Page 40 of The Proposition (The Billionaires Club)

I can’t want him, but I can’t do without him.

I sigh, my nerves and my need demanding I find him when I’m fully aware that all I’ve done is prolong the agony, drawn out the final farewell, which must come. Because my stance on relationships hasn’t changed. The past week of disagreements proves my theories are correct: I’m no good at emotional entanglements. I’m better off with my single life and my shocking work-life imbalance.

My breath catches, my insistence no longer carrying the same certainty. In practice, within the limitations of my proposition, Cam and I work. But outside of that? Despite his struggles to come to terms with the inheritance left to him by a man who let him down, I know he’d be content to return to his simple, hard-working life. And I know he’s going to be just fine.

We spent most of the flight from Singapore brainstorming his ideas for a construction school that teaches vulnerable and underprivileged young men and women valuable skills they can take into the workforce. Young people who need a break in life because of the path they’ve found themselves on. Young people like Cam might have been without his hard-working mother and his own determination to make something of himself. With some financial guidance from me, and with Cam’s passion, their lives could be rich and fulfilling in all the ways that matter.

And me?

I fight the hot tears threatening, swallowing them down. Cam needs a woman who can share that life. A woman who shares his goals. A woman free to walk and sleep and love by his side. It’s what he deserves.

But I’m not that woman.

He was right about me. I need to work. It’s who I am.

With a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, I go in search of him. As I walk towards a corridor lined with what I assume are bedrooms, I hear a series of low, rhythmic thuds. Some sort of bass-heavy music.

My pulse leaps. He told me the penthouse has a gym; perhaps I’ll get another show of Cam working out—half naked, sweaty, a visual feast. My mouth dries in anticipation, and a surge of acid burns behind my breastbone, jealousy I’m going to have to get used to if Cam gets the happy-ever-after he deserves with some other woman.

The beat builds. I open the room the noise seems to be coming from and freeze in the doorway.

The sound is deafening. Cam sits at a massive drum kit facing a floor-to-ceiling window with ocean views. He’s stripped to the waist, his back slicked with perspiration and his muscular arms almost a blur as he creates the rapid drum loop that goes on and on, as if he’s pounding out the rhythm of my regret.

I’m frozen. I want to watch. I want to go to him. I want to run away and sob myself into oblivion. Without making a sound I cast a quick glance around the room. Like the rest of the house, the furnishings in this room are sparse—a large bed, a sofa and some sleek Bluetooth speakers, but there’s more of Cam’s personality in this room than the rest of the house combined, as if he’s carved out a sanctuary inside this cavernous shell. A place he can be himself.

I watch and listen from my spot by the door, indulging myself for what will likely be one of the last times. The last grains of sand are sliding through the hourglass, and any day now I’m going to have to give him up.

The thought traps my breath and sends shards of pain between my ribs. How can I walk away from someone who makes me smile without effort? Who brightens my mornings and competes with the constant draw to stay at the office? How can I go back to boring, burnt-out Orla when all I want to do is stay in our bubble with Cam?

He must see my reflection in the glass because he stops, the sudden silence ripping me from the insanity of formulating ways I can continue to see him now the proposition has run its course.

He’s panting, his chest heaving as he drags in air and looks at me from beneath his brows. I’m instantly damp—hell, I was damp before I entered the house, because I know him. I know how good we are together. I’ve always known that, from the moment our eyes met across the roulette wheel in Monaco.

I don’t speak a word.

As if he too knows this is close to finishing and he’s as desperate as me to keep the illusion alive, he simply stares.

Waiting.

I saunter over, slowly shedding my blouse, skirt and heels as I approach. My need for him hasn’t lessened since our first time together. If anything it’s stronger, because I’m alive when I’m with Cam, but never more so than when I’m in his arms, his heart thudding against mine, our breath mingling.

I reach him and I almost chicken out, flee. I extend a shaky hand to skim his shoulders and back as I round him. His skin is warm, his muscles tense under my touch. I stand between his spread legs and he pushes back his stool to accommodate me in the small space between his body and the drums.

I twirl my fingers in his hair, holding his handsome face, tilting his mouth up to my kiss. He groans, dropping the drumsticks so he can slide his hands up my thighs and around to cup my buttocks with possessive fingers.

‘Orla, what are you trying to do? Kill me?’ he mumbles against my lips.

I smile, but nothing inside me feels light enough for humour. It’s as if I’m weighed down by my feelings, as if there are too many of them for me to even contemplate lifting my feet from the sumptuous carpet.

‘I want you. I’ve missed the way you make me feel.’ I almost gasp at the stark honesty of my words.

He grips my hips tighter, his hands so big they span half my lower back. He drops his head to my chest, where he nuzzles my cleavage, his breath hot. ‘And how do I make you feel?’ His hands slide up my back and he unhooks my bra without looking up, while he presses kisses to the tops of my breasts and my breastbone.

My head drops back as I absorb the heady sensation of Cam’s touch. The words spring from nowhere, or perhaps from that tightly guarded part deep inside. ‘Alive. Free. Invincible.’

It’s as close to a declaration of my feelings as I dare.

I sense his smile, but

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