The Italian's Bedroom Deal by Elizabeth Lennox Read Free Book Online

how you would have felt when you were twenty-five. Were you out of your mind with silly ideas? Or did you consider all your actions to be well thought out and informed?”
     
    “I was completely sane,” he replied evenly but his eyes were snapping fire. “but then again, I wasn’t asking someone to have sex with me to appease my curiosity. That’s a little mercenary, isn’t it?”
     
    “When you put it that way, then yes,” she yelled back at him. “But maybe if you say it as if I was trying to gain knowledge instead of for more mercenary reasons, I might come out looking a little more pristine!”
     
    “You’re white washing the point,” he countered angrily.
     
    “You’re being sexist!”
     
    “Sexist?” he huffed. “How can you say that? Gender roles have absolutely nothing to do with this discussion!”
     
    “How old were you when you had sex for the first time?” she demanded.
     
    “That’s not the point!”
     
    Her hands on her hips, she glared right back at him, unwilling to back down now that he’d started this battle. “That’s exactly the point,” she countered, livid that he was being so obtuse. “You’re saying that I shouldn’t have sex until I’m married and my husband is the only lover I’ll ever know.”
     
    “Yes. But that doesn’t make me sexist.”
     
    She couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling at that comment. “Sure it does. You have two groups of women. Those that are okay to have affairs with and those that are off limits, reserved strictly for marriage and not for dallying with. But do you have those designations for men? Is it not okay for a man to initiate an affair with a woman even if all he wants to do is find out what it would be like to have sex?”
     
    He fumed because she’d tagged him exactly. “You’re missing the point.”
     
    Clarissa shook her head. “No, Max. I’m not missing the point. And if I understand you correctly, you’re declining my offer of an affair simply because I’m one of those women you think should be pure and chaste until their wedding night.”
     
    “Yes! The fact that you’re twenty-five years old and still haven’t experienced what it is like to be with a man tells me exactly that. You’re a good girl! You should definitely wait until you’re married and forget all this silliness.”
     
    She hated those words and they hurt deeply. With as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances, she pulled her purse over her shoulder and faced him one last time. “I’m sorry that you’re not interested in having sex with me. I thought that you of all people would be wonderful to initiate me. But I understand that I’m not your type. Thank you for lunch.”
     
    She turned and reached for the door handle, preparing to leave before the tears at the back of her eyes toppled over to her cheeks. She would not cry in front of Max, she vowed to herself. She’d lost too much dignity already and she wasn’t going to lose any more simply because he was a cold hearted, sexist jerk with archaic ideas about men’s and women’s roles in social situations.
     
    “Clarissa, stop!” he demanded but she kept on going. She was almost free, she thought. Just a few more steps and she’d be out of his sight and in the hallway leading to the elevators. The handle was cold under her hot fingers and she wanted to clutch it to her cheeks, desperate to appear normal and not have red cheeks around Max.
     
    Just as she was going to wrench open the door, Max’s hand stopped her, laying his palm against the wood, effectively trapping her in his office. “Where do you think you are going? This conversation is not over. There’s definitely more to discuss, Clarissa!”
     
    “I beg to differ,” she said, not turning to face him. “Let go of the door, Max.”
     
    “Not until we’re finished.”
     
    She laughed softly. “That’s an odd comment at this juncture in our meeting. I didn’t think we’d ever started.” She