‘Fine,’ she sighed.
‘Is there anyone you know, or can think of, who might be—less than happy, shall we say, at the success of your exhibition?’
‘No, there isn’t,’ she answered snippily. Emphatically.
Which brought Jonas back to that frustrated exboyfriend again…
He looked at her through narrowed lids. ‘Where have you been for the past three days?’
She looked startled. ‘Sorry?’
‘I asked where you’ve been for the past three days,’ Jonas repeated firmly.
Mac gave an irritated frown. ‘I can’t see how that’s any of your business!’
‘It is if it has any bearing on the unwanted graffiti outside,’ he reasoned.
‘I don’t see how it can have.’ Mac sat forward and put her empty coffee mug down on the bamboo table. ‘If you must know, I went to visit my parents in Devon,’ she explained as Jonas continued to look at her questioningly.
‘Oh.’ He looked frustrated. ‘As you said, that’s not particularly helpful.’
It also wasn’t the answer he had obviously been expecting. ‘Where did you think I’d been, Jonas?’ Mac asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’ he retorted tersely.
Was he being defensive? It certainly sounded that way to her. But why did it? Jonas had made it more than clear on Monday evening that he wasn’t interested in becoming involved with her—or indeed with any woman who was so physically inexperienced!
Thinking about what had happened between the two of them that evening perhaps wasn’t the right thing for her to do when they were sitting here alone in her home. Well…alone apart from the two men she could see outside the window painting the wooden cladding!
She stood up suddenly. ‘I don’t think we’ll achieve anything further by talking about this any more today, Jonas.’
He looked up at her mockingly. ‘Is that my cue to politely take my leave?’
Mac felt the warmth of the colour that entered her cheeks. ‘Or impolitely, if you would prefer,’ she said sweetly.
What Jonas would prefer to do was something he dared not allow himself.
The last few minutes spent here with her, in the warmth and beauty that she had made of her home, made him strangely reluctant to leave it. Or her. Just the thought of going back alone to the cold and impersonal sterility of his own apartment was enough to send an icy shiver of revulsion down the length of his spine.
What was it about this woman in particular that made Jonas want to remain in her company? That made him so reluctant to leave the warmth and vitality that was Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire?
‘Have you ever done any interior designing other than your own?’ he heard himself asking.
Mac raised an eyebrow. ‘Not really. A room here and there for my parents, but otherwise no. Why?’
What the hell was he doing? Jonas wondered, annoyed with himself. The last thing he wanted—the very last thing—when he moved into his new apartment next year was a constant reminder of this unusual woman because he was surrounded by her choice of décor!
‘No reason,’ he replied coldly as he stood up decisively. ‘I was just making conversation,’ he explained. ‘You’re right, I have to get back to the office.’
Mac stood near the door and watched beneath lowered lashes as Jonas strode over to place his empty coffee mug on the breakfast bar, her gaze hungry as she admired the way his brown leather jacket fitted smoothly over the width of those shoulders and how his legs appeared so long and lean in his snug faded jeans.
She wasn’t over him!
Mac had thought—and hoped—that three days in Devon would put this man and that mad desire she had felt for him on Monday evening into perspective. Looking at him now, feeling the wild beat of her pulse and the heated awareness washing over her body, she realised that all she had done was force herself not to think about him. Being with Jonas again, and once more totally aware of that unequivocally passionate response to him, showed her that she hadn’t forgotten a thing about him since she’d last seen him.
She moistened dry lips, instantly aware of her mistake as she saw the way Jonas’s dark gaze fixated on the movement as he walked slowly towards her. ‘I really do need to go out and get some things in for dinner,’ she said desperately.
Jonas came to a halt only inches away from her. ‘Why don’t I take you out to dinner this evening and you can do the food shopping tomorrow?’ he prompted huskily.
Mac blinked her uncertainty, part of her wanting to have dinner with him this evening, another part of her knowing it would be reckless for her to even think of doing so. ‘I thought we had already agreed that the two of us seeing each other again socially was not a good idea?’
