in this situation?’ he challenged icily.
The ring of the telephone saved her from answering. ‘Yes, Sandy, what is it?’ she asked briskly. ‘Clive.’ She glanced sideways at Lucas and caught a thunderous frown on his dark face.
‘Tell him two minutes, my client is just leaving,’ she informed Sandy before turning towards Lucas. ‘My lunch date has arrived, I’m afraid I must ask you to leave.’
‘Clive Thompson, I might have guessed—he was lusting after you the first time he met you,’ Lucas opined bluntly. His dark eyes swept over her cynically. Her wide, oddly coloured gold eyes, and the full sensual lips that begged to be kissed. Her startling beauty combined with a slender yet curvaceous body was enough to make a grown man ache. Lucas was aching and he bitterly resented it. ‘Obviously he has succeeded, but by your ringless fingers I see you have had no success getting him to the altar yet,’ he taunted.
The arrogant bastard, Amber thought angrily. He was still of the opinion she was good enough to bed, but not to wed. Well, he was in for a big surprise.
‘Ah, Lucas, that is where you are wrong.’ Amber smiled a deliberately slow, sexy curve of her full lips. ‘Clive appreciates my talents.’ Let the swine make of that whatever his lecherous mind concluded. ‘He has asked me to marry him, but I have yet to give him my answer—perhaps over lunch,’ she said. ‘So, if you will excuse me.’
He moved so fast Amber didn’t have time to avoid him. One minute there were six feet of space between them, and the next she was hauled against the hard-muscled wall of his chest. Before she could struggle, one large hand slipped down over her buttocks, pressing hard against his thighs, and she felt the heat of him searing into her even through her clothes. ‘No, I won’t excuse you,’ he rasped.
Amber’s throat closed in panic. The years since they had last met might never have been. It was as if Lucas had rolled back time, his sexuality so potent that it fired her blood, making her once again the young girl who had been a slave to her senses. Then his dark head descended and he kissed her.
‘Lucas, no,’ she managed to croak as his mouth plundered hers, as he ground the tender flesh of her lips back against her teeth in a brutal travesty of a loving kiss. But even as she hated him, her body flooded with a feverish excitement and she fought the compulsion to surrender with every ounce of will-power she possessed, but it was not enough. The sexual chemistry between them had always been explosive. The years had not dulled the effect, and with a hoarse moan she responded. Lucas’s hold relaxed as he sensed her surrender, and, realising how completely she had betrayed herself, she swiftly twisted out of his arms.
‘Get out,’ she ordered in a voice that shook, her arms folded protectively across her breasts as she put as much space between them as her office allowed.
‘Christo! It was only a kiss—since when have you ever objected to a kiss?’ he derided savagely. ‘I was wrong, you haven’t changed. You can’t help responding. It is to be hoped Clive knows what he is taking on.’
The cruelty of his attack drove every last vestige of colour from her face.
His narrowed eyes studied her pale face for a long moment before a self-satisfied smile tilted the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, well, you haven’t told Clive about you and I.’ He was far too astute; he had seen the answer in her lowered gaze.
Lifting her head, she looked straight at him. ‘There is no you and I,’ she declared angrily. ‘There never was, as you were at great pains to point out when you married Christina.’ Her eyes sparkled with cold defiance.
His temper rose as swiftly as her own. ‘Leave Christina out of this,’ he commanded. ‘And if you want Clive to stay in ignorance…’ he paused, his narrowed gaze cold on her lovely face ‘…you will have dinner with me tonight. I will pick you up here at six and we will continue our talk. We have a lot to discuss.’
Panicked by his kiss, her lips tingling with the taste of him, Amber had forgotten Lucas’s real reason for seeking her out. There was still the will to discuss…
‘All right,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll check with New York this afternoon. The sooner this matter is settled, the better.’ The thought of Lucas back in her life filled her with horror and fear.
‘Amber, darling.’ Clive strolled into the office, saw Lucas and stopped. ‘Lucas Karadines.’ And he held out his hand for Lucas to shake. ‘Thinking of changing bankers yet again?’ Clive asked conversationally.
‘No, nothing like that. A private matter concerning my late nephew Spiro. Now, if you will excuse me…’ Lucas glanced at Amber, his dark eyes holding a definite threat ‘…until later.’ And he left.
Clive quickly crossed to Amber’s side, and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. ‘I forgot to tell you when I spoke to you yesterday. I heard about Spiro a week ago. I know he used to be a good friend of yours; it must have been a shock.’
A tragedy. A calamity that Amber had a sinking feeling was only going to get worse.
Lunch was a disaster. Amber toyed with the food on her plate, her mind in turmoil. One kiss from Lucas Karadines, and her carefully considered decision taken after two weeks in Italy to accept Clive’s proposal of marriage was shot to hell…
Clive was very understanding when she told him she needed more time. But she saw the hurt in his blue eyes when they said goodbye outside her office building, and she hated herself for it. He was a true friend.
RETURNING from lunch, Amber stopped at her secretary’s desk. ‘Sandy…’ she looked hard at the pretty brunette ‘…what possessed you to let Mr Karadines walk straight into my office? You know the rules. No one gets in unless they have an appointment, especially not Mr Karadines, you must inform me first. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Sorry.’ Sandy apologised and then grinned. ‘But he said he was an old friend and he wanted to surprise you, and I couldn’t resist. I thought you would be pleased. I know I would. Smart, charming and sexy as hell; what more could a girl want?’
‘He is also a domineering, chauvinistic pig, with the mind-set of a medieval monarch,’ Amber declared with a wry grin. Sandy was an excellent secretary but a hopeless romantic. ‘Now get back to work,’ Amber commanded and walked into her office, closing the door behind her. She couldn’t blame Sandy. Lucas had a lethal charm that few women, if any, could resist…
A fax to New York was her first priority and then Amber spent all afternoon trying to work, but without accomplishing much. It was five in the afternoon when she finally received a reply to her fax. She read it, and groaned; her worst fear was confirmed. Lucas, damn him, was right! She was Spiro’s sole heir, and clarification of what that entailed would follow by mail.
Amber did not need to know. She’d made up her mind that whatever Spiro had left her she would give to Lucas. She wanted nothing to do with Karadines ever again…
She’d been badly burnt once and only a fool put their hand in the flame a second time. Ruthlessly she squashed the wayward thought that Lucas was a single man once more. He probably wasn’t, she thought dryly. Lucas had a powerful sex drive, he was not the sort to do without a woman for very long, and there were millions of women out there only too ready to fall into bed with the
