by Trish Morey
His teeth ground together. Now she was laughing at him, her green eyes flashing like emeralds behind her modest glasses, the only splash of colour in her otherwise pale face.
Green eyes?
And suddenly he was back in his bed, her hair streaming across his pillow, the eyes he’d so wrongly imagined must be brown open wide in surprise.
Green eyes!
The same vivid green as those of the woman standing before him right now.
Mentally he unravelled the hair, now coiled tightly behind her head, peeled away the glasses and dispensed with her starched uniform—and every imaginary step only confirmed what his eyes had already told him to be true.
His hands found his hips while inside him anger rose like magma, his body tensing, a volcano about to erupt. Whatever game she was playing, it was game over. ‘So tell me,’ he invited, his teeth barely parting as he aimed the words like bullets, ‘who is the better lover—me…’ he paused for effect ‘…or Richard?’
CHAPTER FOUR
SHOCK MOMENTARILY punched the air from her lungs. She hadn’t thought of Richard in days—no, more like weeks. At least, not until that dream last night, and then it had been only to wonder why he’d never made her feel as good as her dream lover.
But, just like her dream had never really been a dream at all, his question similarly had nothing to do with Richard.
He was telling her that she was the woman in his bed, the woman he’d called a whore.
He was telling her that he knew!
Fear pressed down on her, wrapping about her psyche like a cold, dank shroud.
‘I…I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ she lied, her mind furiously backtracking over her words, wondering what she’d done to give herself away, and wondering what she could do to make up for the gaffe.
‘You mean Richard’s never told you that you talk in your sleep?’
The waitress hovered nearby uncertainly, looking to make a move for his empty plate, and Mackenzi knew it was way past time to take this discussion out of a public restaurant and to somewhere much more private.
‘If you’ve finished your breakfast, Mr Carrazzo, I think it’s time we concluded this discussion in my office.’
‘Alternatively, there’s always my suite,’ he suggested, cold civility in his tone and damnation in his eyes. ‘You seemed to feel quite at home there last night.’
‘That’s enough!’ she snapped, doing her best to ignore the shocked expression on the waitress’s face, and the turning heads of curious patrons. She headed off purposefully through the tables on her way to the exit, leaving him to follow in her wake, half-hoping he wouldn’t.
She’d taken his offer of redundancy thinking it would protect her identity. But now he knew she’d been the woman in his bed, the woman he’d decided to have sex with before she’d even been awake, the woman who had failed to turn him down even when she had finally opened her eyes.
Where did that leave her now?
‘You didn’t have to say those things,’ Mackenzi asserted, rounding on him the moment he’d entered her office and closed the door behind him.
‘And you didn’t have to be in my bed.’
‘I never said I was.’
‘You didn’t have to. Your reaction to the Richard word was confirmation enough.’
She looked away. ‘That proves nothing. I was merely shocked at what you said.’
‘Then why did you practically flee from the restaurant?’
‘With you making accusations like that? Why do you think?’
‘I think you’re avoiding the truth.’
Dante paused, regarding her curiously for a few moments, before his hand went to the door once again, turning the key in the lock.
‘What are you doing?’ she protested, feeling a sudden surge of panic.
‘You wanted privacy. I’m ensuring we get it.’ Then he stepped closer, and all of a sudden she was regretting the move to her office. She’d wanted to get things less public, but suddenly the air in the room seemed to have been sucked out, the space shrinking to miniscule proportions now they were both locked inside it.
Shrinking until there was nothing in her office but Mackenzi Keogh and Dante Carrazzo, and the heavy weight of what had transpired between them in the early hours of the morning.
And the heavier weight of whatever was to come.
‘So what did you really think you were going to achieve by pulling that little stunt last night?’
She backed away, trying to put the desk between them, but he only followed her, trapping her once again, her back to a filing cabinet in the space between desk and window. She crossed her arms defensively while he stood broad-shouldered in front of her. One arm was stretched across to the windowsill, the other hand planted on the desk, a human barricade. She had to hand it to him—this man made intimidation an art form. Even so, she was aware of the ever-present heat she felt in this man’s presence steadily building up steam once again.
‘I really don’t see the point of continuing this line of conversation. Not when you’ve already decided on your course of action for the hotel and terminated my services. I’d rather you turned your mind to how you’re going to inform the staff, and I’ll get on with cleaning out my office.’
‘Why not talk about it—because your little ploy didn’t work?’ His hand left the windowsill to reach out to her, stroking the line of her shirt’s shoulder-seam. She flinched at his touch, his fingers scorching her flesh through her shirt, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. How was that possible? Sure, he’d made her feel good last night—amazing, in fact—but how could he still affect her when she hated the man? Because there was no way she couldn’t hate him now with what he had planned for Ashton House.
Mackenzi stiffened her spine, determined not to let him see how his touch affected her, determined to deny everything. His assumption that everyone, including her, would be falling all over themselves to please him was enough to get her back up. ‘What ploy?’