‘It isn’t,’ Jonas acknowledged wryly.
‘Then—’
‘I want to have dinner with you, damn it!’ he bit out fiercely.
Mac gave a rueful smile. ‘And do you usually get what you want, Jonas?’
‘Generally? Yes. As far as you’re concerned? Rarely,’ he said bluntly.
Mac was torn. An evening spent alone, after being with Jonas again, now stretched in front of her like a long dark tunnel. Alternately, spending any part of the evening with him presented a high risk of there being a repeat of Monday evening’s disaster…
‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I—no.’
Jonas eyed her speculatively. ‘That’s a definite no, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, that’s a definite no? Or yes, I’ve changed my mind and would love to have dinner with you this evening, Jonas?’ he drawled.
He was teasing her! It was so unexpected from this normally forcefully arrogant man that Mac couldn’t stop herself from laughing softly as she gave a slight shake of her head. ‘You aren’t making this easy for me, are you?’
Jonas had no idea what had possessed him to make the invitation in the first place, let alone try to cajole her into accepting it. Especially when he knew that spending any more time with this woman was the very last thing he should do.
He had been telling himself exactly that for the past three days. To no avail, obviously, when the first time he set eyes on her again he was pressing her to have dinner with him!
Even now Jonas couldn’t bring himself to retract the invitation. ‘It can’t be that difficult, Mac,’ he cajoled. ‘The answer is either yes or no.’
Mac looked up at Jonas quizzically, wondering why he had invited her out to dinner when he was so obviously as reluctant to spend time alone with her again as she was with him.
Except the two of them were alone right now…
Alone, and with the sexual tension between them rising just as obviously. The very air that surrounded them seemed to crackle with that awareness; she was so aware of it now that her heart raced and her palms felt damp.
She drew in a sharp breath. ‘I think that has to be a definite no.’
‘“I think” is surely contradictory to “definite”?’ Jonas pressed.
Because Mac was having a problem thinking at all in Jonas’s company!
Because she really wanted to say yes?
Maybe. No, definitely! But the part of her that could still reason logically—a very small part of her, admittedly!—knew it really wasn’t a sensible thing for her to spend any more time in his highly disturbing company.
‘I don’t want to go out to dinner with you, Jonas,’ she stated very firmly—at the same time aware of a sinking disappointment in the pit of her stomach. An ache. A hollowness that instantly made her want to retract her refusal. She bit her bottom lip, hard, to stop herself from doing exactly that.
Jonas looked down at Mac through narrowed lids, physically aware of everything about her; the slender and sexy elegance of her body, the long silky length of her ebony hair, the warm grey of her eyes, her tiny up tilted nose, the satiny smoothness of her cheeks, those full and sensuous lips—the bottom one firmly gripped between her tiny white teeth. Could that be in an effort to stop Mac
from retracting her own refusal?
Implying she didn’t really want to say no to his dinner invitation…
Jonas straightened. ‘I’m not asking you out so that you can dress up and be a trophy on my arm, Mac,’ he assured her gently. ‘How about we eat here instead of going out? I’ll come back at eight o’clock with a bottle of wine and a takeaway. Would you prefer Chinese or Indian?’
Mac’s eyes widened. ‘But I just said—’
‘That you didn’t want to go out to dinner,’ he cut in. ‘So we’ll eat dinner here instead.’
She frowned. ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant.’
‘I know that, Mac.’ Jonas smiled.
‘Then—’
‘Look, we both know that we would actually prefer not to spend any more time together,’ Jonas said neutrally. ‘The problem with that is I can’t seem to stay away from you. How about you?’ he asked, eyes suddenly fierce with emotion in his otherwise calm face.
Mac realised from his careful tone and fierce expression that he disliked intensely even having to make that admission. That he was still as disturbed by their physical attraction to each other as she was. A physical attraction that was going precisely nowhere when he distrusted her sexual inexperience and she distrusted her own ability to resist him. To see him any more than was absolutely necessary would be absolute madness.
