An embarrassed choking sound left her throat; he hadn’t even attempted to lower his voice. ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself,’ she retorted, failing to come even halfway to delivering the haughtily contemptuous tone she was aiming for.
‘So none of what I have just said is true?’
Lara shook her head. ‘Look, I understand why you came up with this idea,’ she babbled. ‘I’m sympathetic, but if you just stop and think about it you’ll realise it would never work. Your grandfather sounds like an intelligent man...?’
A smile quivered across his expressive lips. ‘His brain makes razor blades seem blunt.’
She threw up her hands in an ‘argument won’ gesture.
He looked at her; the gleam in his heavily lidded eyes was sensual and teasing. ‘He’ll like you.’
‘For my good child-bearing hips?’
Her stomach lurched as she watched the smile fade from his eyes, leaving something much harder and more predatory.
She knew that he was thinking of her naked...and she was thinking of him the same way.
‘Will you stop doing that?’ she pleaded. ‘People might—’
Her agonised whisper made him grin, dissipating a little of the tension. ‘People might, what, know your knees are shaking under the table and your throat is dry; they might notice that your pupils are so dilated there is only a thin ring of green left?’
The finger he placed to her lips silenced a fresh rush of denial, but not the voice in Raoul’s own head that without warning acknowledged the fact he had so far successfully dodged: he liked Lara Gray.
LIKE. IT SOUNDED BLAND, not a dangerous emotion, but even so the discovery threw Raoul. He had female friends—he had never bought into the popular belief that men and women could not be friends. There were women he admired, women whose opinion he valued in and out of the workplace, but none of those women were the ones in his bed, because liking was not a prerequisite for good sex. Was it something he subconsciously avoided in sexual partners...?
With a slight shake of his head he dismissed the possibility and the significance of his discovery as he allowed his hand to fall away. She closed her eyes as his fingers trailed down her cheek.
It had been the lightest of touches, but the chain reaction it set up was not! By the time he took his hand away she was shaking and struggling to catch her breath.
She forced her eyelids apart and folded her fingers around her coffee cup to stop herself touching the side of her face where the skin still tingled.
‘That is what I mean—you can’t hide the way you feel, the way I make you feel. You’ve only just begun to discover your sensuality—’
Mortified beyond belief by his comments, she had really thought that she was being discreet. She said the first thing that came into her head just to shut him up. Just to stop him saying those things, which she could have dealt with if they hadn’t been true.
It was just sex, you couldn’t fall for someone you barely knew...just sex...just sex, she repeated in her head until the words became a meaningless hum.
‘And I’m looking forward to continuing that process when I get back home with someone other than you.’
The words struck Raoul harder than a slap across the face. Without warning, images flashed across his retina, a stream of faceless lovers. Blood pounded in his ears as he fought to contain the outrage that threatened to spill out.
A couple of feet away Lara remained totally unaware of the effect her taunt had had on the recipient. It was the effect it had had on her that she was dealing with! The moment the words left her lips, the truth came crashing in—the thought of another man touching her as Raoul had made her feel... A shudder of revulsion rippled through her body.
‘I don’t want to have sex with anyone!’ she cried out suddenly.
Her voice floated to him through a haze of anger. He shook his head to clear the low hum.
‘Fine. As I’ve said that works too—you call the shots. I know marriage may seem extreme...hell, do you think I like the idea of going through with a farce? It feels like—’
‘You’re cheating on your wife?’
He gave an odd laugh. ‘I certainly swore after Lucy died that I would never marry again.’ His jaw clenched as he continued in a voice carefully devoid of emotion. ‘But my grandfather means a great deal to me and if I can make him happy by disrupting my life for a few months it does not seem unreasonable.’
‘He’s not my grandfather.’ It was ridiculous but she felt mean for pointing it out.
‘Which is why I am offering an incentive.’
‘You’re trying to buy me.’
‘Think of this as headhunting... You have a unique skill set that I want.’ I want you.
‘With sex as an optional extra?’ she threw back bitterly.
‘It would be a lie to say I am not eagerly anticipating sharing your bed,’ he admitted, with a gleam in his eyes that sent a rush of receptive heat through her body. ‘However, should the need arise the palazzo is a big place and you don’t need to see me if you don’t wish to.’
‘Palazzo? I assumed we’d be living in your apartment...not that I’m going to be...living with... I’m not agreeing...’
He let her stumble on for a moment before permitting himself a smugly triumphant smile. ‘See, a terrible liar.’
‘For heaven’s sake, being honest is not a defect, and I can lie.’
‘I’ve never met anyone who wore her emotions so close to the surface.’
She lifted a hand to her temple, massaging the area to relieve a tension headache. ‘No wonder I have a headache. You make me want to scream.’
‘Now that’s the truth, just as when you saw me you wanted to rip off my clothes...’
Before she could react to this casually voiced and deadly accurate observation he cast a look of critical distaste around the crowded room. ‘I think we should go somewhere less crowded...’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m catching my flight,’ Lara said, unable to shake the feeling she was fighting the inevitable.
‘That might be hard—your flight was called some time ago,’ he said gently.
‘You heard and you didn’t say anything.’
Raoul rose to his feet. ‘We both know you’re not going to fly out of here—you’re coming home with me.’
The denial on her tongue died as he caught her eye.
