could think of any number of ways to control her—but none of them were the least bit appropriate. He gritted his teeth.
“Careful, Liliana. It is up to me, after all, to determine whether or not your claim to your shares should be honored when you turn twenty-five. If I think you’re not up to the challenge of it, I can keep you at arm’s length for another five years. Or did you not bother to read the fine print of the birthright you are suddenly so interested in?”
“Is that a threat?” she threw right back at him. “Somehow, I’m not surprised. It doesn’t matter. Threaten me all you want. I’m not letting you lock me away in another prison. It’s not going to happen.”
“Then throw a fit,” he invited her. “Like the stroppy child you are so determined to pretend you are not. It will not affect the outcome in any way.”
He shrugged as if he didn’t care what she did. Because he never had before and he shouldn’t now, damn it. He slid his phone out of his pocket and dialed his driver, then lifted the phone to his ear.
Only to watch in sheer astonishment as Liliana closed the distance between them as if she wasn’t at all intimidated by him, lifted her slender hand and then swatted his mobile out of his grip.
The phone hurtled through the air, making an arc across the quiet bedroom. It seemed to take a lifetime, or perhaps that was simply his disbelief. But then it hit the hardwood floor with a clattering sound and skidded out of sight beneath the bed.
For a moment they both stood there and stared. Her chest rose and fell, threatening the neckline that was already too low for Izar’s peace of mind. The color was high on her cheeks and there was something hectic in her gaze, making her eyes entirely too blue. She looked wild, untamed. Golden and gorgeous.
She looked like something straight out of his favorite fantasies.
He was losing his grip.
“That,” Izar said distinctly, and through his teeth, “was unwise.”
“I want to live here,” Liliana told him fiercely, too much passion in her voice, her eyes. And she was much too close to him, besides. “In two years I’ll have to take my place at the company the way my parents intended, but until then, I want to be normal. I don’t want to live in a fishbowl. I don’t want the world commenting on every move I make and every piece of clothing I put on as if it’s their business.”
She threw up her hands in emphasis or maybe to illustrate how strongly she felt these things. God help him, but Izar did not want to feel. He did not want to be near anyone who did. Feelings were no good. They led nowhere he wanted to go. He indulged the passions of the flesh because they were easily sated by his ever-revolving selection of mistresses and because he was, after all, a man. But he didn’t feel. He had sex, then moved on. Passion like this was lethal. He’d excised it a long time ago.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so close to someone who fairly oozed it.
And she was still speaking. “I want to be a regular person. I want to complain about my job all week, then stand in loud, tacky bars or binge watch television all weekend with my friends. I want the whole experience. Where’s the harm in that?”
Some distant voice inside him told him to step back. To remove himself from the temptation of such a ferociously earnest expression on such a beautiful face. The way she tilted her head back so she could stand that close to him and still look him in the eye, as if it was necessary she confront him this way. Her faint scent, maddeningly vague, that was somehow a part of the heat of her skin and its softness at the same time, tangling inside of him and making him long for things that were impossible. More than impossible.
He didn’t understand how any of this had happened. But he couldn’t make this situation any worse than it already was tonight. He couldn’t.
“I sympathize.” He did not touch her. He did not bend his head to taste that full mouth and he did not test the smoothness of her bared arms with his palms. But he also did not back away. “But that is not a choice you have.”
“It should be my choice.”
“Perhaps. But, instead, it is mine.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you really think this is wise, Liliana?” he bit out, cutting her off before he stopped remembering why he should. “Do you really think pushing me is going to get you what you want?”
“What will?” she demanded.
And later he might very well rip this moment apart. He might dig through his every motivation and question what the hell he’d been thinking—but here, now, he wasn’t sure he thought at all. It was as if she was a cliff when he’d expected a long, flat, familiar meadow, and he’d plummeted straight over the side without any warning. And there was nothing to be done for it now. He should have shut this down and bundled her off into his waiting car the moment she’d walked into the room and confirmed every last thing that smirking cockroach had told him. He shouldn’t have engaged with her. He shouldn’t have listened to a word she said, because how could it matter? And who cared if the woman who was still his duty had gone and transformed herself into the physical manifestation of his deepest desires? That he noticed at all was appalling. He’d have to add that to his laundry list of reasons to loathe himself. Later.
But in that moment, Izar did more than notice. He let his eyes drift down to her lips and linger there. Almost as if he was powerless to help himself—or stop.
“Oh,” she said softly, and the word was ripe with too many meanings. Revelation and understanding. Something like wonder. A touch of daring besides, and it poured through him, molten hot and impossible to resist. “Honey, not vinegar. I should have realized. The great and terrible Izar Agustin only acts tough.”
She threw herself forward and into him, catching herself with her palms flat against his chest even as his hands came up to grip her upper arms. Automatically, he told himself. To push her away, he told himself—but he didn’t.
Her skin was every bit as smooth to the touch as he’d tried not to imagine. The contact was like fire, surging through him, making him insane enough to understand he was hot and hard and unwilling to do a damn thing to change it—
And then Liliana surged up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.
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