“You think this is funny? That you can—that you think you can kiss me whenever you want?”
“I think you demand too much.” His eyes went cold. “Too many conditions, provisos, stipulations, whatever. Come with me or don’t.”
A tremor went through her. Going with him was wrong. It was crazy. It was—
“Norton! The keys, man. Or I’ll take them from you.”
The keys arced through the darkness and into Lucas’s waiting hands.
“Decision time, amada. I’m leaving, with you or without you.”
Her feet wouldn’t move. Lucas shrugged and got behind the wheel.
“Even if—even if I wanted to go with you,” she said, rushing the words together, “I couldn’t until—until I got my things.”
“What things?”
“Clothes. My toothbrush. Things,” she said, hating the desperation in her voice.
“I will arrange for you to get everything you need when we reach my country.”
It was the kind of arrogant response she should have expected.
“My handbag, then. My wallet. My ID. Won’t I need a passport?”
He laughed. Why wouldn’t he? Even she had to admit it was impossible to think that a woman traveling with this man would need anything so mundane.
“Last chance,” he said, reaching over the console and opening the passenger door. “Yes or no?”
Alyssa ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips.
He made it sound as if she had a choice but they both knew she didn’t. She hated him as much for that as for kissing her, for making her dizzy with his kisses…
The sound of the Caddy’s powerful engine idling in the still night filled her with dread. Her heart bumped into her throat.
Quickly, knowing that thinking about it too long might be a mistake, she slid into the passenger seat and shut the door after her.
“Just be sure you understand one thing.” Her voice trembled and she hated showing that little sign of weakness. “If there were any other way, I wouldn’t go with you.”
“Duly noted, amada,” he said, with a tight smile, “if not fully believed.”
God, she wanted to launch herself across the console and hit that square, impertinent jaw but that would have been stupid and she knew it. Instead she looked out the window, saw Thaddeus’s incredulous face and then the car was moving forward, gaining speed as it left the house and the attorney behind.
“Alyssa?”
Lucas sounded so calm. Had he realized this was all a terrible mistake? Was he human after all? Was he going to apologize for how he’d behaved?
“Yes?”
“Is there a better way to get to the local airport than the road I was on this morning?”
So much for wishful thinking. Bitterness made her incautious.
“The road where you made an ass of yourself, you mean?”
He stood on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust. He swung toward her, his face cold and hard in the light from the dashboard.
“I will not tolerate insolence.”