see…yes, I do see.’ Sensual lips compressed, he drew a hand across his jaw and glared down at her.
Fleur lifted her brows. ‘You see what?’
‘I see that your officious, meddlesome behaviour is meant to compensate for the fact you appear to have no life of your own.’
You can almost see the superiority oozing from every pore, she thought, feeling something snap inside as she looked up at him.
‘For your information, I have a life. I have a great life, which was even greater when you weren’t in it.’ Frowning and hoping Antonio had not picked up on the unspoken implication that he had somehow become part of her life, Fleur added belligerently, ‘And while we’re talking about lives, just how great is yours anyhow?
‘Oh, I know you make a lot of money and you swan around being seen in the right places with some girl with a surgically enhanced body draped all over you. But I’d say your lifestyle is the one that warrents a little scrutiny…’ she suggested with a derisive snigger.
‘As for meddlesome,’ she gritted from between clenched teeth, ‘I admit my natural instinct is to pull someone back when they’re about to walk off the side of a cliff.’ Breathless but unrepentant for her rant, she stuck out her chin and promised sweetly, ‘But in future for you I will make an exception. Actually, if you like I’ll point you in the right direction.’
A stunned silence followed her emotional outburst.
It lasted long enough for Fleur to start doubting the wisdom of speaking her mind. Not that she cared if she had offended him or that she didn’t believe what she had said was not essentially true, though she supposed that some of his girlfriends’ assets might conceivably be natural.
Thinking about some of the more spectacular bodies she’d seen Antonio photographed beside sent her mood into a downward spiral. Attached to those bodies were perfect smiles. Women with those sorts of smiles would routinely tell him how marvellous he was and never, ever say something that left the impression they’d quite like to see him jump off a cliff.
‘I had no right to make personal comments.’
It was grudging but definitely an admission. Surprised, but trying hard not to show it, Fleur nodded her head warily.
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘You really do come out fighting, don’t you…querida?’
And he sounded as if he admired the fact…Every time she thought she had a handle on this man, he did or said something that made her realise he was not always what he seemed.
‘Just because you’re frustrated doesn’t give you the right to take it out on me.’
His heavy eyelids lowered as his bold glance drifted down her body. When he reached her toes he began to work his way up again, really slowly. The action had the result of making Fleur painfully aware of every inch of her body and the way it was reacting to his scrutiny, which was stupid because he was probably compiling a mental list of what was wrong with her.
He got back to her face and it turned out he hadn’t been compiling a list of faults.
He fixed her with a gleaming predatory stare that made her sensitive tummy quiver. His voice was a low, throaty purr as he asked, ‘Has it occurred to you that you’re part of the reason I’m frustrated?’
Chapter Nine
IT HADN’T, but it was now!
Fleur struggled to maintain at least the illusion of composure as inside she dissolved. Through her lashes she could see the dark colour running along the angles of Antonio’s chiselled cheekbones. The glitter in his heavy-lidded eyes drew a fractured sigh from her parted lips.
‘I was thinking about the other night when we…’
Fleur shook her head. ‘There’s nothing you can tell me that I don’t already know,’ she promised him.
‘You have been thinking of it too.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Not even a little bit.’ Sometimes lies were not only justified, they were essential. ‘I hate to break it to you, Antonio, but one kiss is really very much like another. You know what your problem is—’
‘My kissing technique needs polish?’
Of course, he could sound smug—anyone who kissed like an angel, the fallen variety, could afford to sound so confident. Suddenly Fleur was so mad with him she wanted to hit him. Instead she clenched her hands and tucked them behind her back.
‘Your problem is your priorities. We were talking about Tamara. While you carry on preventing her seeing this man she’s going to resent you and I for one don’t blame her.’
Antonio hissed something that sounded angry under his breath and dragged a hand through the gleaming strands of his dark hair.
Fleur was dismayed to recognise that her reaction to the lessening of screaming sexual tension in the air was ambiguous.
‘Do you imagine,’ he demanded, rounding on her with a furious scowl, ‘that this is a situation of my choosing?’
‘Aren’t you the one who’s just been preaching on about taking responsibility for your own actions?’ she countered crossly. ‘I think what you’ve done is positively inhuman.’
‘You’re a sanctimonious little…’ The rest of his sentence was completed in rapid, angry Spanish.
Well, at least he’s not thinking about kissing me anymore. Throttling, possibly, she mused, responding to his hostile glare with a smile that visibly raised his aggravation levels.
Antonio took a deep breath and held his hands in front of him, his long fingers extended as he revealed in a flat monotone that obviously masked strong feelings, ‘Charles Finch, the man Miranda married before Tamara was born, has made it very clear he does not want to see Tamara. So there it is,’ he said, snapping his fingers and pacing restlessly as far as the edge of the paved area.
Fleur, her brow furrowed, watched him walk back. ‘I don’t understand—?’
A nerve in his strong jaw clenched as he cut across her. ‘He wants no contact with Tamara at all. How much clearer can I make it?’ His voice grim, he elaborated. ‘Finch arrived at my office, told me that Miranda was dead and I had a daughter who was waiting for me in the car. And, before you ask, no, I did not misunderstand his motives. No, he was not giving us time to get to know one another. I say this because I know that you like to imagine everyone, with the exception of myself, has virtuous motives.’
Fleur blinked and went pale; she just couldn’t imagine anyone doing something so…so…vicious. ‘Seriously…?’
Though there was absolutely no trace of emotion in Antonio’s face, she never doubted that inside he must feel…well, actually, she didn’t have a clue. How, she reflected, could you possibly imagine what it would feel like to learn that the love of your life had died and you had fathered a child who was now thirteen in the space of a few minutes?
She had no doubt that Antonio
