on your own.”
She nearly choked on her own tongue. “How dare you.”
He arched an eyebrow, mocking her. “I dare because you will not. Because you are frightened, Lucilla. A spoiled little girl who cannot make the hard choices in life. I can, and I will, best you every time.”
“I hate you,” she whispered, her heart hammering hard.
“I am aware of this. And I am certain it can only make this flame between us burn hotter.”
“There is no flame. You’re deluded.” And yet her body was being eaten alive by excitement and anger and the very powerful urge to kiss this man, to see if she would incinerate with that single touch.
How had this … this weakness happened? One minute she was staring at her mother’s portrait and the next he was there and she was burning up inside. She told herself it was because she’d been feeling sad and vulnerable and she hadn’t yet gotten her defenses back up. That was the only way Christos could get to her like this.
He took a step closer to her, until there was hardly a breath separating them. “It is time to stop lying to yourself. You feel it the same as I do. You have felt it from the first moment, the same as I have. Let us burn together, Lucilla, and get this inconvenient attraction out of the way. We’ll work together much better once it’s done.”
She couldn’t breathe. He was taking up all the air, all the space, and she ached with his nearness. It was the final straw for her. She took a step backward, out of his orbit, and sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Christos, but I think you’ve got it all wrong. There is no attraction, at least not on my part. I can’t stand you and I certainly don’t want you. Now if you will excuse me, I have an event to supervise.”
“You can tell yourself that, but we both know it’s not true.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said tightly.
“Run away, Lucilla. But this isn’t over.”
She sucked in an angry breath. “I am certain it is. Good night, Christos.”
Lucilla pivoted on her heel and strode away, merging into the crowd. She was shaking inside, and that infuriated her. Why did she let him get to her? For weeks now, she’d been cool and businesslike, ignoring him, looking down her nose at him even though he was taller than she. She’d treated him like the bug under the dark rock that he was, and she’d gotten away with it.
But today she’d lost her cool. She’d finally snapped and all the boiling emotions she’d been trying so hard to hide had spilled over the walls of the dam she’d built to contain them. They were currently ravaging everything in their path despite her best attempts to rein them in again.
But she would get herself under control. She had a plan, and that plan required her to keep doing as she always did. Christos would be gone before the summer was out when she was finished. She just had to stay strong and focused.
Lucilla slipped into the ladies’ room where she smoothed her long hair and refreshed her lipstick. She stepped back and studied herself in the mirror on one wall. She was not unattractive. But she wasn’t tall or leggy, or so thin she could wear anything and look fabulous in it. She had curves and little bulges—thank heavens for proper foundation garments—and her cheeks were too plump. She was also short, though four-inch heels made her seem tall.
She had brown eyes and brown hair and her smile was too wide. She did, however, have fabulous breasts. She slipped her hands under their curves, admiring them in the mirror. Yes, men definitely wanted these. Perhaps Christos did, too, though it seemed far more likely he was simply toying with her. Wanting her to admit she wanted him so he could reject her and thus prove his superiority while laughing at her.
Not happening.
With a last primp of her hair, she returned to the ballroom. As the evening wore on, she smiled and chatted with the guests and tried to push Christos from her mind. It wasn’t easy since she could feel his presence in the room. She knew he was watching and waiting and perhaps hoping she would make a mistake tonight.
She glimpsed him from time to time, holding court at the center of a gathering, the tall, leggy blonde in the skintight dress plastered to his side. He caught her gaze once and she forced herself not to look away. They stared at each other for several moments before the woman at his side seemed to realize his attention wasn’t on her anymore. She leaned in close and said something in his ear, and then he was turning his perfect smile on her.
Lucilla felt almost bereft when he wasn’t looking at her anymore, as if he’d somehow rejected her when he’d turned away. Utterly ridiculous.
She hadn’t brought a date tonight. She hadn’t dated anyone in months now because she’d been so focused on the hotel empire and had no time, but she decided that first thing tomorrow, she was getting back out there in the dating pool. It was ridiculous to throw herself so hard into work that she neglected having a personal life.
She told herself that if she hadn’t been lonely and aching for companionship, Christos would not have been able to affect her.
And he had affected her. She would admit that much. He was tall, sinfully sexy, and he made her blood hum. She really hated that about herself, that she could be attracted to a jerk like him, but her body didn’t seem to know he was poison.
When the auction began, Lucilla stayed around at first to make sure things were going smoothly, but then she retreated to her office with instructions to Jessie to come and get her if anything was amiss. She didn’t want to be there for the auctioning of her mother’s portrait.
She didn’t know why it bothered her—Liliana Chatsfield had thought nothing of abandoning her children and husband and leaving the raising of her family to her two eldest, so why on earth should Lucilla care about her portrait?
It was nostalgia, plain and simple, and she refused to let it bother her a moment longer. She sat at her desk—not the easiest thing to do in a tight gown—and scrolled through the bookings and reports for the upcoming week. The hotel had many things going on, and it was her duty to make sure it all went smoothly.
When her door opened, she glanced up, expecting to see Jessie. Instead, her stomach dropped into her toes and her pulse kicked up at the sight of Christos standing there, coolly handsome in his tuxedo and crisp white shirt.
“Yes?” she said as blandly as possible.
He walked in and closed the door and her heart ticked up another notch. “You left rather abruptly. Is everything all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You tell me.”
She sighed and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “It’s been a long day, Christos. I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do. I don’t stay for every event. Jessie knows where to find me if I’m needed.”
“You are upset with me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not everything is about you, difficult as that may be to believe. No, I don’t like you, but I don’t spend every waking moment thinking about you.” Well, she did, but much of it was about how to get rid of him. She waved a hand airily. “I forgot about it as soon as I started talking to the auction director.”
