the battle commence.
As Sorcha approached Romain, she felt as self conscious as she had her first day on a catwalk. She had that same unsettling reaction she’d had in New York. All of her antipathy, all of her preconceived notions fled as she walked towards him—and then he compounded it by standing with lithe grace. Even taller, broader, more powerful than she remembered. Darker…That hint of Far Eastern lineage struck her again. She reached him, he held out a hand. This time, still in shock to think that he could be here, Sorcha let her hand be taken by his. It was firm, cool. His fingers closed around hers and she felt a crazy pulse throb fleetingly and disturbingly between her legs.
‘Sorcha.’ He indicated a seat opposite and didn’t let go of her hand until she sat down. When she finally got it back it was tingling.
She wished for some sanity for reality to come back into her head, which felt woozy. She was determined not to be staying for longer than a few minutes at the most, and perched uncomfortably on the edge of her chair. All previous thoughts of Pretty Woman and Lisa fled in proximity to this man.
‘Mr de Valois—’
‘I didn’t know you wore glasses.’
Sorcha’s mouth stayed open. She felt nonplussed until she put up a hand and felt the familiar frames on her nose. She’d been so preoccupied that she hadn’t even noticed that she’d forgotten to take them off. Even though her eyes weren’t so bad that she needed them right now, she suddenly wanted to keep them on.
‘Well, I’m sorry if they’re putting you off, Mr de Valois. I’m afraid, along with my other failings, I’m also slightly long-sighted.’
He tutted and lifted a hand to call for service, before fixing her with that steely gaze again. ‘Not at all. They suit you. And please don’t put yourself down—’
‘Why? Because you’ll do that for me?’
For a second there was no reaction, and then a huge smile lit his harshly handsome face, making him look years younger and so gorgeous that Sorcha felt welded to her chair. Wasn’t she supposed to be walking out by now? He looked ridiculously exotic against the backdrop of the opulent Dublin hotel, surrounded by the more pale, Celtic-skinned customers. His accent was pronounced, heightening that sense of his otherness in this place.
‘As sparky as I remember…that’s good.’
Sorcha felt like grinding her teeth. ‘I’m not trying to be sparky, Mr de Valois. I’m here to tell you that I’m not interested in your job.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Let’s order some tea, yes? I believe it is something of a national delicacy…and then we will have lunch.’
‘You’re not listening to me, Mr de Valois—’
‘No,’ he said with silken deadliness. ‘You are not listening to me. And please call me Romain—after all, we will be working closely together for the next few weeks, and I hate to stand on ceremony…’
Sorcha just looked at him and shook her head. The smooth conceit and downright arrogance of the man was unbelievable.
‘Mr de Valois, unless you plan on tying me to this chair there is nothing to stop me standing up and walking out of here. I’ve told Maud and now you that I’m not interested in the job. I’m due to take some holiday—’
She had to stop when a waitress came and delivered the tea. Sorcha couldn’t even remember the order having been taken. She watched, disgusted, at the way the pretty young blonde girl blushed a deep shade of crimson when Romain smiled at her and said thank you. The poor girl practically fell over a chair as she left, her eyes glued to what was probably the most stupendously handsome man she’d ever seen in her young life. Romain de Valois, of course, had already forgotten her, and was focusing those long-lashed grey eyes back on Sorcha, with an intensity that threatened to scramble her brains all over again.
Romain was glad of the short distraction of the waitress, because the shaft of pure arousal that had gone straight to his groin when Sorcha had mentioned being tied to the chair had thrown up other images…much more explicit…of her being tied to a bed…He fought to regain some composure, to remember what she had said.
‘Which is why we are going to start the campaign here.’ He held out a cup of tea, ‘Tell me, did you also mention to Lisa that you were not going to take the job?’
The sickening knowledge of how neatly he’d manipulated events brought her some much needed focus back—even though she knew with a sinking feeling in her belly that it would be futile to keep insisting that she wouldn’t do the job. She also had to accept the cup he was offering her, or risk causing a scene. She saw a glint of triumph light his eyes, as if he could read her thoughts. He was getting under her skin in a prickly heat kind of way that made her very nervous. It made her voice clipped, arctic. ‘In light of past…events—namely your very public condemnation of me—’ She stopped as she realised she’d been about to say at a very painful time in my life. She knew that she didn’t want him to see that vulnerable side of her, so she faltered for a second, her skin heating up. ‘I find it hard to see why you want me to do this campaign so badly.’
Romain studied her. She looked about ready to spring off the chair and bolt. And right at that moment all he wanted to do was get up, throw her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs to his suite, loosen her hair, take off her glasses, uncover her body inch by inch, see if those soft swells that he could just glimpse under her shirt were really as voluptuous as they looked…He sat back.
He was not a Neanderthal. He was sophisticated and urbane. This woman might be appealing to the most basic level of his carnal urges, but it was probably because he hadn’t had a woman in a while and she was refreshingly different from the cool blondes he usually favoured. He sipped his tea and carefully placed the cup back onto the saucer.
‘The fact is, I had decided that we could do without you on this campaign, and was prepared to tell my board so—’
‘See?’ The relief was evident in Sorcha’s voice, in the way her face cleared, and she put down her cup and half rose from her chair. ‘That’s fine with me. Thanks for the tea—’
‘Sit down.’
Sorcha responded to the very explicit threat in his voice, sitting down again before she’d even realised what she was doing. The memory of him threatening to throw her over his shoulder was all too recent. And, as unmistakably urbane as this man was, there was an air of danger about him, a disregard for convention, the niceties.
‘But after seeing you in the flesh…’
When he said that his words were loaded with a sensual meaning that was not lost on her. Sorcha’s head went so fuzzy for a second that she missed his next immediate words.
‘You would be perfect for the job. The only suitable model, in fact.’
She shook her head, trying to clear it, and took her glasses off for a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose in an endearingly personal reflex, something she only ever did when under pressure or stressed.
‘Monsieur de Valois—’
‘Romain, please.’ He smiled, and it was the smile of a shark.
Sorcha gave in. Perhaps this was the way to reach him. She put her glasses back on and
