s her and taking hold of her wrists, shaking them gently as though to underline his point, ‘there are only a handful of factories that make such glass. I know because my cousins own one of them. It demands a special technique, a special skill...it’s...’
‘Please let me go,’ Beth demanded with stiff formality, her eyes burning with anger and pride as he reluctantly did so. Very deliberately she rubbed her wrists where he had held them, even though in reality they did not actually hurt.
She could see, though, from the dark surge of colour that burned his skin, that he was aware of what she was silently implying, and that she had touched a small raw nerve.
Good! He deserved it.
‘I know exactly what you’re trying to do, Alex,’ she told him crisply. ‘I’ve been there before, you see. Been lied to and deceived by a man who simply wanted to use me for his own ends. I’m not so much of a fool, you know. This is what all this...’ she waved her hand around the room and tossed her head scornfully in his direction
‘...has been all about. You deliberately targeted me, flirted with me...came on to me for the benefit you thought it would bring to your cousins’ business, the order you thought you could get. No doubt I’m not your first victim and I doubt that I shall be your last. But where I differ from the others is that I saw through you right from the start. You thought you were deceiving me, using me, but in reality I was the one using you.’
‘What?’
Beth stood up determinedly as she finished speaking and quickly fastened the rest of her clothes. As he stared at her Alex, too, scrambled to his feet but, oddly, his nudity, instead of rendering him foolish as it might have done another man, only served to remind Beth of exactly how she had felt in his arms, of exactly how he had felt inside her body. Angrily she tried to deny her own inner reaction, to deny what she was feeling emotionally.
‘Beth, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ Alex told her vehemently, ‘and I can’t understand why you should think...’ He gave a short, unamused laugh. ‘Believe me, the last thing I would ever do is pimp for business for my cousins. They hardly need it; they have virtually full order books for years to come, if you wish to know...’
Beth smiled loftily and disbelievingly at him.
‘That’s easy to say now,’ she told him cynically. ‘You don’t fool me, Alex. I’ve been caught that way before.’
‘Beth, you’re wrong,’ Alex protested stubbornly. ‘I love you.’ His voice softened and then roughened slightly. ‘And I believe that you love me...from the way you loved me just now... If that wasn’t love, then just exactly what was it?’ He reached out and touched a fingertip to her swollen lips.
‘That wasn’t love, it was just lust—just sex, that’s all,’ Beth interrupted him scornfully.
‘Just sex?’
‘Just sex,’ Beth confirmed firmly. Why was the look in his eyes making something hurt so much deep inside her chest? He didn’t really care about her. She’d be a fool if she started believing that he did. He was another Julian, just out for what he could get.
‘I know exactly what’s going on, Alex,’ she told him coolly. ‘Your cousins pay you to put as much new business their way as you can.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘I can’t blame you for trying to push me into buying from them, I suppose, but what I can do is make it plain to you that it’s a ploy I’m simply not going to fall for. I may have been a gullible little fool in the past, but I’m not any more.’
‘I understand,’ Alex told her gently. ‘Another man has hurt you badly. I’d like to kill him for it, but more than that I’d like to take the pain away for you, Beth. I’d like to love you whole and happy again. Do you still love him?’
‘Julian Cox?’ Beth looked scathing. ‘No, the man I thought I loved, the man I thought loved me, never really existed. Julian was like you. He just wanted what he could get out of me financially. Fortunately for me, though, unlike you, he wasn’t prepared to use sex to get it.’
‘You weren’t lovers?’ Alex asked her swiftly.
‘You and I aren’t lovers,’ Beth couldn’t resist telling him. ‘We just had sex. And, no, Julian and I didn’t have sex. I suppose part of the reason I wanted you was because I was just quite simply sexually frustrated,’ she told Alex carelessly, with a small dismissive shrug, before adding musingly, ‘Perhaps I should give your cousins a small order after all. You were very...thorough...’
Beth knew that she was behaving outrageously, but something was driving her on, forcing her to do so. Some protective, deep-rooted instinct for self-preservation was warning her that she must use every means she could to keep Alex at bay emotionally, to make sure that there was an unbridgeable distance between them.
‘My God, if I thought you actually meant that—’ Alex swore savagely.
‘I do mean it,’ Beth fibbed, tilting her head defiantly.
‘So you don’t love me?’ Alex demanded quietly.
‘No. No, I don’t love you,’ Beth agreed in a slightly tremulous voice.
There was a long, deathly silence and then Alex said bleakly, ‘I see...’
He started to get dressed, and without looking at her he continued, ‘In that case I’d better drive you back to Prague.’
‘Yes, I think that would be a good idea,’ Beth agreed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHAT ARE YOU looking at?’