a predator, a hunter at the full height of his power. His young male frame with its long rangy bones had become subtly more muscular, harder, sexier, all the soft flesh of youth stripped away, replaced by a much harder and far more masculine covering that revealed the true magnificence of his bone structure.
Given the chance, the entire female population of the restaurant would have gladly given voice to a long, verbal orgasm just watching him, Nadia reflected cynically, and didn’t he just know it.
He had seen her now, the green eyes meeting hers briefly before disengaging as he strode purposefully towards her.
‘Nadia…’
Even his voice had become more masculine, deeper, more positive, sending a small electric frisson of sensual awareness zigzagging down her spine.
Very impressive, Nadia acknowledged, as he sat down opposite her. But she was determined not to let him know what she was thinking, to make sure that she was the one who kept control of the situation.
‘Drink?’ she asked him, adding gently, ‘I hear things didn’t go too well with the Japanese….’
Jay’s eyebrows rose, his eyes calm, slightly surprised. ‘Oh?’ He gave a small dismissive shrug. ‘I thought they went rather well, but then I suppose it all depends on your point of view.’
‘You weren’t able to give them any real commitment,’ Nadia told him.
‘I didn’t want to give them any firm commitment,’ Jay corrected her. ‘Their offer is only one of several options we’re considering at the moment.’
‘We?’ Nadia pounced. ‘Ah…of course…your father. His is the final decision, isn’t it?’
‘Why exactly did you want to have dinner with me, Nadia? Not to talk business, surely.’
She had rattled him, even though he was fighting hard not to show it, Nadia exulted. She wondered what he would say if he knew that she also had dealings with his Japanese contacts, and that for the first time in her professional life she had broken one of her golden rules. She had kept back from her clients a piece of important information by not telling them that no matter what Jay might say to them, it was his father and not he whose decision would be final. What she was even more reluctant to dwell on was why she had kept that information to herself.
‘No…not just to talk business,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘We’re old friends,’ she went on. ‘It’s a long time since we last met….’
‘Old friends?’ Jay queried. ‘You and I were never friends, Nadia. Lovers…yes…friends, no.
‘I understand you’re getting married.’
If he had expected to catch her off guard, he was disappointed.
‘It’s a possibility, yes,’ Nadia allowed, pausing to accept the drink the waiter had brought her.
‘A possibility,’ Jay mocked. ‘How very romantic…’
‘Marriage should never be about romance,’ Nadia told him firmly. ‘Romance is…’
‘For lovers?’ Jay suggested. He was enjoying baiting her, enjoying using her to relieve the tension of the past few days, he acknowledged savagely as he watched the anger flare briefly in her eyes before she controlled her reaction.
‘Romance is an illusion, is what I was going to say. Temptingly sweet at first, but it can soon become unpleasantly cloying.’
‘So there is to be no romance in this marriage of yours…. But there will, I trust, be love.’
He was treading on very dangerous ground, Jay recognised, dangerous for himself as well as for her.
‘Yes, there will be love,’ Nadia confirmed, but she didn’t add that the love would be Alaric’s for her rather than the other way around.
‘How is your father, by the way?’ she asked with deliberate mock innocence. Talking about his father had always been a good way of goading Jay in the old days.
‘He’s fine,’ Jay responded tersely. ‘Look, Nadia—’
‘And still unmarried,’ Nadia hazarded, ignoring the keep-off signs he was posting. ‘What a waste. Do you know, Jay, it’s a pity that you and I met when I was so young. If we were to meet now and you were to introduce me to your father…I suspect that he’d be the one I’d want and not you.’
It was, Nadia recognised with an odd spurt of surprise, the truth. She had been twenty-one when she met Jay; he had been just that little bit younger and she had been tired of older men, older lovers. She had met Jay’s father a couple of times when he visited Jay at university, and on both occasions Jay had been angrily reluctant to introduce her to his father, who had arrived unexpectedly.
The first time she had naïvely assumed Jay’s reluctance sprang from his possessive streak and that he was afraid that she might prefer his father to him.
She had been right about the possessiveness but wrong, oh, so wrong, about the focus of it. The reason he had wanted to exclude her had not been because he was afraid she might prefer his father’s company, but because he had been afraid that his father might prefer hers.
She had taunted him mercilessly with that fact once she had discovered it, unable to understand then as she did so clearly now that she had been equally jealous and resentful of the fact that Jay so obviously preferred his father’s company to hers…that his father was more important to him than her.
‘Still not outgrown our daddy complex, I see, Jay,’ she murmured dulcetly. ‘But then he is quite a man, isn’t he…your father. Not that you’d ever allow any woman to get close enough to find out just how much of a man. You know, I feel very sorry for your father. It can’t be easy, having a son like you, possessive, obsessive….’
She tensed as he half made to stand up, his eyes dark with anger. Inwardly she cursed herself. He was going to walk out on her.
Her relief when she realised that he was simply summoning the waiter left her feeling sick and angry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She was the one in control here, not Jay. But she could see from his expression that he had guessed what she was thinking.
‘What do you want from this meeting, Nadia?’ he asked her softly. ‘If it’s to use me to get rid of the aggression you can’t vent on your tame, docile, neutered husband-to-be, then you should have found somewhere more private to do it. Mind you, I’m sure our fellow diners would be enthralled by one of your virtuoso performances—they, after all, haven’t seen one before. I, on the other hand, have—and if it’s another kind of appetite you wanted to satisfy…well, the same thing applies. Sex in public places never turned me on—you should have remembered that.’
Nadia fought to control her urge to scream at him. She could feel the blood receding from her skin and then flooding hotly back over it. She had forgotten just how clever and quick he could be…how cruelly scalpel-like the words which he used with such skin-stripping precision. He was better informed about her than she had imagined. Someone had drawn him a very accurate picture of Alaric’s character. Foolish of her not to have anticipated that.
‘Well,’ he prompted.
‘Well
