The Man She Shouldn't Crave

No, to be truthful she was hoping they would overlook the modicum of money she was offering and do it because it was fun. She would bat her eyes at them and…

Drat this man for making her feel as if she was selling something besides her business.

‘You’ve got some nerve, you know,’ she erupted. ‘Dragging me out here, making with the “tell me about your business, baby” and then thinking insincere flattery is going to get you laid. If we were in Texas my daddy would take a bullwhip to you.’

‘Fortunate we’re not in Texas, then,’ he responded as the lift gave a slight movement and the doors began to open. ‘Although I’m beginning to understand why you like it rough, dushka.’

Rose didn’t think, she just reacted, slamming her purse hard into his mid-section. ‘There you go—rough enough for you?’

Infuriatingly he didn’t flinch. But she moved, striking out for the foyer, aware she was only a hair’s breadth from losing it altogether. The intimate things he had said to her, asking her if she was single, making her think if only for a moment that he was interested…

It hurt. She didn’t know why, but for a little while there she’d let down her guard a little, believed him…

Yes, he was interested. And she knew exactly what he was interested in.

Making a fool of her.

Been there, done that. She wasn’t hanging around for another round of humiliation. She should have known this wasn’t going to turn into a fairy tale. Hell, she’d known that in her head from the get-go. It was just that when he’d looked at her in the kitchen with that slightly keel-hauled expression, and put her into the car as if she was made of precious porcelain, she’d started to get ideas…

Stupid ideas. She knew darn well through experience that fairy tales were just that. Four years engaged to a man who undermined her at every turn had shown her just how dangerous believing in a man could be. No, you needed to take a good, long, hard cool look at a man and not expect him to be Prince Charming. She made a living telling people to use their heads before their hearts in choosing a mate—she had boxes on a form to fill out, for land sakes—and there she was, making eyes over a restaurant table with a man who would be gone in a couple of days, back to the land of the rich and famous.

She looked around desperately for the exit, wondering what would happen now, if he would follow her or leave her to it. Whilst her head was telling her to find the nearest cab and jump in, she was literally humming with energy and she didn’t know what to do with it. She would have liked to have thrown a punch, busted him one right on his annoyingly straight nose, but they weren’t in Texas and it probably didn’t go down so well here. And it would ruin that ladylike image she was supposed to be toting.

Not that he thought she was ladylike. He seemed to think she was some sort of take-what-she-could-get grifter…

Who was now standing on the pavement looking around for a cab rank that didn’t exist.

* * *

Plato nodded to the busboy, who leapt out of his Ferrari with the wistful expression of someone who’d been given the keys to his lifelong dream for a moment and now had to give them back.

‘Hold it a minute, will you, kid?’

He walked slowly but deliberately across the paved plaza towards the woman pacing up and down, craning her neck as she watched the traffic.

In her blue wool coat with the collar turned up against the cold Rose appeared every bit as ladylike as she had when he’d looked up and found her standing in her little kitchen, with that dazed and uncertain expression on her lovely face as if finding men rummaging through her refrigerator wasn’t something that happened to her every day.

It had touched something very basic inside him—a chivalrous urge to explain himself to her, to reassure her he was a good guy. To get her to smile at him.

And right now in front of him was an unhappy girl who looked cold and defenceless on a city street—and he had brought her here, he was responsible for her. Chert.

‘Rose, you will get in the car. I will take you home.’

She ignored him. If a woman could hold herself any stiffer she would break.

‘You will not get a cab.’ She liked it when he told her what to do. He’d figured that one out. ‘Do not make me carry you.’

She wheeled around, hands on hips. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Sto?’

She didn’t look cold and defenceless. She looked as if she was on fire.

‘Are you making a crack about my weight?’

Plato just stared at her. She was so beautiful, and she was so angry, and he had no idea what she was talking about. It could have been the language barrier, or the fact she was a woman and they rarely made logical sense, but right then all he wanted to do was…

This.