Page 23 of The Billionaire Dating Game

“Do you want to know what I see?” he asked, holding her gaze in the mirror. At her nod, he said. “I see a beautiful woman who thinks of herself last, a team player. None of my colleagues suspect we aren’t in a relationship because you were one hundred percent committed to helping me gain their trust again. That old fart, Mr. Duncan, who can’t stop talking about his grandkids and his family,youwon him over, Candice.”

She closed her eyes.

“Look at yourself. Don’t dismiss my words by hiding.”

She trembled, but he held onto her, kissing the curve of her neck and sucking the sensitive flesh along her shoulders. She was going to experience his words in every way.

“You have more qualities that intrigue me.”

“I do?”

“You’re smart.” He kissed the side of her neck. “You’re loyal, and you have a dry sense of humor.”

“You’re not amused by my sense of humor,” she challenged.

“Everything about you interests me, malo svitla.” Lifting her hand in his, he rested their linked fingers between her breasts. “I am worth the desires of my heart. Now repeat it.”

She swallowed, but he refused to release her from the tether of his gaze through the mirror. “I am worth the desires of my heart.”

“Again.”

She did, chanting the mantra over and over. Each time her voice grew more bold, confident. The doubt cleared from her eyes the longer they stared at each other, the longer he held her.

It troubled him that Candice didn’t see herself as he did. Nothing in her background pointed to an unhappy childhood, and she spoke to her parents regularly.

“Who made you feel like you weren’t good enough?” Her roommate spewing bullshit was one thing, but the jabbing words he’d walked in on had taken root well before then.

“That was a long time ago.” She looked away, but he waited. “When it comes to boys, I fall for the wrong ones all the time. You can imagine the rest.”

“Did they touch you?” The question he wanted to ask sent a chill along his nape. He’d find the son of a bitches and cut their balls off.

“No. Nothing like that,” she said, and he exhaled. Still, she hesitated before continuing. “My first lesson was when a senior at my school asked me to the school dance. I was over the moon. Not many tenth graders got asked out by seniors. It took my mom and I weeks to find the right dress and alter it. But that night wasn’t the fairytale I expected.”

The catch in her breath broke his heart.

“Turns out, he’d lost a bet, and his punishment was taking me to the dance for a few hours then bailing to be with his real girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If it will make you feel better, I can have him found and we can toss him from my jet together.”

She smiled. “Bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

Candice had no idea just how far he’d go for the people he cared about.

“What about you?” she asked, surprising him. “What made you cynical? You don’t even believe in love.”

He didn’t anymore, at least not until he met Candice. “My mother made Khrustyky for the first girl I fell for.”

“Did she like them?”

“She stomped on them.” He chuckled, but there was no humor in his next words. “And her friends stomped on me. I was ten.”

“Kids can be mean.”

“Especially to someone with an accent.” He shrugged. “The night of the fire, the one you heard about, was the night I left New York. That was the second time… I realized I was better off with power and influence.”

He’d fought in a boxing match that evening, and his girl had chosen greed over him. Had she asked for his winnings, he would have given them. Instead, she tried to rob Dmitri. When he had extracted his pound of flesh, he went home just as an ambulance with his mother’s dying body was leaving. So, he’d burned the boxing gym to the ground in a fit of anguish for not being with his mother when she needed him the most.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. This moment wasn’t about him, it was about her. Dmitri and Katya knew about the past, but no one else knew all the details.

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