Rebel with a Cause

‘Actually no. We’re confident it’ll do the business. I just thought you might like to see it.’ He leaned his frame against the door. ‘It’s a nice little place, intimate. You can cuddle on a sofa in the corner.’ Would she be the type to cuddle in public? Somehow he didn’t think so—she had that aloof thing going. ‘Or you can work up a sweat on the dance floor. Oh…’ he paused deliberately ‘…you’ll be on the sofa, then, won’t you?’

‘I like to dance.’

His muscles tightened at the unexpected tinge of boldness in her tone, he looked harder at her.

‘But I already have plans for tonight.’ Oh, she was ultra cool—it made him suspect she was even hotter beneath.

‘With your boy friend?’ Yeah, again, real subtle. But he really needed to know. Now.

Sophy gave up pretending to look at the file in front of her. ‘No,’ she said as calmly as she could—tricky given the anger zooming round and round her veins, searching for a way out. ‘I don’t have a boy friend.’

‘No?’ Annoyingly he didn’t sound that surprised. Worse, he looked pleased about it.

‘I don’t want one.’ Damn, she’d tacked that on too quickly, sounded too vehement. And they both knew it.

His brows lifted. ‘Why’s that?’ He put the mail on her desk, the action bringing him even closer to her. ‘Did some twerp break your heart?’

She took a moment to draw breath—so she could answer with icy precision. ‘What makes you think I have a heart?’ She bit the words out with the experience of seven years’ elocution lessons behind her. ‘We frigid girl scouts don’t bother with them. We find machinery to be more efficient.’

Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her gaze—it clashed with his for a long, long time. His own eyes revealed nothing, yet seemed to penetrate her façade—delving into her secrets. She felt the blush rising—stupidly—when he was the one who’d been so rude. He’d said it. She’d only over heard it by mistake. So why was she the one feeling so uncomfortable now?

‘Struck a nerve, did I?’ Without breaking the stare he walked around her desk. ‘I only said you look like that, not that you actually are.’

‘Same difference.’ All her nerves were prick ling now.

His smile sharpened. ‘But I already know you’re quite capable of feeling something.’

She just stared at him, fighting to slow her pulse.

‘Anger.’ He grabbed her arms and pulled her out of the chair. ‘Are you very angry with me, Sophy?’

He was in appropriately close—again—holding her tight, yet she didn’t fight to step back. She refused to let him intimidate her, or to play with her.

‘Do you want me to make it better?’ His arms looped around her, hands warm and firm on her waist.

‘How are you planning to do that?’ She took a quick breath, shaking inside, but stabbed him with some sarcasm. ‘With a kiss?’

‘Isn’t that how it works?’ He leaned closer, spearing her with his dark, unreadable eyes. ‘Isn’t that what you want?’

‘No.’ Now she was even more angry. Because he was right. It was what she wanted. What she’d been wanting since she first laid eyes on him, and especially since she’d been in his apartment and touched him. But she didn’t want it like this. ‘I don’t think it would make it better.’

‘No?’

‘I think it would make it worse.’ She flashed at him. ‘Don’t patronise me, Lorenzo. You think you’re better than me? You think I’m some robot? Some spoilt, bored socialite? Spending all my time doing this and that for everyone else? You think I don’t have ambition of my own? Dreams of my own? Desires of my own?’

She shut up, suddenly aware she was verbally vomiting an ancient bitterness that she’d never wanted to talk about to anyone, certainly not to him.

His hold on her tightened. ‘I don’t think that. But obviously you think some people do.’

Yeah, a little bubbling mass of resentment, that was her.

‘Why didn’t you say no to working here, if you had other things you wanted to do?’ He made it sound so simple.

But she never said no—not to that kind of request. And she did have some time to help. She liked to help. It make her feel useful, needed. Except now it felt as if Lorenzo had been laughing at her willingness and her diligence. Were they all laughing at her? Was she valued at all or were her efforts just taken for granted?

Tired. That was her problem. Tired and frustrated and over whelmed. And he wasn’t helping—towering over her like this, tormenting her all the time. She looked straight down to the floor as tears sprang in her eyes. ‘Forget it.’

‘No.’ He took her chin in firm fingers and tilted her head back up so he could see her face. A half-swallowed growl sounded. ‘You’re really upset.’

‘My wounded pride will get over it,’ she snapped, cross with her stupid weakness. ‘I don’t care what you think. I’m here to do a job. Now I’m going to get on with it.’

‘Not until I apologise.’

‘I didn’t think you’d be the type to say sorry.’

‘And you think I’m the one making assumptions?’ His eyes glinted but the smallest of smiles appeared. ‘Okay, I don’t say it often. But when I do, I mean it.’ He stroked her jaw. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine.’ She shrugged, too crushed to accept it with good grace and determined not to let that smile have its usual disabling effect. ‘I don’t care what you think about me.’

His smile deepened just a touch. Okay, so she was protesting too much.

She sighed as a flicker of good humour returned to her. ‘Don’t get big-headed about it. I care too much what everyone thinks about me.’

‘What you think matters to me too.’

Okay, so now his niceness was making it worse. Embarrassed, she shifted. ‘Look, just forget it.’

‘No.’ His grip tightened. ‘I’m going to make it better. I’m going to do it anyway. It’s been on the cards for days. You know that.’

She froze, her body rendered immobile with anticipation overload. All she could do was gaze up at him—drowning in his eyes, yearning for that beautiful mouth to touch her.

And then it did.

A butterfly-light brush of lips on skin—a shade too close to her mouth to be a safe kiss on the cheek. And he lingered too long for it to be safe too.

‘Better?’ His question almost in audible, but she heard it, felt it as his lips grazed her as he asked.

‘No.’

The smallest of pauses as they stood—intent hovering. Only a couple of inches separated their bodies, only a millimetre separated their lips. She could feel his heat, and smell his fresh soapy scent. A tremor ran through her as anticipation almost broke her nerve. Suddenly he moved—that merest fraction, the littlest drop to her mouth. His lips were warm, and they clung.