Rival's Challenge
Antonio stood up too, and after a long taut moment he said to the others without taking his eyes off Orla, ‘If you would excuse us please, I’d like to speak in private with Miss Kennedy.’
Orla cursed herself and her big mouth. And her red-haired Irish temper which her father had always told her originated from her fearsome grandmother who had had ten children and almost outlived them all.
The solicitors and assistants left the room hurriedly as if sensing the powder keg of tension about to go off between Antonio and Orla.
The door shut behind them and they were alone. Tendrils of shock still coursed through Orla to be face to face with the mystery lover she’d never expected to see again.
Antonio stared across the table at his lover from last night and wanted to smash the table aside and throttle her. Or kiss her. Despite the anger he’d felt as soon as he’d realised who she was, his body refused to react along the dictates of his head. It was as rampantly in lust with her as it had been since the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
She looked nothing like the wild and wanton woman who had urged him with that low husky voice to take her harder, deeper, over and over again just hours ago. Her body coming apart under his with an intensity that had driven him so far over the edge he’d blacked out.
No, Orla/Kate, appeared as cool as a cucumber in a fitted short-jacketed trouser suit and white shirt with a very feminine frill detail. Buttoned to the neck like some Victorian heroine. Vibrant hair pulled back and sleek. That heavy fringe highlighting the exquisite prettiness of her face. Her dark blue eyes.
What had made him even more incandescent during the meeting was the very uncomfortable knowledge that he’d slept like a baby while she’d sneaked out of his room. Antonio never slept through anything. It would have meant life or death in his line of work. Yet, she’d managed to get out of his bed and get dressed and leave the room. As if he’d been drugged.
He’d almost missed the meeting because he’d slept so long and had only woken when Lucilla had rung him, wondering why he hadn’t shown up for their premeeting meeting.
Antonio forced himself to utilise years of training to keep his emotions at bay. He crossed his arms and saw her throat move as she swallowed. She crossed her arms too, and he hated the involuntary reflex of his eyes when they dropped momentarily to the pushed-up swells of her breasts under her shirt.
Cursing himself, he looked at her. ‘I suppose you found it amusing?’
She frowned. ‘Found what amusing?’
Antonio’s lip curled at her wide-eyed innocence. ‘To seduce the man who intends to take over your crumbling empire?’
She gasped and her cheeks went pink, which had an immediate effect on Antonio’s body, forcing him to grit his jaw against the rise of desire, blood already pooling in his groin, making him hard.
Her eyes flashed a brilliant affronted sapphire blue. ‘I did not know who you were—you flatter yourself, Mr Chatsfield. If I’d known who you were last night I would have walked right out of that bar and kept walking. I do not need to sleep with opponents the night before a meeting to get my kicks.’
Antonio felt a hard mass settle in his gut. ‘So it’s just the thrill of sleeping with random strangers, then?’
Her cheeks went even pinker. ‘How dare you judge me when you were the one who seduced me.’
Antonio snorted inelegantly. ‘Give me a break. You came down to that bar looking for something and it wasn’t to sit alone and have a drink. You might not have been as obvious as that other woman but you were just as effective.’
Orla recalled brazenly showing him her breast in the lift and clamped down on the torrid memory. Her chin came up. ‘And I suppose you were there for nothing else but the good of your health? You were quick enough to come and proposition me when I gave you no encouragement whatsoever.’
Antonio ignored that and raked her with a scathing glance. ‘I see you’ve eschewed your peek-a-boo little black number for the meeting. You cannot seriously expect me to believe that you weren’t up for it when you came into that bar in a dress designed for seduction in mind. You weren’t even wearing underwear.’
Orla’s arms dropped and Antonio saw her clench her hands to fists and recalled gripping her hand tightly as anger had engulfed him, and the excoriating feeling of exposure. No woman had ever walked away from him before. He moved around the table, not even really sure of what he intended to do. He just wanted to provoke Orla.
Her eyes got wider. The blood in his body leapt. She put out a hand. ‘Don’t come near me, I mean it. How dare you accuse me of being up for it just because of how I was dressed. That’s very close to the kind of thing men say to justify their actions when accused of—’
‘Don’t even say it,’ Antonio ground out, incensed that she would even frame such a thing. And yet, she had a point. His brain was so entangled from seeing her here like this that he was being reduced to acting from some visce
ral place, saying things that he would never normally utter. He didn’t like to be reminded of how he’d gone over to her last night. The thought that she hadn’t wanted him as badly as he’d wanted her was like acid in his gut.
‘Damn you, Orla.’
It was the first time he’d said her name and it made Orla feel funny inside. His scent enveloped her, woodsy and mysterious. Exotic. She could feel the vibrations of anger leaping between them.
She reacted. ‘Damn me? That’s hardly fair, is it? We’re both to blame for what happened.’
She didn’t want him to know how he’d filled her head since she’d walked away from him that morning. How regret had built in her gut, making her feel like she’d made a huge mistake.
After a taut moment of silence, he walked over to a nearby window which overlooked a London park. He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, inadvertently drawing the material of his pants taut across his muscular buttocks. When he turned around abruptly, guilty heat rose up Orla’s chest and she glanced away hurriedly.
Antonio sighed heavily and said, ‘You really didn’t know who I was?’