Chapter 6: Your Door

He still hadn't answered her by midnight.

I knew because I stood in the dark upstairs hall for twenty minutes watching the light under his study door.

Every few minutes the light flickered.

I had spent two days being told what I was.

A thief, a liar, an impostor, a purchase.

I was tired of being told it by people who hadn't asked me a single question.

I opened the study door without knocking.

Anders was behind the desk in his shirtsleeves, with the phone in front of him and a whiskey he hadn't touched.

He stood up so fast the chair rolled back into the bookcase.

"Tell her," I said.

"Matilda."

"Tell her you kissed your wife. Type it now. I'll wait."

"I don't know that you are my wife."

"You kissed me like you did."

He didn't deny it.

He looked at my mouth for a second, and then at the door, and his jaw worked.

"That," he said, "was a mistake."

"It was the only honest thing either of us has done since Monday."

"I've spent three months writing to a woman who knows what I'm afraid of."

"And I've spent two days in your house, and you haven't asked me one thing I'm afraid of."

"What are you afraid of?"

"That you'll take her side because you've already decided to," I said.

"And that it'll be a long time before I stop wanting you anyway."

The room went very still.

I shut the door behind me and turned the lock.

Neither of us said a word about it.

I crossed the carpet slowly, because I wanted him to see me coming, and stopped close enough to feel the heat off his chest.

"You said nobody touches me but me," he said, low. "That was my condition. I'm holding to it."

"Then I'm touching you."

I took hold of his shirt and undid the first button.

His breath went out of him in a ragged line.

"Matilda."

"Tilly."

"Tilly," he said, as if he were trying it on.

I undid the second button, and the third.

I slid my palms flat over the hot skin of his chest and felt his heart going hard under my right hand.

"I want this," I said. "I'm not doing anyone a favor."

"Don't you dare think I'm here for the money."

"I don't think that."

"Then stop thinking."

He kissed me.

It wasn't like the one at the club.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Double Proxy Marriage to a Billionaire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.