‘What I was. . up I don’t understand. ‘
Diamond-hard dark eyes gleamed with scorn.
‘You were upping the ante. You decided to play a stupid childish game with me and if you got badly burned you have only yourself to blame for it! ‘
Her soft full mouth fell wide.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Your sudden extraordinary flit from my country home with that ancient creaking rock legend Mort Stevens! ‘
Cristiano derided with a sardonic smile.
‘obviously you were trying to make me jealous.’
Hot chagrined colour flushing her creamy complexion Lydia went rigid angry astonishment holding her still.
‘I don’t believe 1’ m hearing this. Trying to make you jealous?’ she repeated with ringing distaste.
‘Where do you get that crazy idea from’?’
‘It’s the only explanation that makes sense-‘
‘Well it’ s the wrong one! ‘
‘Dio mio, what else could you have been doing with him? I now know that you didn’t sleep with Stevens. There no secret affair. The entire exercise was a manipulative infantile ploy.’
Lydia was getting so mad that she could hardly think straight.
‘There is such a thing as an affair without sex!
she launched back determined not to back down and admit that he had guessed any part of the truth.
‘ls there?’
Cristiano vented a caustic laugh of disagreement.
‘It was all a fake. You holed up in his apartment for a few hours and then he took you to the airport to see him off and to introduce you to the press as his future fiancée. It was to boost his image and his album
sales. it’s so obvious now. I don’t know why I didn’t see it at the time-‘
‘You didn’t see it because that’s not how it was ! ‘
‘At one in the morning you rang my mobile hung up before l could answer and switched off your own phone’
Cristiano recalled.
‘That was your opening move and it was supposed to bring me to you. When it didn’t you had a note delivered to me saying that as things didn’t appear to be shaping up between us you thought it was time for you to move on. That was the real bait-your threat to walk out of my house my moment to appreciate that I was losing you-‘
‘You had already lost me !’
Her luminous blue eyes were bright with tears at his scathing recital of events that night.
‘And I did not have the note delivered to you. 1 left it sitting in my room.’
Cristiano looked unimpressed.
‘You were still in the house when that note was delivered-but l don’t react to that kind of pressure. I decided that if you were that keen to go home and sulk l would let you do it.’
Loathing leapt up so high inside Lydia she was dimly surprised that she did not burst into spontaneous flames.
‘So far you have called me stupid childish and manipulative-‘
‘bella mia. l’m being very restrained in my choice of words.’
As Cristiano spoke he was watching the sunlight lend translucence to his shirt and reveal the provocative outline of her delicate rose-coloured areolae. Almost imperceptibly he tensed striving to cool the instinctive surge of desire that she aroused. perhaps that’s because in retrospect there is something rather pathetic about the little charade you were so determined to play out for my benefit.’
Her hands planted on her slim hips, Lydia slung him an irate glance. ‘Listen to me-there was no charade, no attempt to make you jealous! ‘
Cristiano groaned out loud. ‘He used you for a publicity stunt, and you used him to try and wind me up into offering more than a casual fling. Do you really think you’re the only woman ever to try that on me? Of course l was supposed to chase after you and snatch you back out of his wizened old arms wasn’t 1?
Her face burning hotter than hellfire Lydia snatched up a silver-backed hairbrush lying on the dresser and flung at him.
‘He’s a much nicer guy than you are! ‘
Cristiano sidestepped the flying missile with offensive cool.
‘But it’s me you shagged.’
‘Because—’
Glittering dark golden eyes pinned to her Cristiano took a step closer. He just wanted to drag her into his arms and sink deep into her beautiful pale body again. He had never been so hot for a Woman. ‘Because you want me’.
‘Because we have a contract ‘ she hissed back colliding with his shouldering gaze. Her heartbeat started to race.
‘The enthusiasm with which you’re fulfilling my expectations is almost more than l dared to hope for, ‘gioia mia ‘
Cristiano murmured huskily.
He was so close she trembled, and she attempted to break the spell with words wanting to fight with him to keep temptation at bay.
‘Why can’t you appreciate how much I hate you’?’ Cristiano closed long fingers to her elbows and drew her up against him. She jerked taut but her eyes were as radiant as stars. As his hand splayed to her hip to gather her closer he could feel the tiny little vibrations passing through her slight figure and it gave him a high.