She drew herself up determinedly. ‘I said no, Jonas, and I meant no!’
His mouth tightened, jaw clenched. ‘Fine,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ll wish you a pleasant evening, then.’ He nodded abruptly before crossing to the door, closing it softly behind him as he left.
That hollow feeling deepened in Mac’s stomach as she watched him go. She knew absolutely that the last thing she was going to have was a pleasant evening in any shape or form.
Chapter Nine
‘I HAVE Miss McGuire for you on line one, Mr Buchanan,’ Mandy informed Jonas lightly down the telephone line when he responded to her buzz.
‘Miss McGuire?’ Jonas frowned as he suddenly realised Mandy was referring to Mac; he had ceased thinking of her as ‘the irritating Miss McGuire’ days ago!
He and Mac had only parted a few hours ago, and not exactly harmoniously, so why was she calling him at his office now? Had something else happened at her home?
Jonas put his hand over the mouthpiece to look across at Yvonne as she sat on the other side of his desk, the two of them having been going through some paperwork. ‘Would you come back in fifteen minutes so we can finish up here?’
‘Of course, Jonas.’ She stood up smoothly. ‘Are you having better luck persuading Miss McGuire into selling?’ she paused to ask ruefully.
Jonas gave her an irritated look. ‘It hasn’t come into our conversation for some time,’ he answered honestly. Part of him had forgotten why he had ever met Mac in the first place. Part of him wished that he never had.
‘Oh.’ Yvonne looked surprised. ‘I thought that was the whole point of your—acquaintance?’
‘Did you?’ Jonas returned unhelpfully. Yvonne was a good PA, a damned good one, but even so that didn’t give her the right to question any of his actions. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, this is a private call…?’ he prompted pointedly, regretting the embarrassed colour that entered Yvonne’s cheeks, but making no attempt at an apology as he waited for her to leave his office before taking Mac’s call. ‘Yes?’ he said tersely, not sure who he was annoyed with, only knowing that he was.
Mac had been aware of each second she’d been kept waiting to be put through to Jonas—perhaps because he was unsure about taking her call?—and she could hear the displeasure in his voice now as she held her mobile to her ear with one hand and poured two mugs of coffee with the other. ‘Have I called at a bad time?’
‘No.’
Mac begged to differ, considering that long wait, and the impatience she could hear in Jonas’s tone. She knew she shouldn’t have telephoned him. Had tried to talk herself out of it. Wished now that she had heeded her own advice! ‘I realised after you had left earlier that I hadn’t…I just called to say thank you,’ she said awkwardly. ‘For everything you did for me this morning. Calling the police. Arranging to have the graffiti painted over.’
There was a brief silence before Jonas answered, his voice sounding less aggressive. ‘Have Ben and Jerry finished the painting now?’
‘Ben and Jerry? That’s what they’re called?’
‘Yes,’ Jonas answered dryly.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ Jonas chuckled softly.
Mac felt slightly heartened by that chuckle. ‘They’ve almost finished, yes. I was just making them both a mug of coffee.’
‘That’s very…kind of you.’
Mac bristled. ‘You sound surprised?’
His sigh was audible. ‘Let’s try to not have another argument, hmm, Mac.’
‘No, of course not.’ She grimaced. ‘Sorry.’
‘Was that the only reason you called?’ Jonas asked huskily.
Was it? Mac had convinced herself that it was before she made the call, but now that she had heard his voice again she wasn’t so sure.
They had parted with such finality earlier. Leaving no room for manoeuvre. Something that had left Mac with a feeling of uneasy dissatisfaction.
‘I think so,’ she answered.
‘But you’re not sure?’ he pressed.
‘I am sure,’ she said firmly. ‘I just—Anyway, thank you for your help earlier, Jonas. It is appreciated.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said warmly. ‘Have you had second thoughts about dinner?’
