No, she had to stay serious and focused and do what she’d been sent here to do. Last night was her personal secret, something to keep her glowing on the inside through the cold years to come. Today she represented Davis and Holbrook, one of the largest construction firms in the world, thanks to her marriage merging her father’s architecture firm with Davis Engineering. As the one person with claim to both those names, she supposed she could take ten minutes out of her life to hand over the letter of introduction her brother had prepared.
Even if she didn’t entirely approve of this man they wanted to court.
At least she could hide behind her mask. Kinky was her new normal, apparently, since she was becoming really fond of it, but it rejuvenated her confidence.
These gopher burrows under the building she was less sure of.
“Am I in an abattoir?” she asked a petite q when she found one.
“Absolutely not,” the perky young woman replied, obviously not paid to have a sense of humor. “To ensure complete privacy for our guests, the doors only open if the next hallway is empty. Several people are moving around at this time, causing minor delays. Your meeting room is at the end of this hall and will open to your thumbprint.”
As she stepped into the empty meeting room, however, she had to admit that this particular man’s world was astounding. Given the industrial decor she’d traversed to get here, she had expected more of the same with the conference rooms. Instead she was in an aquarium—a humanarium—in the bottom of the sea. Stingrays flew like sparrows across the blue water over the glass ceiling and a garden of tropical fish bobbled like flower heads in a breeze, poking from the living reef that fringed the glass walls.
Amazed, she set down her black leather folder on a table between two chairs in the center of the room and walked the curved wall, keeping one hand on it to maintain her equilibrium as the distorted image of swaying kelp made her dizzy. She reminded herself to breathe and oriented herself by turning back to the room to take in the pair of chairs on the white area rug. They faced the windows and were separated by the table that held a crystal decanter of ice water and two cut-crystal glasses.
As she leaned her back against the window, the door panel whispered open and he stepped in. Her stranger.
Shock ran through her in an electric current that held her fixed, stunned.
Yes, that was the mask from last night, and she recognized his powerful build even though he was dressed differently. His gray shirt was short-sleeved, tailored close to his muscled shoulders and accentuated his firm, tanned biceps. The narrow collar of his shirt was turned down in a sharply contrasting russet, drawing her eye to the base of his throat.
She watched him swallow and lifted her gaze to his green-gold eyes.
How had he found her?
Behind him, the door whispered closed. The noise seemed to prompt him into motion. He took a few laconic steps into the room, hands going into his pockets. He wasn’t taken aback by their incredible surroundings. His eyes never left their lock on hers as he paused next to the chairs, lifted a hand and removed his mask. He dropped it into one of the chairs, still staring at her.
Barefaced, he was beautiful. Not pretty, not vulnerable, but undeniably handsome with his narrow, hawkish face and sharply defined cheekbones. His blade of a nose accentuated the long planes of his cheeks to the rugged thrust of his jaw, making his mouth appear sensual by comparison, even though his lips weren’t particularly full.
They weren’t narrow, either, and neither were his eyes, but the keen way he watched her spoke of focus and intelligence.
Don’t think about last night, she ordered herself, fighting the inner trembling of reaction.
“You could have given me your name last night and saved us taking up a room when they’re so highly in demand.”
Her throat closed as she processed his thick accent first. It was more pronounced when he spoke above a whisper and charged his deep, stern voice with husked layers. Then his words sifted through her mind, allowing her first to absorb that he recognized her, but didn’t know her name. How—? The criticism in his tone penetrated, distracting her. She was rather sensitive to being called thoughtless, willing to admit she’d been quite the spoiled brat before she’d learned that even charmed lives could be hexed.
Finally she grasped the whole of what he’d said, and it sounded as if he thought she had known whom she was messing around with last night. Which meant he hadn’t come here because he was looking for her, but because...
Oh. My. God.
“Ryzard Vrbancic?” she managed faintly. Please no.
His gorgeous mouth twisted with ironic dismay. “As you can see. Who are you?”
Of course she could see. Now that her brain was beginning to function, it was obvious this was the self-appointed president of Bregnovia. The leader of a resistance movement turned opportunist who had claimed the national treasury—from a fellow criminal, sure, but claimed it for himself all the same—then used it to buy his seat in his newly minted parliament.
How did a name such as Ryzard go from being something vaguely lethal and unsavory to noble and dynamic simply by encountering the man in person? How had she not sensed or realized—
“There’s been a mistake. I’ve made a mistake.” Oh, gawd, she could never tell her family. Her virginity? Really? To this man?
And yet her body responded to being in his presence. Even though she wasn’t drunk and no music seduced her, her feet didn’t want to move and her eyes kept being dragged back to his wide chest, where a sprinkle of hair had abraded her palms. His arms flexed as she watched, forcing memories of being caught protectively against him when the fireworks had started then carried like a wilting Southern belle when sex had been the only thing on their minds.
His wide-spaced feet in Italian leather drew her gaze, making her recall the way he’d shed his shoes and the rest of his clothes so deftly last night. His burnished bronze skin had been anything but cold and hard. He’d been taut and alive.
And generous. He’d touched her with incredible facility completely devoted to her pleasure. She tried not to look for his hands, but she was fervently aware of the way he’d tantalized her so intimately toward orgasm. In public.
Mortified heat burned her to the core, especially because she yearned to know it all again. Everything about him called to her, feathering over her nerves like last night’s velvety breeze, not just awakening her sensuality, but exciting her senses into full alert. Why? How? The rapid plunge back into sexual arousal was incredibly confusing. Disconcerting. She needed to get out of here.
Pushing off the glass wall, she took two steps and he took one, blocking her.
Her heart plummeted through the floor. This undersea garden had suddenly become a shark cage, and she was trapped inside it with the shark.
Warily she eyed him. “I didn’t know who you were last night.”
“No?” His brow kicked up, dismissing her claim as a lie.
“No!”
“You sleep with strangers often?”
“Apparently you do, so don’t judge me.”
His head went back a fraction, reassessing her. “Who are you?”
She folded her arms, debating. If she left now, without telling him, Christian might salvage something. She, of course, could never show her face in public again, but she didn’t intend to. Except—
Her gaze involuntarily went to the black dossier on the table, the one that held their letter of introduction and a background on the company. She jerked her gaze back to his, panicked that he might have followed her look, but trying not to show it.
His vaguely bored gaze traveled to the table and came back to hers. Intrigue lit his irises, turning their green-gold depths to emerald. A cruel smile toyed with his mouth.
“That’s not for you,” she said firmly. “I have to go.” She took one step toward the table and he reached without hurry to pick the dossier up.
“I said—”
He only flashed her a dangerous look that held her off and opened it with an elegant turn of his long finger. Don’t think about those fingers.
Leave, she told herself, but there was no point. She couldn’t outrun this sizzling mortification, no matter where she went. Her stomach turned over as she waited for a sign of his reaction to what he read.
A muted bell pinged. “Your reserved time has reached its limit,” a modulated female voice said through hidden speakers.
Thank God. Tiffany let out her breath.
“Extend it,” Ryzard commanded.
“Will another thirty minutes be sufficient?”
“I can’t stay,” Tiffany insisted.
Grim male focus came up to hold her in place, locking her vocal chords.
“Send a full report to my tablet on Davis and Holbrook, specifically their director, Mrs. Paul Davis. Thirty minutes is plenty.”
“Very good, sir.” The bell pinged again and Tiffany thought, run. The threat he emanated seemed very real, even though he didn’t move, only stared at her with utter contempt.