Not the right time, and not the right move. I’ve waited two years. Surely I can wait a few more minutes.
I inhale and realize what the problem is. Her scent is permeating the atmosphere—jasmine and vanilla. It’s intoxicating, inescapable. And I want.
I want, I want, I want because I’ve waited for so damn long.
Almost there.
When we pull up in front of the hotel, I pay the driver wordlessly. A uniformed doorman rushes over to open the door for Ava.
I tell him, “No bags,” and lead Ava toward the elevator to the top floor, where I have a suite reserved for a couple of days. A uniformed butler welcomes me back in lightly accented but smooth English, and I dismiss her with a curt nod. She leaves, closing the door behind her.
Ava stands in the middle of the sumptuously appointed suite. “So this is how you really live.”
There’s a cool censure in her tone that throws me off. “It’s just a hotel room.”
She laughs. “Right. Just a hotel room.”
“A penny for your thoughts?”
“I think you can afford more than that.” She gestures around. “Just look at all this stuff. And the way you treat the staff…”
My eyebrows pull together. “What?”
“You act like you were born to have your every whim and desire catered to.”
“Ava, it’s a hotel. It’s their job to cater to me. And they’re getting paid handsomely for that service.”
Her mouth twists, but she doesn’t say more.
Jesus. What the hell are we doing? I didn’t bring her here to argue about how I treat the staff.
“Something to drink?” I ask with a calm I don’t feel. “There’s a wet bar, and if you want something warm, I can call the butler and have her make you something.”
“I don’t want anything.” Her mouth shuts so fast I can hear her teeth click.
“Not if it’s from me, you mean.”
“Astute.”
“Not astute. Just remembering our history. You always fought tooth and nail over every gift I ever gave you. Perhaps you would’ve been more amenable if they’d been dipped in gold first.”
She treated them like tokens of ill-intent, and it still fucking hurts.
“I never wanted any of those things, dipped in gold or otherwise, not that that ever meant anything to you,” she says bitterly.
The throb in my left leg worsens—it always tenses up and gives me trouble after long flights. My temper starts to fray.
“If I want to give a woman something, she’ll damn well take it and thank me.”
“Then you should’ve fucked someone who would’ve damn well taken it and thanked you because I’m not her. Can I go now?”
“Who the hell was that guy?”
She looks at me blankly. “What guy?”
“The one at the bar who offered to pay you to join him in England.”
“Drew?”