CHAPTER THREE
THEDOORSOPENED, releasing all the charged air from this little capsule.
Leander shot his hand out to hold the door and amusement indented the corners of his mouth.
No.She ducked past him, mortified. He knew. He knew she had expected his kiss and now he would use that against her. A meteor shower of fiery ulcers returned to her stomach.
And now she was staring into the open back door of Leander’s chauffeured car while her own was at the curb of the lobby above.
“Where shall I have my driver meet me?” she asked stiffly as she slid inside and removed her phone from her bag.
“Dino will take you wherever you wish to go when you’re ready.”
“The Callas building on Ermou, please,” she said promptly. She was so done.
“Cute. I’m growing smitten with that sense of humor of yours,” Leander said as he came in beside her and the door slammed. “It’s charming.”
And there it was. He was taunting her for betraying her attraction. Her chest filled with the hot pressure of helpless persecution and a desire to lash out. She firmly quashed it.
“Take us to that place with the tables, Dino,” Leander instructed the driver as he took his seat behind the wheel. “And check the score, would you?”
“Very good, sir.” Dino plugged his ears with wireless buds.
Ilona texted her driver to enjoy some personal time and ensured her location was on for her assistant. Then she glanced at her messages and saw Midas wanted her to call. Ugh. She dropped her phone into her clutch.
“You don’t seize these moments to be productive?” Leander asked with idle curiosity. His own phone was in his hand, but he seemed to be watching her the way a boxer might study his opponent before climbing into the ring.
“You requested my schedule be cleared. What could possibly be more important than giving you my undivided attention?” she asked to the window as they came up to the street.
“Again with the flirting,” he chided.
She turned her head to regard him, trying for a look of infinite patience, but she caught him with his head angled so he could see her ankles.
“What?” She tucked her feet in the other direction and glanced to see if she had scuffed a shoe. Dear heaven, she hadn’t paraded through his building with toilet paper stuck to her heel, had she? That really would take the cake. No. She was fine, thank goodness.
“I’m thinking,” he murmured as she met his gaze again. There was speculation there, masculine speculation.
Ilona knew she was attractive. Her mother had been classically beautiful and Ilona took after her. If anything, she downplayed her looks, but it didn’t stop men from coming on to her.
She often wished she had stayed in that awkward stage when she’d had uneven teeth, a flat chest and oversize features on her elfin face. Odessa had reveled in humiliating her over her flaws then, but at least Ilona hadn’t been slut-shamed or treated like a sex object.
The older girls at boarding school were responsible for her transformation. They had taken her on as a makeover project, proud of themselves until Ilona finished blossoming with pinup curves and starlet features. At that point she became a rival, whispered about behind jealous hands. Nascent friendships had been cast off in favor of knocking her down.
When she returned home, Odessa had despised and punished Ilona especially because she was younger and more beautiful than Odessa would ever be.
Beauty was a form of armor, though. Ilona wore hers at all times and kept it polished to blinding perfection. Which was another reason she had no interest in marriage. Men didn’t want her. They only wanted to possess her beauty like a shiny car.
“I honestly can’t think of one thing you could offer me that would persuade me to marry you,” she informed him.
“Can’t you?” His gaze drifted across her features like a caress, settling on her mouth with such intense interest, her lips tingled.
Her heart rate picked up and she rolled her lips inward to press the buzzing out of them.
“No,” she choked and snapped her attention forward. Her whole life had been on the wrong side of a seesaw’s power imbalance. She wouldn’t fill her future with more of it. Her heart constricted at the very thought. “I’ve explained that I don’t wish to be used as a weapon. That goes doubly for being one that’s used against myself.”
Her stilted words caused a sting of humiliation to crawl up her neck into her cheeks. She couldn’t look at him and only hoped he wouldn’t play dumb and demand she spell it out further.
After a beat, he said, “You’re refreshingly frank.”