‘To soften up my attitude. To make me feel more generous about the fate of the hotel. I must say, you do an impressive job of going above and beyond the call of duty.’
She shook her head as his hand moved down her arm, his thumb tracking perilously close to the swell of her breast. She could unfold her arms, but then she’d feel too exposed, too open to him, and he’d surely hear her heart thumping crazily. ‘And I must say you have a very fertile imagination. Now, would you please leave me alone?’
‘You didn’t mind me touching you last night, as I recall. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it—a lot.’
She didn’t want to hear it. Those feelings she’d experienced last night, the feelings she was having now when he merely brushed her arm or came close to her breasts, she didn’t understand them. They were all too new, too unfamiliar. She didn’t understand why this man, of all men, would be the one who would so comprehensively mess with her thermostat.
Frustrated, she unfolded her arms in a rush to fend him off as she tried to push past. ‘You’re mad. Let me out of here.’
But he just smiled and moved the same way so that their bodies collided. She bounced back from the contact, short of breath, only to have what breath was left in her throat wrenched away deftly as he removed her glasses, letting them fall gently onto the desk blotter beside them.
‘Hey!’
His smile widened. ‘You have the most amazing eyes,’ he told her. ‘They’re the most brilliant shade of green—almost like emeralds. I knew I’d seen them somewhere before.’
She looked away. ‘Lots of people have green eyes,’ she said, only to feel his hand working at something behind her head. Before she could protest, she felt her hair slip free from its clasp, weight pulling it tumbling down over her shoulders and beyond, helped on its way with a comb of his fingers. Her scalp tingled, but it was her entire body that trembled. ‘There, isn’t that better?’
‘Not really, no.’
He lifted a coil of her hair and
snaked it around his fingers, dipping his head and inhaling deeply. ‘I woke this morning with the scent of your hair on my pillow. Why did you leave so soon?’
‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You can’t still pretend it wasn’t you in my bed?’
‘I told you, it was probably a dream.’
He tugged on her hair, drawing her closer. ‘Oh, it was better than a dream. Much better.’ His voice was a warm, silk ribbon that curled around her as his eyes held her prisoner. ‘And so much more satisfying.’
He was too close. So close she could breathe in his own personal scent, between the shower freshness and breakfast coffee—a scent that flung her back, more than anything, to where she’d been just a few short hours ago. A scent that filled her lungs and was pumped around her bloodstream, reminding every last part of her of what they’d shared, and just how amazing he’d felt inside her. How he’d stretched her so deliciously. How he’d fitted her so completely.
She shook her head. She couldn’t afford to think about that. ‘Look, Mr Carrazzo—’
‘Call me Dante.’
‘Wh…?’
‘After what happened last night, maybe it’s time we were on first-name terms.’
Denial, she thought; there was still hope in denial. And in backing away. Even if there were only cold, hard filing cabinets at her back to welcome her. They were solid and real, and in a world where everything she knew had gone pear-shaped she needed their straight, metal lines and reassuring rigidity. ‘Nothing happened last night.’
He followed her, placing his hands on the cabinets either side of her. ‘Why did you disappear? I missed you this morning.’
She was shaking her head. ‘No.’
He lifted one hand to touch the pads of two fingers to her chin, tracing the line of her jaw to her ear, before letting his fingers trail down her neck. ‘We had so much more to explore together.’
She dragged in a breath. ‘I still say you’re talking to the wrong person.’
His hand moved to her shoulder, cupping it in his warmth before trailing down her arm, his thumb venturing perilously close to the side of her breast. ‘It seems such a shame to leave things like that—just when they were getting interesting.’
She tried and failed to shrug him off. ‘Look, this has gone far enough. I have packing to do, and you have a hotel to dismantle.’
‘Indeed. But right now I think there’s something we’d both rather be doing.’
‘No!’
He smiled then, a smile that did nothing to warm his coldly calculating eyes. Mackenzi shivered anew, feeling like some kind of prey about to be swallowed up whole, and all she knew was that she’d had enough.
‘Because I know you enjoyed last night’s sex,’ he said. ‘Just as much as I did.’
‘I did not!’ And the very moment she’d uttered the denial she wanted to take it back, wanted to delete it from history so she could keep on avoiding the truth, keep from seeing the flash of victory that had turned his dark eyes triumphant. She lifted a hand to her mouth, but it was too late to call back the words, too late to stop the keening cry of despair that followed them.
Could this day possibly get any worse?
‘There there, Ms Keogh,’ he said, placing both hands behind her neck, stroking her. ‘You tried and you failed. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
His patronizing words were all she needed to feel some of her fight return. She might have nothing left to defend but she could still attack. She lifted her hands, putting away his arms. ‘I cannot believe your arrogance. You find a woman asleep in a bed and you assume she’s there for your own sexual gratification. What kind of man are you?’
‘A man who doesn’t look a gift welcome package in the mouth.’
‘You make it sound like I was waiting for you.’
