Page 39 of Claiming His Bollywood Cinderella

“Inside me, please,” she begged, beyond reason now. Beyond caring that Zara Khan or anyone else could walk in here and find them like this. All she wanted was to feel him inside her again. to experience his thick heat moving faster and harder, to hear him finding his ultimate pleasure with that hoarse grunt in his throat.

When her fingers reached for his zipper, his fingers tightened on her wrist. Stalling her. Stopping her.

“What are you doing?” she said, falling back onto the pillows, her tone sharp to cover the sudden shaft of fear.

Gaze lit with some unreadable emotion, he held her arms above her head. Bending down, he took her mouth in a rough tangle of a kiss that left her breathless but was in utter contrast to what he said next. “We should stop now.”

She jerked her hands away from his grip. “Why?”

“I need a moment to...collect myself. A few days to process this. It’s the consequence of being a man of a certain age.”

She widened her eyes, forcing humor into her tone. “Oh, you mean you might not be able to...perform?”

He nipped the lush mound of her palm and then soothed it with a kiss. “No, you minx.” He sat back on the bed, his expression thoughtful. “Technically, you still work for me and I swore to myself a long time ago that I...would never repeat any of my father’s actions, including sleeping with an employee. Not discounting the fact that any association with me of this kind will plaster your face everywhere in the media. I...have to think of the consequences first. To me. And to you.”

“Is that why you recommended me to Zara?”

He shrugged, and she knew she wasn’t going to get a complete answer. “You will do well working with Zara. Especially since the replacement for my assistant will start soon anyway. And yes, I thought a little distance might be good for both of us.”

“Me leaving to work for Zara was a little distance?” she asked, fighting the dark cloud that seemed to come across them all of a sudden.

“I should apologize for not discussing it with you first, but it wouldn’t be honest.” He rubbed his jaw, his eyes shining with unspent desire. “You always throw a wrench in the works, Dream Girl.”

“Is that bad?”

“Not all the time.”

“Then what is it that you have to ponder?”

“One of us needs to keep an eye on where this is going and it should be me. We need to be very careful. I don’t want to hurt you, Naina.”

“You would never hurt me.”

His eyes gleamed in the low light. “That kind of blind trust is...dangerous. No one’s worth your trust, Naina. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“You said you wanted truth. That is my truth. I trust you absolutely. I know I’m going to sound like a heroine in one of your movies with no life before you arrived on the screen. But... I was only half-alive before that night at the ball. The sun feels brighter on my face now, the world more colorful, even my own emotions are sharper and more defined... You helped me realize who I am, and what I want, Vikram. And you’re what I want now.”

The more she said to convince him that she wanted him, the more he seemed to retreat. He shook his head. “You’re...”

She sat up and gathered the pillow to herself as if she could protect herself against what was coming. “I’m what? Help me understand.”

“You’re...you, Naina. Your honesty, your artlessness, your innocence, you...make this very complicated.”

She felt as if he was listing everything about her that made her unsuitable for him. Unsuitable and gauche and...just not enough. Anger rescued her from pathetic hope, from begging him. “What the hell does that mean?”

His silence spoke for him. His eyes said everything.

“I’ve made hard decisions just like you did, at a young age. When Papa passed away and I realized our home was mortgaged to the hilt, I gave up my PhD to find work to pay it back. When Maya got sick and needed round-the-clock looking after for weeks, I did it. Even though it meant canceling plans with Rohan, plans we’d made for months.

“I have lived through disappointments and hurts and setbacks just as you have.

“You don’t have to protect me. From the real world. From you. From this.” Frustration made her growl. “Even when I didn’t admit to you that I was Dream Girl, we’ve been honest with each other. Whether this thing between us lasts for one night or one week or one month, all you have to do is say it’s over. I can take it.”

“I know that.”

And yet, he didn’t make a move to touch her. Stubbornly kept his distance. It was clear that something was still eating away at him. Clear that even after all this honesty, after stripping her defenses from her, after making her drop her barriers and admit to so much, he still didn’t consider her his equal. He didn’t consider her good enough for his sphere, for him.

“I have to be the first woman in the universe who’s being rejected because the man has principles,” she threw out.

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