him. ‘I don’t care. I will be wealthy in my own right and therefore independent of you no matter how long the marriage lasts! But we will soon know how strong your resolve is,’ she added derisively, ‘once the marriage is real and your sense of entrapment begins to eat away at you!’
‘Entrapment?’ he picked up on the word and shot it scornfully back at her. ‘You naively believe I will feel trapped by this marriage? That I am prepared to change a single facet of my life to accommodate you or the vows we will make to each other?’
It was his turn to discharge a disdainful laugh, and Mia’s turn to stiffen as his meaning began to sink in. ‘I will change nothing!’ he vowed. ‘Not my way of life or my freedom to enjoy it wherever the mood takes me!’
His eyes were ablaze, anger and contempt for her lancing into her defiant face.
‘I have a mistress in Athens with whom I am very happy,’ he announced, using words like ice picks that he thrust into her. ‘She will remain my mistress no matter what I have to do to fulfil my side of this filthy bargain! I will not be discreet.’ he warned. ‘I will not make any concessions to your pride while you live with me as my so-called wife! I will hate and despise you—and bed you with alacrity at regular intervals until this child of the devil is conceived, after which I will never touch you again!
‘But,’ he added harshly, ‘if you truly believe I will also let you walk away with that child then you are living in a dream world because I will not!’
‘Then the deal is off,’ Mia instantly retaliated, using her father’s tactics to make her own point.
After all, he hadn’t given in to the big one—namely, agreeing to marry her and produce Jack Frazier’s grandchild in what amounted to cold blood—without being desperate! And she would have her way in this if only because she had to glimpse some light at the end of this long dark tunnel or she knew she would not survive.
‘Try telling your father that,’ he derided, his eyes narrowing as her cheeks went white. ‘You are afraid of him. I saw that from the first moment I set eyes on you.’
‘And you want what only he can give you more than you want a child!’ Mia countered. ‘So I am telling you that you agree to my having full custody or the deal is off! This may also be a good moment for me to remind you of the shortlist of other names waiting to be called upon at a moment’s notice,’ she added, playing what she saw as her trump card.
To her immense satisfaction, his handsome face fell into harsh lines of raw frustration. ‘You are as cold-blooded about this as your damned father!’ he spat at her in disgust.
Mia said nothing, her chin up and eyes cool, her defiance in the face of his disdain so palpable it could almost be tasted in the air between them. Air that seemed to sing with enmity, picking at her flesh and tightening her throat as she watched him turn and stride angrily for the door.
‘I will speak to my lawyers,’ he said in a clipped voice as he reached it, ‘and let you know tomorrow what I decide.’
‘F-fine,’ Mia said, not quite managing to hide the sudden tremor of anxiety in her voice.
He heard it, and read it for exactly what it was. ‘Your father is going to be bloody furious with you for not clinching this here and now, isn’t he?’ he taunted.
She merely shrugged one finely sculptured shoulder. ‘My father knew my requirements before you arrived here. Why else do you think he left us alone like this when he actually had you so nicely caught in the bag?’
Take that, you nasty swine, she thought, her eyes gleaming with her own contempt.
One set of long, brown, lean fingers was gripping the brass doorhandle in preparation to open the door, but that final taunt had them sliding away again, and on a quiver of real alarm, which made her spine warily straighten, Mia watched him turn and begin to walk slowly towards her. Her heart began to hammer, her tongue cleaving to the dry roof of her mouth as he came to a halt mere inches away.
He was tall—taller than herself by several daunting inches. It meant she had to tilt her chin to maintain that most necessary eye-to-eye contact bitter adversaries always used as a weapon on each other.
His eyes were black, hard and narrowed, the finger he used to stroke a feather-light caress down the arched column of her throat an electric provocation that had her teeth gritting behind the firm set of her lips as she fought to stop herself from flinching away from him.
‘You know...’ he murmured, super-light, super-soft, ‘you are in real danger of provoking me one step too far. I wonder why that is?’
‘I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said tremulously, feeling that trailing finger make its electrifying journey back up her throat again.
‘No?’ he said quizzically.
Then he showed her exactly what he meant as that taunting finger suddenly became a hand that cupped her jaw then tilted her head as his mouth came down to capture hers.
It was not a passionate kiss or even a punishing one. He simply crushed her slightly parted lips against his own, tasted her, using his tongue to lick a lazy passage along the vulnerable curve of her mouth, then straightened, his eyes still like dark glass as they gazed into her own rather startled ones.
‘W-why did you do that?’ she gasped.
‘Why do you think?’ he replied mockingly. ‘I wanted to know if I would taste the acid that drips constantly from your lips. It wasn’t there,’ he softly confided. ‘In fact, you tasted so sweet I think I will have to taste you again...’
And he did, that warning all she had before he was crushing her lips again, only this time his exploring tongue was sliding sinuously along the edge of her own, and as she released a protesting gasp his free hand snaked round her waist and pulled her against the long lean length of his body—a body she could feel already tightening with an arousal that actually shocked her.
But what shocked her more was the way her own senses went absolutely haywire, slinging out all kinds of demands that had her simmering from head to toe. The static-packed build-up of sensual excitement set her quivering all over and it was an effort not to give in.
What was the matter with her? she wondered deliriously. She didn’t even like this man!
Yet she was on fire already, and she had to admit he was good. He seduced her mouth with an expertise that had her groaning, the splay of his hands across her body holding her trapped so he could move against her in a blatant demonstration of what the friction between their two bodies was doing to him.
To her horror, her own inner thighs began to pulse in hungry answer, her mouth quivered, her breathing quickened and her hands came up to cling to his shoulders as, on another helpless groan, her defences finally collapsed, and she was kissing him back with a passion that held her totally captivated.
It was raw and it was hot and it was so utterly basic that his deep-throated laugh of triumph against her clinging mouth had to be the worst humiliation she had ever experienced.
‘Now this is a surprise,’ he murmured silkily as he drew away. ‘I knew our sparring was arousing me, but I did not realise it was having the same effect upon you. That adds a little spice to my final decision, does it not?’
Mia took a shaky step backwards,