‘Weren’t you? You were right there in my suite. Naked in my bed. And the night clerk had filled me in on the fact the staff had arranged a little something for me. So considerate. My only regret is that the welcome package didn’t hang around long enough for me to truly appreciate her. Why did you leave so abruptly, Ms Keogh? We’d hardly had a chance to get to know one another.’
Facts grated uncomfortably together like a bad gearchange in her head as the true horror of how the situation had arisen emerged. He thought she’d been part of some ‘welcome package’? Had he even noticed the basket of local cheeses and wines that had been assembled for him and left waiting on the suite’s coffee-table?
Clearly not. She swallowed. He’d accepted that the hotel was supplying him with a whore to earn his favour, and he’d assumed she was that whore. And she certainly hadn’t helped her cause by not having let him know last night that his attentions weren’t welcome.
Although they had been. She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d had the opportunity to leave if she’d wanted it. There had been plenty of time for her to flee his bed if she hadn’t imagined her bones turned to jelly. And now how could she pretend she hadn’t wanted him to make love to her when she’d been so actively involved?
How could she turn around and claim she hadn’t been there for the very reason he’d alleged?
She had two choices: tell him he’d been wrong about the reason she’d been in his bed, admit she’d worked late and that the hotel had been full, and that because he hadn’t been expected before breakfast she’d decided to steal nothing more than a few hours’ precious sleep in the only vacant bed in the hotel—and make herself look as naïve and stupid as she felt.
Or bluff it out. Play him at his own game and pretend to accept that her so-called ‘ploy’ hadn’t worked, and at least walk out of here with some miniscule piece of pride left intact.
It wasn’t that difficult a decision to make.
‘So what was the point of hanging around?’ Mackenzi said, angling up her chin. ‘It was all over in a minute, after which you promptly rolled over and went to sleep. Hardly worth hanging around for.’
The cockiness slid from his face, her insult finding its mark. ‘All over in a minute? Seems to me I remember you enjoying every second of that minute.’
She shrugged. ‘It was okay, I guess.’
Dante’s eyes narrowed, and she could see she’d just handed him the worst insult possible. ‘And you didn’t think you’d wait around and see what the morning brought?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, but it seemed like such a ridiculous idea when I thought about it. You clearly agree. I mean, it’s obvious you’re not the type of man who’d change his mind about what he had planned for the hotel just because of one night in the sack.’
He wanted to growl. Not only was she happy to insult his manhood, but she was the only woman who had decided she’d had enough before he had. And he didn’t like it one bit.
‘And so you pretended to know nothing—to deny it had ever happened—even after I recognized you?’
She gave a jerky laugh, making a play of pushing back her hair with one hand. ‘It’s hardly the sort of thing you want to confess. I thought it better to deny all knowledge and write it off to experience.’
‘And what if there was more than one night?’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You said I’d never change my mind about the hotel because of one night in the sack. You’re right. But what if you had longer? Could you change my mind, do you think?’
Her eyes narrowed, her head already moving into a shake. ‘I need to clear out this office. I don’t have time for this.’
‘Then make time. You might learn something. It might interest you to know that most people fail in achieving their goals because they quit too early.’
‘Look, thanks for the life lesson, but you really should be going if you’re going to make that ten-thirty meeting to tell the staff you’re about to knock the hotel out from under their feet, and if I’m going to have a hope of getting this office packed up.’
‘I’m serious,’ he said.
&
nbsp; She paused. ‘About what?’
‘About wanting to sleep with you again.’
Somewhere down the hall a phone rang. A cleaning trolley rattled past, and beyond the windows the impenetrable fog continued to swirl.
‘That’s not funny,’ she said, her voice sounding tight and strained.
‘I’m not laughing.’
And he wasn’t, not the way his jaw was set, his dark eyes intent—intent on getting her back into his bed. A tremor rolled through her at the possibility. The way he’d made her feel…
She grabbed a lungful of air. ‘I don’t want to sleep with you.’
‘You already have.’
‘It was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. It won’t again.’
‘Not even if I change my mind?’
She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but neither could she ignore the slightest possibility he might change his mind. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem like the sort of person who would do almost anything to save your precious hotel.’
‘I don’t want Ashton House to close. Nobody does apart from you.’
‘Then I’m giving you a chance to save it.’
‘By sleeping with you? I don’t believe you.’
His dark eyes gleamed. ‘Believe it. Don’t sleep with me, and the hotel will be closed down. Destroyed. Alternatively, sleep with me and you could single-handedly save it.’
She blinked. ‘You’re expecting me to become your mistress?’
He shrugged, as if it was little more than asking her to work through a lunch hour. ‘Only for as long as it takes.’
‘And, if I do, you’ll agree not to close the hotel?’
‘No. I’ll agree to think about it.’
‘You’ll think about it? What kind of a deal is that?’
‘The best deal you’re going to get today.’
‘And what’s to say you have any intention of thinking about it at all? How do I know you won’t carry out your plans to close the hotel anyway?’