against his chest he lifted his head and released her, stepping back. Alexa forced her lashes up and looked into eyes as polished and impersonal as the gold they resembled. Oh, he wanted her—he couldn’t hide that—but with nothing more complex than simple lust.
It shouldn’t have hurt.
Yet it was pain as much as fury that drove her to ask, ‘And what did that prove, except that you’re stronger than I am?’
Caustic amusement gleamed in his gaze, curved the mouth that now knew hers intimately. ‘It proved that you want me as much as I do you,’ he returned on a note of courtesy that lacerated her composure.
‘That means nothing,’ she retorted, trying to convince herself. Beneath the surface control, she realised, he was blackly furious.
‘An admirably liberated view,’ he said, not hiding the flick of contempt in his tone.
The skin over her high cheekbones heated and she forgot tact and discretion and plain common sense to flare, ‘Perhaps, but I’m not so liberated that I sleep with every good-looking man who wants a bit of publicity.’
‘No,’ he said lethally, ‘you merely pander to the avid eagerness of people who want to read that sort of trash.’
Hot with chagrin at her humiliating rudeness, she said between her teeth, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. But, for the last time, I did not notify the newspaper.’
He surveyed her with aggression bordering on menace. ‘If news of those kisses makes it into the media I’ll know how much your word is worth.’
‘As much as yours,’ she said tersely. ‘I’d hate to be as mistrustful as you are.’
‘I imbibed it with my mother’s milk,’ he said, adding with cold distaste, ‘Literally.’
Shocked by the stark authenticity in his words, she muttered, ‘There’s someone at the door.’
‘They’ll wait.’
Possibly his staff were accustomed to waiting for him to finish with the woman of the moment!
Alexa turned away, paradoxically feeling safer now they were back in adversarial mode. ‘They won’t have to. I’m going.’
‘Perhaps you should comb your hair,’ he suggested in a voice that was a maddening mix of amusement and mockery. ‘You look—tumbled.’
Glaring at him, Alexa shook her hair back from her face, but the heavy copper tresses clung to her hot cheeks and temples. She pushed it back with her fingers, but when his dark gaze lingered on her shaking hands she gave up. With a crisp ‘Goodbye’ she walked abruptly towards the door.
Halfway there, she stopped. ‘Thank you for the flowers.’
‘Don’t throw them into the garbage just because I sent them.’ He sounded more than a little bored.
‘It isn’t their fault they came from you.’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘Although I’ll bet you ordered a minion to send them!’
‘Alas, the days of minions are long past,’ he said, deadpan, adding, ‘Have you got your car back yet?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Torn by a debilitating mixture of anger and resentment and desolation, she swept out past the man who waited on the other side of the door.
Luka’s eyes met Dion’s and he jerked his head. Obeying the unspoken order, Dion closed the door. He’d accompany her down to her car.
Alone once more, Luka turned away and walked across to the window, to stare at the elaborate terraced garden and pool outside.
Shortly after his seventh birthday he’d screwed his courage to the sticking point and dived through a waterfall to the pool behind it. He’d felt the way he did now—as though the gleaming darkness was a gateway into some other dimension, a place of perilous beauty where he risked the slow dissolution of his innermost self.
Every muscle clenched while he fought to leash an unwanted onslaught of desire. He understood the primitive strength of his own needs and instincts, and over the years he’d caged them in a prison of will-power and discretion.
Yet Alexa Mytton’s smile and the glittering promise in those pale, crystalline eyes had pushed him over the knife-edge of control.
He shouldn’t have kissed her, and once he’d done it he certainly shouldn’t have surrendered to that overmastering need to find out whether she tasted as good the second time as she did the first.
He tried to resurrect his anger, but primal impulses still raced recklessly through his cells. He had work to do.
He was leafing rapidly through papers when another knock at the door signalled Dion’s return. When the other man was inside Luka asked, ‘Did you see her to her car?’
Dion said abruptly, ‘Yes. Luka, the last sighting of Guy was a week ago, when he boarded a ship loaded with medical supplies for Sant’Rosa. I’ve checked, but no one seems to know where it went or what happened to it.’
Luka swore—low, virulent oaths that startled his companion.
When he stopped Dion drew in a sharp breath and said, ‘You’d better tell me what this is all about.’
‘Guy is a hostage,’ Luka said, only a thread of steel in the deep voice betraying his emotions.
Last night’s meeting had begun in an atmosphere that had reeked with suspicion, but he had thought he’d managed to convince the men from Sant’Rosa that he was an entirely neutral emissary. They had discussed the sort of peace they envisaged.
And then they’d produced their trump card in the form of his cousin.
‘In Sant’Rosa? We can spring him,’ Dion said instantly.
‘Without alerting the government?’ Luka shook his head. ‘He’s safe enough for the present. They really want an end to this war, and they’re convinced the rebels want it too. However, they don’t trust anyone—not even anyone from the other side of the world.’ His voice hardened into iron. ‘When Guy appeared they recognised him from the gossip columns and realised they had the perfect way to stop me from double-crossing them. According to the Prime Minister, he is quite safe.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘That far, I believe him,’ Luka said deliberately. ‘And I believe that if any word of this peace initiative gets out to the media Guy could be in serious trouble. Before anyone knows of any possible treaty, they want the deal to be signed and sealed, with a peace-keeping force already on the island.’
Dion frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Luka said evenly, ‘the neighbouring state is poised to march across the border and take over. They’ll stay on the sidelines as long as they think the two sides are bleeding to death, but any hint of peace will see them invade. Guy is being kept three miles from the border on the main route to the capital city.’
Dion swore this time.
‘Exactly,’ his
