Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 966

The room went pitch black. James lay on his back, breathing slow and steady, but it was obvious he wasn’t asleep. Emmy was even more awake. The man next to her had a presence that was impossible to ignore. Even with a blanket between them, she could almost feel the heat rolling off him. There was something about him, that raw kind of energy only grown men seemed to have.

She stared into the darkness, wide-eyed. Her mind kept looping between the memory of his skin beneath her fingers when she’d been drunk, and how he’d looked just now with only a towel draped around his waist. The more she thought about it, the hotter her cheeks burned. Something restless stirred inside her.

Unable to help herself, she rolled over, just to see if he was actually asleep. In the dim light from outside, she looked up and found herself staring right into a pair of dark, intense eyes.

James hadn’t closed his eyes at all. He was lying on his side, head propped on one hand, his gaze fixed straight on her. In the darkness, his eyes looked almost dangerous, like a wolf sizing up its prey, but there was something else there too, something he was struggling not to show.

Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. The air in the room felt thick, heavy, filled with a tension that made it hard to breathe. She needed to say something, anything, to break the silence.

“So... do you have plans tomorrow?”

James’s voice came out low and rough, with a hint of something she couldn’t quite place. “I’ve got some things to deal with in the morning. Then in the afternoon, I’ll take you to dinner with my mom and Mr. Aldridge. We can talk about our plans for heading back.”

Emmy hesitated, then quietly asked, “Can we talk about it another day? I have something coming up the next couple days.”

“What is it?” James asked.

She pressed her lips together before answering. “Sync got nominated for the Global Future Medical Technology Award. The ceremony’s in Country M and I want to go get the award myself. Danny’s picking me up early tomorrow.”

He’d thought if he tried hard enough, even without their shared past, she’d fall for him again. Now, he realized maybe he’d been fooling himself. Frustration and disappointment pressed down hard on his chest.

“Do what you want.” James suddenly sat up, grabbed his robe from the end of the bed, and strode out. The door slammed shut behind him.

Emmy buried her face in the pillow, groaning. She’d definitely made him mad this time. She really was grateful for everything he’d done, and she wanted to get her career back on track, to prove to him she could stand beside him as an equal. But why did he have to be so unpredictable? His mood changed faster than the weather. Men, honestly, were impossible to figure out sometimes.

She sighed, her mind a tangled mess. After a day full of travel and meetings, exhaustion finally caught up. Within minutes, she drifted off into a deep sleep.