Page 34 of Seduced By the Enemy

“Like my parents’ marriage,” she said, and the hole seemed to twist. His own parents’ marriage was pretty special, too. He knew what it looked like to have met your perfect other half, even though he’d never sought that for himself. “Even as a little girl, I just always knew I wanted that for myself.” She sighed softly. “And then, when I was eighteen, I met Jesse, and I thought I loved him. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him.” As if to forestall whatever comment he might be going to make, she added, “I was eighteen, remember, and allowed to be unrealistic.”

He ignored the temptation to reassure her that it wasn’t necessarily unrealistic to meet the love of your life at eighteen. It just wasn’t for him.

“What happened?”

He generally loved the way she blushed. It was so sweet and innocent. But seeing her blush now, knowing it was a sense of shame because of something that happened in her relationshipwith this guy she’d thought she loved had the opposite effect. His gut seemed to be tightening and something fired inside his chest.

“He was just using me.”

“Using you?”

“For money. Connections. Exposure. At first I thought it was that he was ambitious and wanted us to open doors for him, but now I think he was kind of lazy and just saw my trust fund as an easy way to have a good life. It wasn’t ever about me, though.”

“How do you know?”

Her blush darkened.

“Emilia?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so sharp, to hold such a warning, but she flinched a little, so he cursed softly and reached for her foot, squeezing it in lieu of an apology.

“I heard him talking to his best friend about me.” Her voice was almost unrecognisable, it was so bitter. “About how boring I was, and how even given the amount of money I had access to, it was hard work spending time with me, let alone making love to me.” Her voice wobbled a little, as though she were about to cry.

“You must have been devastated.”

“Furious,” she corrected. “And then, once I’d had time to process it all, yes, devastated. I’d grown up with money all my life. I know it sounds stupid but I never really thought about how appealing that would be to someone who didn’t have any. But to hear your boyfriend—the first guy I ever slept with—talk like that…it broke something inside me. Not my heart…but my confidence, I guess. Or maybe it was that he broke everything I’d ever believed in. Love, marriage, happily ever after. Suddenly it all seemed so stupid to put your hopes of happiness, and all your trust, in someone else. How can you ever really know a person, anyway? I mean, I thought I knew Jesse. We were going out for months before we had sex. And not once did I ever think he was faking it.”

Salvatore swore. “He sounds like an idiot.”

She laughed, but it was a hollow sound, as if this jerk of a guy still had the power to hurt her. Damn it if that didn’t make Salvatore want to find him and teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And then after Jesse?”

“I was single for a long time,” she admitted. “I threw myself into my friendships, my family, the charity. I cultivated an image as a carefree socialite, when the truth is, I care a lot. About everything. Especially protecting myself.”

Her vulnerability was so real and raw that he ached to pull her towards him and hold her until she was all fixed up, but he wasn’t the man to do that. Salvatore was a temporary fixture, not a fixer. He was the man who seduced and pleased, took pleasure and gave it without hesitation, without reserve, and then walked away. Nothing mattered to him. At least, not when it came to the women he dated. So he stayed where he was, allowing the foot rub he was giving her to be the only outward sign of the compassion that was running thick and fast through his veins.

“So what happened in Moricosia?”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him, and that tightness in his gut intensified. “What do you mean?”

“By your own admission, this isn’t something you just do. So why sleep with me?”

She sipped her drink, her throat shifting delicately as she swallowed. “I thought about that, afterwards, and I think there are two reasons I found it easy to sleep with you.”

“Go on.”

“Well, firstly, there’s a spark. Isn’t there?”

That question at the end hurt him almost physically. Her insecurity and uncertainty, the sense that maybe she was wrong about Salvatore, as she’d been about Jesse.

“Yes, there’s a spark,” he agreed, having no issues reassuring her on that score.

Relief was palpable on her features. “But there’s no hope here.”

He waited for her to continue with the appearance of patience.

“I mean, I was never going to have sex with you and decide that maybe you were going to be The One, you know? You could never be The One.”

---