Excitement returned with a spear of pleasure straight into her loins. She gasped.
“If she likes it,” he murmured.
She struggled, but he held fast and to her chagrin the short tussle only caused her heated desire to kindle into a shivery anticipation. His vital strength was incredibly sexy and she must have had a kinky strand after all if she responded to having pleasure forced upon her. No guilt, she supposed.
“Too bad the money hasn’t cleared,” she said with breathless regret. “Go back to your own suite. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” After she’d had time to talk herself out of the rash agreement she was considering.
He slowly let his hands release her, his fingertips oh so slightly brushing the sides of her breasts, making need pierce her belly and leaving her shuddering with longing.
“So you can disappear with my money? I don’t think so. Van Eych might have been teased into giving without return, but I don’t tolerate cheats or thieves. Fetch your passport and we’ll take whatever you’ve left in that case. I have properties around the world. Lady’s choice where we go, but by the time we land, you’ll have your money and then—” He skimmed a proprietorial glance over her. “I’ll have you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’M LOSING MY home at midnight,” her soft lips pronounced before tensing with acrimony. “I need to pack. Traveling will have to wait.” There wasn’t an ounce of self-preservation in her as she matter-of-factly righted the laundry basket and heaped the tumbled clothing into it.
“Don’t test me, Clair. I’m not nice.”
She straightened with a flushed face, all out aggression blasting at him in a way that had him planting his feet.
“What do you want me to do? Leave my things for the new owners to throw in the trash? Exactly how much do you want from me besides my job, my home and—” She clamped her lips over whatever else she almost said. Her mouth trembled briefly and for a moment there was a cast of startling defenselessness to her.
It was gone before unease could take a proper hold on him, hidden by the shift of her body away from him. Her stiff shoulders were proud. “You’re the one who sold this place out from under me. Stop complaining that it’s cutting into your plans.”
She was acting like an amateur.
Aleksy narrowed his eyes on her back, always aware when women were trying to manipulate him and occasionally willing to allow it when it suited his end purpose: primarily to get the physical release his body required. If Clair was attempting to wring guilt out of him, she was being predictable and hopelessly misguided. If she didn’t appreciate how powerful and absent of empathy he was, he’d demonstrate.
With one call—in English so she’d understand it—he swept away her stall tactic.
“The brawny and coldly efficient Lazlo again?” she asked without turning.
“He’s enlisting a young man you might know. Stuart from accounting? He’s proving to be extremely cooperative. A stickler for procedure. Stuart will make an inventory of your property and put it in storage at my expense.”
“Stuart from accounting wants to paw through my underpants drawer? And run back to the office with what he found in my medicine chest?”
“Not if he intends to keep his job.” Aleksy didn’t like the way she paled and liked even less the thought of some flunky fondling her undergarments. His hands tingled to cradle her in reassurance. He shook off the unfamiliar urge. “Gather your personal things if it will put an end to this delay,” he muttered. “You have one hour.”
* * *
In the end she chose Paris, but not for the reason he thought.
“The city of lovers,” he’d said ironically, the timbre of his voice stirring her blood. “Of course. A perfect weekend retreat.”
Weekend. The word punched low, gushing delicious heat through her abdomen.
She shook off the reaction and bit back an explanation that she’d picked Paris because she could get home on her own steam if she had to. Not that she had a home to come back to, but flying back to London from Cairo or Vancouver or Sydney would destroy her shallow savings.
As they traveled, she focused on budgeting for a new flat and where she’d start looking for a job so she wouldn’t recall the way Stuart’s Adam’s apple had bobbled when he found Aleksy in her flat.