forbid you to drive this heap of rust,’ he said, taking her keys from her hand before she could stop him.
She glared at him. ‘Give me my keys!’
He pocketed them and, capturing her outstretched hand, led her back down the street. ‘I will have someone move it later,’ he said. ‘And I will have a new car delivered to the hotel for you tomorrow.’
She trotted alongside him, tugging at his hold, but his fingers tightened. ‘I don’t want a new car,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’
He shot her a trenchant look as he turned her round to face him. ‘If I want to buy my wife a new car, I will. For God’s sake, Claire, you are driving around in a death trap. Does it even have airbags?’
She pulled her mouth tight. ‘No, but—’
He swore viciously and continued striding towards his own car, parked in a side street. ‘I suppose you have done it deliberately?’ he said, using his remote to unlock the upmarket vehicle.
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she asked.
His eyes lasered hers. ‘Do you have any idea of what the press would make of you driving around in that coffin on wheels? For God’s sake, Claire, I am here to teach other surgeons how to repair the sort of damage people get from being drivers and passengers in unworthy road vehicles such as yours.’
‘It’s not an unworthy vehicle,’ she said. ‘It passed its registration inspection last year.’
He clicked the remote control device once they got to his car. ‘How?’ he asked with an indolent curl of his lip. ‘Did you bribe the mechanic by offering him a service?’
The blue in her eyes burned like the centre of a flame as they warred with his. ‘Only someone with your disgusting moral track record would think something like that,’ she bit back furiously.
He held the passenger door open for her. ‘I am not going to discuss this any further,’ he said. ‘You are not going to be driving it any more and that is final.’
Claire waited until he was behind the wheel before she spoke through tight lips. ‘If you think by buying me a flash new car it will get me back into your bed, then you are not only wasting a heck of a lot of money but your time as well.’
He sent her a challenging look. ‘I could get you into the back seat right now, Claire, and have you writhing beneath me within seconds.’
Claire felt her face fire up, and a traitorous pulse began deep and low in her belly. ‘You would have to knock me out first,’ she said with a derisive scowl.
He laughed and gunned the engine. ‘I am looking forward to making you eat every one of those words, tesoro mio.’ He thrust the car into gear. ‘Every single one of them.’
Claire sat with a mutinous set to her mouth, but inside her stomach was quivering at the thought of becoming intimate with him again. When he looked at her in that smouldering way she felt as if she was going to burst into flames. Heat coursed through her. She was annoyed with herself for being so weak. What sort of wanton woman was she, to be allowing herself to fall all over again for his lethally attractive charm? Hadn’t she learned her lesson by now? He was using her to keep her hands off his money. He thought far more of his inheritance than he did of her. He didn’t care one iota for her. He never had. What other proof did she need? Hadn’t she always known it in her heart? As much as she had longed for him to love her, she knew it was not going to happen. Not then, and not now.
Not ever.
After a few minutes of nudging his way through the clogged city streets, Antonio pulled into the parking bay of the hotel. One of the attendants opened Claire’s door, while the valet parking attendant took Antonio’s place behind the wheel.
Antonio took Claire’s hand and led her inside the hotel to the bank of lifts. He didn’t speak on the ride up to his penthouse suite, but Claire was aware of the undercurrent of tension building between them. She could feel it in his fingers where they were curled around hers, the warmth and the sensual strength searing into her flesh like a brand.
He swiped his security card and held the door of his suite open for her, waiting until she had moved past him before he closed it with a click that made her nerves jump.
‘Relax, Claire,’ he said, reaching up to loosen his tie. ‘I am not going to throw you to the floor and ravish you, even though I am tempted.’
Claire chewed at her lip and watched as he shrugged off his jacket, his broad chest and lean, narrow hips making her want to press herself against him and feel every hard plane of his body.
He laid his jacket over the back of one of the sofas. ‘Your things were brought over from your flat earlier today,’ he informed her. ‘One of the housemaids has placed them in the wardrobe in my bedroom.’
Claire looked at him with eyes wide with alarm. ‘Your bedroom?’ she asked. ‘You mean you expect me to share your bed…like…’ she gulped before she could stop herself ‘… straight away?’
He gave her a bland look. ‘Is that going to be a problem for you?’
She let out her breath in a gust of outrage. ‘Of course it’s a problem!’
‘It is a big bed, Claire,’ he said. ‘I am sure I will hardly notice you are there.’
‘Thanks,’ she said with a resentful glare. ‘That makes me feel as if I should just cover up all the mirrors right now, in case they shatter to pieces if I so much as happen to glance into them.’
His dark eyes glinted with amusement as he closed the distance between them. He pushed up her chin to lock gazes with her. ‘You are searching for compliments, si?’ he asked. ‘Then I will give you one.’ He brought his mouth down to hers, his lips moving against hers in a leisurely fashion, exploring, tasting and teasing.
Claire couldn’t hold back her response when his tongue stroked the seam of her mouth for entry; she opened her lips on a sigh, her body sagging against his as he pulled her into his hardness. His tongue explored her thoroughly, reacquainting himself with every contour of her mouth, leaving her breathless with need when he finally lifted his mouth from hers.
‘Now,’ he said, with that same glint of amusement darkening his eyes, ‘do you feel beautiful and desirable again?’
Claire looked into his eyes and felt her resolve slip even further away. Her mouth was still tingling all over from the sensual assault of his, her heart-rate so hectic she could feel it pumping against her breastbone.
She was unable to move out of his embrace, her body locked against the rock-hard wall of his, the unmistakable probe of his erection sending her senses into overdrive.
She lowered her eyes to look at his mouth, her belly giving a little flip of excitement when she saw his tongue move out to sweep over his lips, as if he was preparing to kiss her again.
She drew in a breath as his head came down, a soft whimper escaping from her lips just before his mouth sealed hers. The pressure was light at first, but within moments it subtly increased, his tongue going in search of hers, taking the kiss to a whole new level of sensuality as his groin pulsed against hers with growing need. She could feel the
