taken aback. He stopped growling and stared at him. Man and dog seemed to enter some silent male communication from which she was excluded, much to Brooke’s frustration.
‘Look, this has gone far enough,’ she said tensely. ‘Despite the outsize ego you possess which seems to lead you to believe you can simply walk in here and buy me, I’m really not interested in you—or your money.’
‘No?’ The slate eyes derided her. ‘That wasn’t how I heard it this afternoon.’
‘That was this afternoon. This is tonight….’
‘Second thoughts? Or perhaps you simply want to be coaxed.’ The cynical twist to his mouth made Brooke wonder how many other women he had put the question to.
‘You want to believe there’s more to it than merely sex, is that it? You’re “not that kind of woman”.’ The savagery in his voice as he mimicked the words, sliced through her. ‘I know all about the kind of woman you are,’ he told her roughly, ‘the kind who likes to play by the rules on the surface but who breaks them underneath it; the kind of woman who marries into the “right set” but who isn’t above entertaining herself with someone from outside it, discreetly, of course. Oh yes, I know all about your kind of women—innate snobs who’d die rather than admit they can feel lust for a man of lower class; a man who doesn’t play the game by their rules; who can’t trace his ancestors back for half a dozen generations and who wasn’t educated at the right schools….’
‘No….’ Brooke was genuinely horrified by his accusations. She knew exactly the sort of snobbery he referred to—she had seen it in action and to be given the label of the type of woman she most abhorred made her feel almost tainted.
‘No? Then make good the promise you gave me,’ he told her sardonically. One hand left her arm, his finger curling round her throat, his thumb lifting her chin, so that he could look into her eyes. ‘Or do you want me to make it good for you, is that it?’
‘All I want you to do is to leave here.’ Brooke was more shaken than she wanted to admit. There was something about the rough abrasion of his hand against her skin that her body reacted to. It took an effort of will to drag her eyes from his face, and as she saw the shuttered contemptuous anger fill his eyes panic seized her. She struggled wildly to pull away from him, distantly conscious of Balsebar’s warning bark, and the sudden flurry of black-and-gold fur as his teeth bit into the soft leather.
She heard Adam curse as he released her, staggering back under the weight of the dog. Never had she been more grateful for Balsebar’s protection, she thought dizzily, mentally acknowledging that she had only herself to blame for her present predicament. She should never have allowed her own antagonism to reach the point where she had felt compelled to strike a blow for her own sex; the whole episode was rebounding badly on her. Half expecting to hear Adam demanding that she call off her guard dog, she was stunned to see him reach round and prise the dog’s jaws out of his jacket. Balsebar was as surprised as her, especially when lean fingers closed firmly round his muzzle.
‘I think the remainder of our discussion is best conducted without this animal’s interference.’ Adam told her grittily, and yet there was no cruelty or anger in the way he grasped the dog’s collar or manoeuvred him into the kitchen, firmly closing the door against any further intrusion.
‘Now,’ he said pleasantly, when he had completed his task. His eyes weren’t grey, they were a devilish, dangerous black, Brooke thought dismally, watching him advance towards her and yet totally unable to do a single thing to evade him.
‘Where were we?’
‘I was just telling you that I wanted you to leave.’
‘So you were, and I was just about to tell you that I always get what I’ve paid for,’ he told her less pleasantly, indicating the cheque he had placed on her coffee table. ‘This …’ he picked it up and waved it tauntingly in front of her, ‘entitles me to certain….’
Before he could continue Brooke wrenched the cheque from his fingers and tore it to pieces, flinging the scraps of paper on the fire.
‘Now will you leave,’ she demanded, knowing that her cheeks were flushed with temper, and her eyes glittering with the fear she could feel inching through her, driving out her normal composure.
‘We made a bargain,’ Adam reminded her softly, ‘and I intend to make sure we both adhere to it.’
‘You can’t want me now, not knowing that I don’t want you,’ Brooke protested making a last desperate stand and measuring the distance between them. She was standing between Adam and the stairs; perhaps if she made a bolt for it, she could lock herself in the bathroom and sit it out until he decided to give up and leave. Undignified but….
‘Since I was never under that illusion in the first place, I don’t see why. You sold yourself to me,’ he reminded her. ‘Or is that something else you’ve conveniently forgotton?’
It was the look in his eyes that did it, panicking her into a wild headlong flight up the stairs, which she knew that she had lost when she heard him behind her. He grabbed her just as she reached the landing, his breathing still under control where hers was rapid and erratic. By some misfortune he had caught her just outside her bedroom door—it stood open, the old-fashioned half tester bed plainly in view.
‘Well, well, how convenient,’ he drawled, following her dismayed glance.’
Despite her height he picked her up as though she were a doll, kicking the door closed with one foot, and advancing towards the bed.
Having expected to be flung down on it, it came as a surprise to Brooke to find herself standing upright, Adam’s fingers manacling her wrists.
‘Well now,’ he drawled softly, ‘there are two ways of doing this. You can admit defeat— gracefully and charmingly as befits a lady …’ his voice lingered insolently over the noun, ‘or we can indulge in a little of the rough and tumble it seems so many of you ladies enjoy—a relic of the days when that was the way your ancestors won their rich brides perhaps? Which is it to be?’
He looked so controlled and indifferent, standing there watching her, that Brooke could hardly believe what she was hearing.
‘Either way it will be rape,’ she told him coldly. Too late now to bitterly regret her foolhardiness. Who was this man anyway? Her blood chilled as she remembered news stories of women abused and then murdered. Was this man….
The sound of his laughter as it filled the room, warm and genuine, threw her, stopping her terror-stricken thoughts in their tracks.
‘A nice try my dear, but hardly applicable.’ One hand unclasped her wrist, his thumb running slightly and tormentingly over the soft fullness of her bottom lip.
‘You have the most sensuously inviting mouth I’ve ever seen, and I wanted to feel it beneath mine, sweet and hot, the moment I set eyes on you. You’re no young girl just out of school to plead innocence and ignorance. You know exactly what you do to me when you look at me with those green-gold eyes.’
‘Rape …’ he laughed again. ‘It might be worth calling your bluff.’
He said it so with so much calm self-assurance that something inside Brooke snapped. Like all the others he couldn’t see beyond her looks; didn’t want to see beyond them. Just for a moment she wanted to hurt him as painfully as he had just
