Page 90 of Secrets, Lies and Love

“Yes, I understand,” I say. “What I can’t understand is why you seem to be almost rooting for me to give up on you. Don’t you know that this will only make me chase you even more?”

“As a challenge?” she asks, sounding angry. In fact, I get the feeling she’s longing for a reason to fight.

“As the woman I want.” I get out of the car, feeling a little pissed now.

She’s sending mixed signals. She seems completely involved sexually but is closed off from anything else.

I go around to open her door, getting ahead of Anderson, and help her out. I hold her hand and head to the elevator.

“Isn’t this a residential building?”

I nod, without speaking. Inside the elevator, I know she’s watching me, but I don’t look back, trying to calm down.

I have a hell of a temper, and I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.

Chasing her doesn’t bother me. Seeing her try to sabotage us is another story.

Cecily approaches me and puts her hands on my chest. “You’re a dream. That’s why I feel so scared.”

“What?”

“Staying with you is like living a dream. A kind of fairy tale I never expected to happen to me. No, actually, one thatdoesn’thappen to girls like me.”

“Because I’m rich?”

“No. Because we belong to different universes. In your world, women and relationships are disposable. I’m a country girl. No matter the new haircut and clothes Elina gave me, I’m still a country girl from Kansas, Dionysus.”

“I don’t care where you came from, how much you have in the bank, whether you’re experienced. I care about what I feel when I’m inside you. What I felt from the first time I entered you. You’re right when you say that in my world, relationships are disposable, but if that were the case, we wouldn’t be here now.”

“And what are we doing here?”

The elevator stops, and I guide her in silence.

The penthouse door opens, probably because Anderson warned them that we were coming up. A waiter greets us, welcoming us.

Cecily halts, looking at me with a question on her face.

I don’t say anything, placing my hand on the small of her back and guiding her into the apartment.

Like a good girl, she lets me take her to her seat at the long, rectangular table, which is covered with rose petals and two candlesticks with lit candles in the center. Rigidly, she waits in silence, sitting, until I get comfortable. “I don’t understand. Why go to all this trouble?”

“Why not? You don’t think you deserve it?”

She opens her mouth and closes it again, but I know the truth. Cecily has low self-esteem, the result of years of being treated as inferior. She believes she should be grateful for anything, as if being accepted and loved is a favor people do for her.

The waiter comes to tell us about the menu, giving us all the options, worthy of a three-star Michelin restaurant, which is what I hired.

I wait for her to choose. I’m not interested in food or drink, only in her. I’ve realized that I was acting as if Cecily were a woman within my reach, with whom I only had sex, and even though it all started like that, because of the crazy passion I had always felt for my son’s nanny, my desire for her hasn’t decreased, which normally would have already happened.

I want to understand why, but beyond that, I want to find out how far we could go together.

“That’s not it,” she finally replies.

“That’s exactly it. You expect us to fail, that at any moment I’m going to send you away.”

Her face transforms into anger. She is upset. “Your record is not that good.”

Minutes later, when the waiter returns, she seems oblivious to me.

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