Mackenzi gasped, the cold, hard reality that she might walk out of here jobless, not in three months but as soon as today, starting to bite. She was luckier than most—her home, a tiny stone cottage deeper in the hills, was almost paid off courtesy of a single life and a reasonable income. Still, a termination payment would keep her going only for how long?
On the other hand, there was definitely something to be said for getting out of here as soon as possible—very definitely before he discovered the truth. If she wasn’t going to have a job in three months, that was one very attractive option.
‘Put it like that,’ she said, her voice crisp as frost as she made up her mind, ‘and you leave me no choice. I’ll go. Today.’
She had him there, she could see by the brief flicker of surprise across his features that her acceptance was the last thing he’d been expecting. He’d thought she was going to beg for her job—no way!
He raised one cynical eyebrow. ‘Making the grand gesture? Don’t expect me to ask you to stay on.’
It was liberating, she realized, losing your job. Empowering. For now there was no reason for her to curb her tongue; she no longer had a job to lose. And suddenly all the things she’d been itching to say since she’d first sat down could have their moment in the sun.
‘You know, Mr Carrazzo,’ she said with a smile, returning his own formality, ‘despite what we’d heard, I actually believed there might be some point talking to you, some point in pleading our case to your better self. But there is no better self, is there? You really are a heartless bastard.’
‘That’s half my problem,’ he acknowledged with his own wry smile, finding this intercourse much more entertaining than he’d been anticipating when the mouse had first appeared. ‘I do have a reputation to uphold.’
‘I don’t understand how you can sleep at night!’
‘Is that why you provided the woman? Because you assumed I’d need entertaining while my guilty conscience kept sleep at bay?’
Twin slashes of red stained her cheeks. Her eyes shakily held his before she hastily turned her face away, pretending an interest in the sea of fog beyond the glass, while in her lap her hands twisted her napkin into a rope. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Dante smiled at her. At least, he projected a smile, one that would no doubt have made a crocodile proud. ‘The woman in my bed last night. You’re the manager here. Don’t tell me you didn’t arrange for her?’
Her eyes snapped back, her mouth set grimly, the knotted napkin forgotten as she rose shakily to her feet. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
He stood up and barred her exit from the table. ‘Did you honestly believe that having some whore waiting for me in my bed last night was going to make me feel more kindly towards keeping the hotel operating as a going concern?’
He watched her chin kick back on a swallow, saw her hands fisting at her sides. ‘So, tell me, where is this “whore” now, Mr Carrazzo? Waiting for you to return for a repeat performance of your no doubt magnificent services? I’m surprised you could drag yourself out of bed.’
Her words grated, rubbing him raw. She knew more than she was letting on, that was for sure, and she was guilty as hell. They’d set him up with some whore in the vain attempt that she might soften his intentions. Not likely, especially when she’d barely managed to soothe anything before she’d so rapidly disappeared. ‘You know she’s gone. What were you doing—paying by the hour?’
‘While I can quite understand why it would be necessary to pay anyone to sleep with you, Mr Carrazzo, I can assure you nobody was paid to be in your room. Maybe this so-called woman was never even there. Most likely she was just a figment of your imagination. So perhaps now you might let me pass? I have an office to clean out.’
His teeth ground together. Now she was laughing at him, her green eyes flashing like emeralds behind her modest glasses, the only splash of colour in her otherwise pale face.
Green eyes?
And suddenly he was back in his bed, her hair streaming across his pillow, the eyes he’d so wrongly imagined must be brown open wide in surprise.
Green eyes!
The same vivid green as those of the woman standing before him right now.
Mentally he unravelled the hair, now coiled tightly behind her head, peeled away the glasses and dispensed with her starched uniform—and every imaginary step only confirmed what his eyes had already told him to be true.
His hands found his hips while inside him anger rose like magma, his body tensing, a volcano about to erupt. Whatever game she was playing, it was game over. ‘So tell me,’ he invited, his teeth barely parting as he aimed the words like bullets, ‘who is the better lover—me…’ he paused for effect ‘…or Richard?’
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