Free Power Play (The Billionaire's Club: New Orleans) by Mallery Malone Page A

while we’re eating.”
    She slid off him, then padded over to the bathroom. After a moment, she returned,wearing a pale green robe that clung to her curves and had him hungry for other things besides food. Instead, he found his boxers, put them on, then followed her to the kitchen.
    She directed him to her wine fridge, and he removed and uncorked a bottle of red while she busied herself with preparing the chicken marsala. Unease still slithered through him. What did she need to tell him that would cause her to be so nervous, and to make her avoid his gaze?
    “Is there someone else?”
    “What?”
    “You said you hadn’t been with anyone since last year. That wasn’t true?” Not that it mattered. Anyone in her life right now besides him was on his way out of her life. He’d make sure of that.
    “No. I mean yes.” She jumped when the microwave timer beeped. “I mean, there’s no one else. Not since last year, like I said.”
    “Good.” He pressed a glass of wine into her hand. “Are you worried about being with me? I’ve always practiced safe sex. If you want me to give you a copy of my medical records, I will. I should have thought of that already.”
    “Thank you for telling me, but no, I’m not thinking about that right now.” She took a gulp of her wine, then another before turning back to the cooktop. “Will you grab a couple of plates from that cabinet for me?”
    “Sure.” He did as she directed, then watched her plate the chicken cutlets and vegetables. He carried the plates to the small dining set on the other side of the island while she grabbed the bottle of wine and their glasses before joining him.
    As delicious as the food was, he was unable to find his appetite. Macy seemed to have the same problem, pushing bites of food around her plate instead of eating. Finally, he pushed hisplate away. “Talk to me, Macy.”
    She reached up a hand to close the lapels of her robe more securely. That she sought to shield herself from him told him clearly that he wouldn’t like whatever it was that she needed to tell him.
    “Don’t back away from me now, Mace,” he demanded, reaching out to snag her hand. “Not after what we just shared. Okay?”
    She stared at their hands, at his thumb brushing over the pulse point on her wrist. “O-okay.”
    For a long moment, she remained silent. Then she drew in a lungful of air as if fortifying herself before looking up at him, her gaze sad and uncertain. “Do you know why I got on that plane to Paris?”
    “Yes.” He brushed a fiery curl back from her forehead. “You wanted to study at the only Le Cordon Bleu that mattered. It was what you’d dreamed of doing since we were kids. You had to go.”
    “That was the reason at the beginning,” she said in agreement. “That wasn’t the reason at the end.”
    The gravity of the inflection in her tone and the heaviness of her gaze gave him pause. He had to ask the question, but a part of him already dreaded the answer. “Then why?”
    She gave up all pretense of eating and ran her free hand down one pale thigh. Despite the pleasure they’d shared, or maybe because of it, his body hardened with need and want. He was in the process of reaching for her with the intent of hauling her into his lap when her soft words stopped him cold. “Because you didn’t want me.”
    He opened his mouth to protest but she pinned him with that soul-deep gaze, the one thatalways saw through his bullshit. He knew then that nothing he’d done in the last week to woo her would be as important as what happened in the next few minutes.
    “Macy,” he said, surprised when his voice cracked like it had when he was thirteen. “I wanted you. The problem was that I wanted you too much.”
    “I know.” She nodded in understanding. “You may not remember, but I do.”
    “Remember what?”
    “How you swore that you’d never be like your father. That you’d never give your heart so completely to a woman that you’d lose yourself