Second and third ones, Mac acknowledged ruefully. But all of them with the same conclusion—that a relationship between herself and Jonas was going nowhere. Except possibly to a broken heart on her part.
She wasn’t sure when—or even how—the feelings she had for Jonas had sneaked up on her. She only knew that they had.
Quite what those feelings were, she had so far shied away from analysing; she only knew, after seeing him again this morning, that her three days away had achieved nothing and that she definitely felt something for him.
She felt energised in his company. A tingling awareness. An excited thrumming. Whether or not that was just a sexual excitement, Mac wasn’t experienced enough in relationships to know. She only knew that the thought of never seeing him again, speaking to him again, was a painful one.
It made no difference to those feelings whatsoever that she knew there was no future for the two of them. Jonas undisputedly affected her in a way no other man ever had.
‘I’ll take it from your delay in answering that you have,’ he drawled softly.
‘I didn’t say that—’
‘In which case, Indian or Chinese?’ he said authoritatively, rolling right over her vacillation, having no intention of letting her wriggle out of the invitation a second time. Or was it a third time? Whatever. For some reason, Mac had called him, once again opening the line of communication between them, and at the same time renewing Jonas’s own determination to see her again. ‘I’m waiting, Mac,’ he added.
Her raggedly indrawn breath was audible. ‘Indian. But—’
‘No buts,’ Jonas cut in forcefully. ‘I’ll be there about eight o’clock, okay?’
‘I—Yes. Okay.’
Jonas only realised he had been tensed for another refusal as he felt his shoulders relax. ‘We’re only going to eat dinner together, Mac,’ he mocked gruffly—not sure whether he was offering her that reassurance or himself!
Himself, probably, he accepted derisively. Mac had got under his skin in a way he wasn’t comfortable with. So much so that he knew he shouldn’t see her again. So much so that he knew he had to see her again.
She was a magnet he was inexorably drawn to. And resistance on Jonas’s part was proving as futile as preventing the proverbial moth from being drawn to a flame…
‘Very festive,’ Jonas told Mac dryly later that evening once she had opened the doo
r to his knock and he had stepped into the living area of the warehouse, the main lights switched off to allow for the full effect of the brightly lit Christmas tree. The smell of pine was thick in the air, and the branches were heavily adorned with decorations and glittering shiny baubles that reflected those coloured lights.
The dining table in the corner of the huge open-plan area was already set for two, with several candles placed in its centre waiting to be lit, and a bottle of red wine waiting to be opened.
Jonas turned away from the intimacy of that setting to look at Mac instead. Her hair was loose again this evening, and she had changed out of the black jumper, jeans and red body-warmer, into an overlarge thighlength long-sleeved red shirt over black leggings, with calf-high black boots.
Jonas had spent the remainder of the afternoon telling himself what a bad idea it was for him to come here again this evening. One look at Mac and he didn’t give a damn how bad an idea it was, he was just enjoying being in her company again.
‘Here.’ He handed her the bag of Indian food before thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets in an effort not to reach out, as he so wanted to do, and pull her close to him. Jonas knew that once he had done that he wouldn’t want to let her go again. That he would forget everything else but having her in his arms…
Mac turned away from the stark intensity of Jonas’s gaze to carry the bag of food over to the breakfast bar and take out the hot cartons before removing the lids with determined concentration, feeling strangely shy in his company now that she was aware of—if choosing not to look too closely at—the feelings she had for him.
‘Ben and Jerry did a good job painting over the graffiti,’ she told him conversationally as she carried the warmed plates and cartons of food over to the table on a tray.
Jonas shrugged. ‘It’s too dark for me to tell.’
Mac nodded. ‘They were very efficient.’ Her gaze didn’t quite meet his as she straightened and turned, at the same time completely aware of how vibrantly attractive he looked in a blue cashmere sweater, the same colour as his eyes, and faded jeans of a lighter blue.
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