Page 35 of Hate On
He’d been thinking how he regretted what he’d had to do and she’d already been protecting her own back.
He couldn’t help but admire that. It was like she’d known what was coming.
Or had expected it, to some extent.
Because she would have done the same thing, he told himself, still staring at his phone.
And she had the balls to tell him he’d beenfun.
“That’s it,” he muttered.
He punched in a message and sent it to her, although he wasn’t entirely certain if she’d respond. She’d gotten what she wanted from him and was probably laughing her ass off at him.
But to his surprise, she responded almost immediately.
She was coming.
Anticipation unlike anything he’d ever known curled inside him.
And under it lay a bright edge of fury.
* * *
It tookher exactly twenty-nine minutes to arrive.
Roman had checked the time.
He stood outside, leaning against the marble exterior of the building, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, watching the streets and searching for the sleek black car she’d arrived in the last time he’d seen her.
But she arrived via taxi.
As she stepped out, he moved to meet her. Casting an eye over the yellow cab, he asked, “Out slumming?”
“It’s almost midnight. I wasn’t about to bother John. He’s got a young baby and I imagine he’d like to sleep at some point.” She rolled her eyes, a faint smile on her lips.
He wanted to kiss it off.
At the same time, he wanted to grab her and shake her. Echoes of his father’s blistering words rang in his ears and the fury snapped out of control. As the cab pulled away from the curb, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I imagine you’re quite proud of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Should I be?” Julianna cocked her head to the side. Her shining sweep of brown hair fell forward, the ends curling just at the slope of her breasts. The chocolate brown suede coat she was wearing concealed way too much of her shapely lines and curves from him. He wanted to push it away, to reveal the body that had been haunting his dreams. “I merely did my job.”
“Setting me up…that was your job?”
“And stealing from me was yours?” she fired back.
“Oh, you would have done the same thing,” he said, slashing a hand through the air. “You stabbed me in the back. Don’t act like the injured party here.”
“Oh, please. I hardly stabbed you in the back. You went snooping throughmythings.” She paused a brief moment, giving him a pointed glare. “Perhaps it wasn’t you directly, but you arranged it. If you didn’t want to get misled, perhaps you should have waited your turn and played fair. Anddo nottell me what I would and wouldn’t have done. Just because we’ve had sex a few times that doesn’t mean you know me, Roman.”
He started to respond, but the words that formed in his throat weren’t ones he wanted to voice just then—not when he was this angry.I want to…He couldn’t tell her that. She’d just take advantage of it.
Just like she took advantage of his silence, moving in on him and speaking in a lowered voice. “You know, you could stand to grow up a little. Weren’t you the one talking about how you didn’t care for this stupid feud going on between our families? Or was that part of the act? Another fairy tale like the one you made up about us knowing each other back when we were kids?”
“Hey…” He held up a hand, ready to correct her.
She cut him off. “I’m not angry. It’s not like I’m going to hold a grudge or anything. It was business. What we have now is personal…unless you decide otherwise. If that’s going to be the case, tell me now and I’ll go.”
She gave him a cool look.