The air around them cackled as she turned, her lower lip caught between her teeth. For a minute, he wondered if she was going to cry, if he had pushed her too far. He cupped her jaw and tilted it up.
She grunted, pulled herself away from his hold sending him backward where the couch hit the back of his knees. Suddenly, they were both falling into the leather couch, her slender body on top of his, their legs a tangle.
Her breasts crushed against his chest, her hands locked between them. The juncture of her thighs rubbed against his crotch giving him an instant hard-on. He shook with the need to pull her closer, to bury his mouth in the crook of her neck, to kiss her pinched mouth. Instead, he pushed her a little with his hands on her shoulders, anything to stop the soft press of her breasts against him. Every muscle in his body shuddered with the pressure to keep still. “You done?” he muttered through gritted teeth.
Pink seeped up her neck, drawing his attention to the pulse at her neck, frantic and pulsing. She moved off him, took a few steps back, her breathing harsh and shallow. “You provoke the worst in me.”
He frowned, his libido still not under control. “Believe me, it’s completely mutual.”
She laughed, the sound strained with something he couldn’t put his finger on. There was such a sense of defiance, a-devil-may-care attitude about her that it was hard to think anything could touch her. Yet his words had clearly hit a raw nerve. He dismissed the glimmer of concern that sliced through him.
“If you despise me so much, I can just leave.”
He shook his head. He was letting her get under his skin. And it had to stop now. “There’s an event I have to attend this evening and I need my wife there.”
“And they say you’re a genius businessman. A tip to clue you in,” she drawled, a bold gleam in her eyes. “Hurling constant insults in my face is definitely not the way to my heart.”
He pulled the check he had signed earlier from his back pocket and extended it to her. “The last thing I want is your heart, Olivia, but merely your—” their gazes collided instantly, his hungrily running over her body, her face curiously devoid of color “—cooperation,” he finished, wondering what he had said now.
She took the check from him, leveling her gaze somewhere at his chest. “What’s this?”
“Let’s call it a non-disclosure agreement that I would like you to enter. That you won’t reveal to anyone while you’re with me that you’re the famous Olivia Stanton.”
“You’re paying me—” her voice shook as she advanced on him again, the hurt in her eyes replaced by outrage now “—to keep my mouth shut, to pretend to be Kim?”
“Or we could call it that.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t found anything else that’s dear to you.”
“To blackmail me?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “No, to get your cooperation. Any other woman would have agreed to it, if nothing else, for her sister’s happiness. With you, I don’t know.”
“You think money will ensure my cooperation?”
“Yes. Even with all your business ventures, it seems you don’t have two nickels to rub together. Kim bought your plane ticket to the wedding.”
She advanced toward him again and right on cue, his senses came alive. Irritation flickered through him. She was the most tactile woman he knew with no sense of personal space. He flicked a hand through his hair and frowned.
But of course, she didn’t heed his warning. She marched right up to him, effectively filling his vision with her.
She waved the check in his face, and he dragged his gaze to her face. Really, he was acting like a teenager. “Whatever else I’m, I’m not stupid, Alexander.”
“No, you’re not.”
“So care to tell me why the big payoff?”
“I have already.”
“Fine,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. If he believed for a minute that he had her compliance, he was wrong. “But I don’t want your money.”
He snorted, anything to dislodge her wild rose scent from his nostrils. “And here I assumed you at least weren’t stupid. Your outrage isn’t going to pay the six months’ rent you owe on that hole you call home.”
“How do you—” Her words sputtered to a stop, her ponytail flying around as she shook her head. Olivia Stanton trying to rein in her temper. It was a rare sight, he was sure. “No, I don’t even want to know.” She scanned the check in her hand again, a glimmer of something in her eyes. “You know what? You’re right. If I have to be here, suffering through your horrible, arrogant, judgmental company, I should get paid for it.”