the past, but if you think I find it disgusting to imagine the number, well, you’re wrong.