She straightened briskly. ‘I don’t think so, but thank you for asking.’
Markos eyed her frustratedly, knowing it wasn’t just the desire to have Eva in his bed that made him so determined. He also enjoyed her company. He appreciated the spirited way she stood up to him. The way her dry sense of humour was more than a match for his own. And he couldn’t help feeling curious as to what Eva had been thinking about earlier when she’d looked so wistful.
He raised dark brows. ‘And if I intend to keep on asking…?’
She shrugged. ‘Then I’ll just have to keep on refusing.’
‘And if I manage to wear you down…?’
‘You won’t.’ She smiled.
‘You sound very sure,’ Markos said knowingly.
‘I am.’ She nodded.
Had any woman turned him down so emphatically before? Markos wondered with a frown. Not that he could ever remember, no. And, again, that wasn’t arrogance talking—it was just a fact. Nor did he believe it was only Eva’s reluctance to see him again that made her so attractive to him.
Everything about Eva intrigued him. Even her obvious boredom on Saturday evening with the other guests at the cocktail party—including him—as if she had attended one too many parties just like it and met one too many arrogant men to be impressed by yet another one.
That behaviour had been completely nullified by her heated response to him a few minutes ago—before she had shut down that response with the finality of a steel trapdoor closing about her emotions.
And what had seemed like an expression of sadness, even anguish, only added to the mystery and contradiction that was fast becoming Evangeline Grey.
Markos sensed Eva had secrets hidden behind those beautiful golden eyes. Several of them. Secrets he was longing for Eva to share with him.
‘Okay.’ He straightened to move and check the diary on his desktop. ‘I’m busy tomorrow and Wednesday, but six o’clock on Thursday evening looks good.’ He looked up at her enquiringly, wondering if it was wishful thinking on his part or if that really was a look of disappointment on her face because he was seeming to back off.
And he was only seeming to back off. Markos had no intention of giving up where Eva was concerned.
‘Thursday at six is fine with me too,’ Eva accepted abruptly, pretty sure that if she designed a colour scheme of pink and white, and ultra-feminine, it would ensure that Markos no longer wished to employ her. It would do absolutely nothing for her professional reputation, of course, but it might be worth it just to see the look on Markos’s face when she presented the sketches to him!
‘I’m learning to be wary of that particular look of amusement…’ He eyed her suspiciously as he straightened.
Eva laughed softly. ‘Just a private joke.’
‘Design-wise, you should know that a harem theme or an explosion of pink ruffles is definitely out,’ he commented dryly.
How had he guessed what she was thinking? ‘Now you’re ruining all my fun!’
‘When I would so love to be the cause of it…’ he came back huskily.
Eva gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Do you ever give up?’
‘Where you’re concerned? No.’
Now it was Eva’s turn to look wary as she heard the finality in his tone. A warning, perhaps, that Markos’s lazy good humour was merely a front, an illusion. As if she needed any warning!
‘Why are you even continuing to bother pursuing me when there are dozens of women in New York who would be only too flattered to receive the attentions of Markos Lyonedes?’
He smiled ruefully. ‘Because it doesn’t work that way.’
She frowned. ‘What doesn’t?’
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘I can’t speak for other men, of course, but as far as I’m concerned, desire is exclusive to one woman at a time.’
Eva moistened lips that had become suddenly dry. ‘That isn’t what I’ve heard…’
Markos scowled. ‘Just who the hell have you been listening to, Eva?’ he prompted impatiently.