“Then what? You figured you’d play along so you could tell your friends later how you got Tara Pierpont to slum it with a waiter?”

“No, Tara. I wanted to get to know you. Without the trappings of wealth.” So he could find out if she would be interested in him as a person, rather than in his money.

“You and Zach must have had a good laugh. You’re friends with him, aren’t you? And it’s not his boat, is it? It’s yours. What were you whispering behind my back? How easy I was? What was it? A bet? Did you win?”

“Damn it, Tara! It wasn’t like that. There was no bet. It was all a misunderstanding that got out of hand.”

“Yeah, right! It did get out of hand. What was your plan, Jay? Pick me up at the party and then tell your friends afterward how easy it was to seduce me?”

Jay clenched his jaw. “I didn’t seduce you! If you remember, you picked me up at the party. And you were also the one who came back the next morning. Damn it, Tara, you initiated sex.”

She pressed her lips together, her cheeks flushing now, whether of embarrassment or fury, or both, he didn’t know. “How dare you? You went down on me in the shower!”

“Because you left the fucking door open after I’d warned you!”

“And that gave you permission?”

“No, you gave me permission. The way you looked at me. I did nothing against your will! And I stopped the moment you said no.” He would never force himself on any woman. And he’d most certainly not forced himself on Tara. She’d been a willing participant.

“If I’d known who you were, I would have never let you touch me! I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.”

Jay narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“You know what I’m saying. You want me to say it out loud?”

He took a step toward her, only a few feet separating them now. “Go ahead.”

“I wish I’d never slept with you. I wish I’d never let you touch me. You’re everything I despise about rich men. You proved to me that you’re just like all the others. You think you can take whatever you want just because you’re rich and powerful. Guess what: it doesn’t work with me.”

The words cut right through his heart. “You don’t know me at all, do you? The week we spent together hasn’t shown you that I’m nothing like those guys? Tara, wake up, the person you were with the last few days was the real Jay.” He waved his hand around his office, indicating his worldly possessions. “This, all this, is just the outside, the shell. It’s not me. We had something, Tara. Something good. You can’t just throw that away. You felt something in my arms. I know it.”

Tara shook her head. “I felt nothing.”

He grabbed her shoulders, wanting to shake her. “We’re good together. You can’t just dismiss it because you now know that I have money. It doesn’t change who I am.”

She shook off his hands and stepped back. “It changes everything.”

“You don’t believe that yourself. You wanted me!”

Her head went from left to right, slowly, deliberately. “No, I didn’t want you. I wanted to slum it with a waiter. And now that I know you’re not what I thought you were, I’ve lost interest.”

She turned on her heel.

Jay snatched her elbow. She spun her head around and pinned him with a furious glare. “Take your hand off me. You’re never going to touch me again.”

As if burned, he let go of her. Paralyzed, he watched her exit his office and slam the door shut behind her.

“Fuck!”

He shoved a shaky hand through his hair. What had just happened? They’d screamed at each other. Damn it, this was not how he’d envisioned a revelation like this to go down. And, hell, he hadn’t once told her he was sorry about the deception. Not once. Instead, he’d let the argument escalate.

He hadn’t handled this well at all. Tara regretted their time together. That knowledge clamped around his heart like a vice, making pain radiate through his entire body.

Shit, he’d screwed up. It had all backfired. His whole brilliant plan had blown up right in his face, and there was no way of salvaging anything.

Tara hated him.

21

One week later

Paul’s wedding to Holly was a small family affair. After the scandal that had rocked the Hamptons only two weeks earlier, Paul and Holly had decided to keep it private. Not because they were ashamed of what had happened, but because they wanted no intrusion on their happiness.