Chapter 21
Roman straightened his tie and made sure his hair was tidy before he put his jacket on.
He was a bastard but that was okay. It was the nature of any business deal. He gave them a little of what they desperately wanted and they gave him what he needed. And Evelyn had given it to him really well last night. She said she wanted to feel like she was in a relationship and in return he got to continue to fuck her. It was a straightforward deal.
So why did he feel like he was negotiating with fucking terrorists?
He yanked his tie off roughly and rolled his shoulders for a few moments before he started to do the knot again.
He had been the one to offer the new deal but Evelyn had so eagerly accepted it. She had been bought so easily. Gone was all her bullshit talk about feeling like a whore and being lonely. How could she be fucking lonely when she had spent all that time with that pimply boy?
Lonely?
She was sounding more like his current stepmother the more she opened her mouth.
If she thought she could bend him with this game... If she thought he would end up just like his father then she had another thing coming.
Yes, he liked to fuck her, that was probably his favourite thing to do. But why should he be held ransom for that? There were many women out there who would jump at the chance to be in her shoes. Those women were all the same and it was quite disappointing that Evelyn was starting to show her true colours, too. A few words and it was like that bullshit drama never happened. She’d been happy enough to have her legs wide open for him. To let him taste her. To sit on him and scream out all her filthy words and make him feel like the king of the fucking world.
All bullshit designed to get what she wanted.
It was the way she had so easily agreed to a new deal that had made him realise that this was all still a game to her. It was a good game, but he could play it better.
He inspected the tie in the mirror again and saw that it was still crooked. He’d been wearing ties his whole life but now it felt like he had two left hands.
“Get a fucking grip, Roman,” he growled at his reflection before he yanked the tie off again.
All he had to do was get the lawyers to amend the contract, and the moment she signed it, he would put a stop to her games.
The games she was playing here, the games she was playing with the pimply boy.
The boy’s face flashed in his mind again and anger washed through him, burning through his veins like larva. He had been angry countless times in his life but the anger he’d felt watching her interact with another man was a whole different animal. It threatened to consume him, undermining the tight grip he had on his control.
His fists clenched as he thought of all the time he had wasted the past week wondering what she had been doing in that apartment. He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a coward who stalked people and was too chickenshit to take action. He didn’t sit back and watch people make a fool of him.
And that was what Evelyn was trying to do. Play him for a fool while she tried to break all of his rules. Say and do things to keep him distracted, to keep his mind on her constantly as if that would make him fall to his knees and tell her he had fallen desperately in love with her, too.
To think that he had come here to let her go.
Why should he let her go when he wasn’t done with her?
She belonged to him until the day he said she didn’t.
Fullstop.
His tie finally looked straight and that little act calmed him. He was in perfect control of this. This was purely a business transaction so he would treat it as such. And everyone knew that when it came to business, he never lost.
He walked back into the bedroom to pick up the clothes he had brought up from the sitting room and emptied the pockets before he threw them all in the laundry. Evelyn lay on the bed with her back to him, pretending to sleep as she always did. The silk sheet barely covered her naked body. It skimmed the glorious curves of her hips and round ass and left her back exposed. Probably a ploy to keep her on his mind after he left.
But his body still responded instantly.
Sex had always been nice, but it had never been necessary until he’d had a taste of her. Necessary like the air he breathed. He was sure she knew that. He had never hidden his reactions from her because he’d thought they could trust each other.
But now he knew he couldn’t trust her.
That thought brought him to his senses quickly.
“A car will be delivered this morning. I’ve told them not to call you too early so you can get some rest,” he said.
Evelyn turned to him with a frown. He’d been right to believe she’d been pretending to sleep. Her beautiful eyes were wide open and alert.
“A car? Not my car?” she asked.
“I got rid of that one. It was a deathtrap, I don’t know how you drove it without killing yourself.”
He hadn’t. It was still in his garage and he’d ask Philip to get it more roadworthy.
She sat up in bed, clutching the sheet over her chest. The expressions on her face ranged from disbelief and anger to... Pain? What game were they playing now?
“You had no right to do that. That was my car,” she said, her voice breaking.
“It wasn’t saf_”
“It was my car! You can’t destroy somebody else’s property just because it doesn’t reach your standards,” Evelyn said, cutting him off.
She pulled the sheet off the bed as she stood and wrapped it around herself. She could have been completely naked because the sheet hugging her body affected him the same way.
“Tell me you’re joking,” she demanded.
“I don’t joke.”
Her eyes spat fire at him, beautiful green fire, and that was probably the only real emotion he could trust from her right now.
“My mother worked two jobs to save up and surprise me with that car. I want it back.”
An emotional attachment? He couldn’t help the smirk that he felt on his lips as he pulled his wallet from his pocket. He would definitely keep a hold of that car now. He’d half pulled some notes out of his wallet when he remembered their conversation, and when he looked at Evelyn’s face she was trying to blink back some tears.
Trying. The tears still started to roll down her cheeks.
Was this about the car or the fact that he was leaving money on her nightstand like she was a prostitute? Still, they had talked about this, and he was a man of his word. He pushed the money back into his wallet and put it back in his pocket.
Evelyn sniffed and used her hand to wipe her tears, but they continued to fall.
Fuck. What sorcery was this? Female tears had never bothered or moved him but now...
He turned away from Evelyn to walk towards the door. He was not falling for this trick. He had seen Esther use fake tears on his father several times since she tricked him to marry her.
“I’ll see what I can do about your car,” he called back without looking at her. “The new car is in your name and all the paperwork is done. Use that one for now, unless you want to be stranded here another week.”
Evelyn was still standing in the same spot when he reached the door.
“See you Thursday. I’ll bring the amended paperwork,” he said. “And I’ll leave an envelope downstairs for you to look over.”
He didn’t elaborate. Evelyn was sure to call her anyway once she saw what he had left for her.