Rival's Challenge

She was about to stalk away when Antonio caught her hand in a powerful grip and she looked down at him reluctantly, mindful of being under the scrutiny of staff and gues

ts. His eyes compelled her though.

His voice was low but she heard the steel in it. ‘The fact is that we can’t be within ten feet of each other and not want each other. And to deny that is to deny a fact of life.’

Orla stared at him for a long moment, caught. She was losing her footing, feeling increasingly out of her depth.

With effort, she pulled her hand free and it tingled. Along with other parts of her body. She finally walked away from Antonio and that black gaze before he could see how turbulent her emotions were.

As she passed the reception area though, a waiter crossed her path with a tray full of the detritus of the empty glasses from Orla’s mother’s table. They’d already managed to open a few bottles of champagne before they’d been offered a better deal via Antonio. She stopped in her tracks.

Orla felt very vulnerable to recall that feeling of how Antonio had taken charge of a situation. For her. Your mother was causing you stress so I removed it. She hated to admit it, but a part of her thrilled to know that he had done that, even if it had been heavy-handed. She’d been proving herself for so long that she’d never had support herself.

Something sharp gripped her. Along the way Orla had sacrificed almost any personal desires. Relationships had been relegated to the periphery. She’d worked her fingers to the bone. Any holiday had been taken in one of their hotels with work as the main focus. She’d even missed out on girlfriends, as one by one they’d stopped calling because she was simply too busy.

Something rose up within her, anger and a sense of futility. She turned around and saw Antonio standing just feet away, watching her with that heavy-lidded gaze. Her insides clenched, hard.

The fact is that we can’t be within ten feet of each other and not want each other. And to deny that is to deny a fact of life.

Just looking at him right now made her want him. He was right. He was also an assault on her senses and, more disturbingly, on her emotions and the walls she’d built around herself to concentrate on work for all these years. He made her forget that. He made her want more … like the home she’d always dreamed of.

But despite the vulnerability he precipitated within her, the thought of leaving this all behind—rebelling in a minute way for the first time in her life, doing something just for her—was so heady she nearly swayed. Running away with the enemy; you couldn’t get more rebellious than that.

If he was going to stand over the smouldering wreck of their business, shouldn’t she take what she could, while she could?

She forced her feet to move and she walked back over to Antonio, some intoxicating sense of feminine confidence filling her to see his eyes glitter, his gaze so intent on her, as if he’d just been waiting for her to admit she wanted this too. He wanted her. And she wanted him. He was right; it was that simple.

She would protect herself from those nebulous disturbing thoughts of a home and another life. They weren’t real. This was.

She stopped in front of him and looked up and said with a huskiness that was the only indicator of her deep conflicting emotions, ‘I’ve changed my mind. How soon can we leave?’

His eyes flashed and colour scored along those amazing cheekbones. He smiled and it was dark and wicked. It held no triumph though; if it had, Orla might have come to her senses.

‘How soon can you pack?’

Orla was being whisked to a private airfield before the rashness of her actions and reality began to sink in, when the adrenalin that had fuelled her decision and the past hectic few hours was beginning to drain away.

As soon as she’d made the decision Antonio had allowed for no room to doubt it. He’d personally overseen her handing over the reins of control to her most senior manager. He’d then accompanied her up to her suite of rooms and had kissed her soundly, as if wanting to make sure she didn’t forget why they were doing this.

He’d checked out of the hotel and was going to join her at the airfield after he’d paid a visit to the Chatsfield Hotel, presumably to tie up his own loose ends and reassure his sister that everything was on track and that taking their adversary on a debauched holiday was all part of the plan. If he was even admitting that he was doing such a thing.

Orla recalled the frisson of wicked danger she’d felt as she’d tidied up after the night before and hurriedly packed some essentials. Eschewing her structured work clothes for the more casual ones she almost never got to wear, because she invariably worked weekends. Pathetic.

Now, as London sped by outside the car that Antonio had sent for her, she couldn’t help the burn of excitement from growing in her gut. She was doing the rashest thing she’d ever done in her life. She winced minutely—apart perhaps from that one-night stand.

Their solicitor had just looked at her. ‘You’re doing what?’

Orla had striven to sound as cool and confident as she could. ‘I’m going away for a few days, Tom. Mr Chatsfield has seen everything he needs to for now. And I need a little time to think about our strategy.’

Her face had coloured then to imagine that that analysis of strategy would be taking place on her back in Antonio’s bed somewhere in France.

‘Well, this is most unorthodox, Orla. What am I to say to your father?’

Orla couldn’t help a little sadness tingeing her voice. ‘Tell him that everything is in hand, exactly how he wants it.’

Because ultimately her father was never going to compromise on his vision of how he wanted things to be, and Antonio and the Chatsfields would get their hands on the Kennedy Group in the end.

But right now Orla only felt a very fledgling sense of … relief, of a weight being lifted off her shoulders, which stunned her. When for so long her whole identity had been bound up in her family business.