‘What for?’ she retorted.
There was a flicker across the dark eyes, and for a moment she felt she’d pushed back too much.
‘To demonstrate to me, perhaps—’ now the blade was cutting through the silk ‘—that despite being ignorant, which is probably no fault of your own, you possess sufficient native intelligence to want to know more about the world than your educationally limited and culturally deprived background has afforded you?’
Heat flushed through her, then cold.
Angelos took a mouthful of wine, then set down his glass with a click on the table.
‘To be ignorant is one thing—to want to remain so is another,’ he said.
Kat felt her blood sting. Patronising bastard! Smug, conceited, patronising bastard!
God, she wanted out of here! Out of this place where she felt like some kind of dirt under the sole of a pair of handmade shoes! Where Mr Big sat lording it over her, sneering at her and patronising her, and above all holding in his hands the power to give her this job or snatch it from her when she’d come so close to getting it!
And, worst of all, making her feel not just like some lowlife but that horrible hot and cold at the same time—as if there was ice in her veins and a hot stone in her stomach, and as if her nerves had itching powder in them. She’d never felt that before and never, never wanted to feel it again …
She wanted to get to her feet and go—just go! But she gritted her teeth, swallowing it down. She could do this—she could! It would be worth it. It would get her the job and that was all she cared about! He wanted her to know about Monaco? So she’d find out—if that was what he wanted!
‘I’ll find a guidebook about the place,’ she said.
Her voice was tight, and she was obviously speaking under duress, but the recalcitrance had gone—or at least was being suppressed.
‘Do that,’ he said, and went on with his meal.
He kept her under surveillance as he ate. Could he really be thinking of considering her in any light other than a professional one? Considering silencing her provocative, insolent mouth in a way that he found was suddenly vivid in his imagination …?
He was still undecided. It irritated him that he should be so. He made decisions fast in his life—the demands of running a multinational corporation necessitated swift, accurate, unhesitating decisions. So why was this girl making him think twice? Why was he even thinking about her at all? Considering her for his bed?
Round the question went in his mind again, and again it found no answer.
Nor had it still when, the last leaf of rocket disposed of, Kat Jones looked up and said bluntly to him, ‘Can I go home now?’
Angelos pushed aside his own empty plate and reached for his wineglass again. His eyebrows rose questioningly.
‘Can I go home now?’ Kat said again. She was as tense as a board, he could see. Maybe his reprimand for her rudeness had unnerved her—brought home to her how … unwise … such behaviour was.
And maybe it was as well if she went now. Rushing her into bed on an impulse he still couldn’t fathom himself, would also be … unwise. Although it was also tempting.
Did he really want to let her go? His eyes went to her again, assessingly. Deliberately he let himself take in every aspect of what she had on offer …
Across the table Kat froze, unable to breathe. A hole, a gaping slash, had opened up inside her. And she was falling—falling right down into it.
Oh, God, no—no!
She could only stare helplessly, appalled, as Angelos Petrakos looked her over.
It was like it had been before, as if she couldn’t breathe, and yet her heart was pounding, making her feel that impossible mix of shivering cold and burning hot. Her veins felt as if they were melting … as if he was melting them … because of the way those dark, steel-hard eyes were working over her, reaching a place that no one had ever reached before …
She tried to fight it. Tried with a desperation she hadn’t known she would ever need.
No! You are not going to let yourself … let yourself …
She clawed back sanity. She didn’t do sex. She fielded it, ignored it. It didn’t exist. Just didn’t exist. She didn’t let it exist.
But now, in a single glance, she knew how totally, completely wrong she had been …
He snapped off the gaze. And like a rag doll, limp and bereft of breath, Kat could only sit there—powerless, appalled.