Eleanore angled her chin up. ‘As a matter of fact she was.’
‘And did you also tell her how you got it there?’
‘Oh!’ Unable to hide her shocked gasp, hot colour streaked across her cheekbones.
Greg glanced warily between the two of them and said something to Lukas in a placating tone and it made her feel even more like a fool. ‘Mr Kuznetskov?’ she interrupted Greg. ‘Is there something you wanted because otherwise we’d like to continue our meeting?’
‘I want an update on my hotel.’
‘I should be free tomorrow morning.’
‘Now.’
‘Sorry. I’m busy now.’
Lukas turned toward the men and spoke to them in Russian. Incensed Eleanore grabbed his forearm and felt the corded muscles tense beneath her fingertips. ‘What did you just say to them?’
His eyes drilled into hers like ice blue chips. ‘I just told them this meeting is over.’
‘How dare you!’ she rasped under her breath.
‘It is okay, Eleanore.’ Dominic pulled his wallet from his pocket and pulled out a few ruble. ‘I think I know what it is that you want with the lighting. How about we meet tomorrow afternoon at the hotel and I will show you what I propose.’
Lukas told Dominic that he would pick up the tab and Eleanore didn’t care that it was a nice gesture. Banking her anger she thanked the men and waved them off, leaving her and Lukas alone in the noisy bar.
Lukas pushed his jacket open as he shoved his hands on his hips, leaning toward her. ‘I went to three bars before I found you here.’
‘What do you want?’ Eleanore fumed. ‘A medal or a chest to pin it on?’
They glared at each other. ‘I want you to focus on my hotel and not the men working on it.’
‘I can see why your last architect quit,’ she fumed, absolute fury making her insides quake. ‘You’re a control freak.’
She made to push past him but he laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Do not touch me. And do not question me. I’m off the clock right now.’ She pointed her finger at him. ‘How dare you come in here and treat me like some wayward child and undermine my authority. This was a business meeting between me and my site managers and you completely undermined my authority.’
‘At the slightest encouragement either one of those men would have shown you more than lighting options and sculpting ideas.’
‘What?’ Disbelief coursed through her. ‘I can’t believe you just said that!’ she seethed.
Lukas couldn’t believe he’d just said it either. It was as if the vision of Eleanore leaning over the pool table in her tight skirt and those black stilettos with the red ankle straps had fried his brain. But more than that it drove him crazy just thinking about her with someone else.
‘You’re nothing but a sexist chauvinist who has the hormonal intelligence of a teenage boy. Or not even.’ She looked like she was getting ready to punch him. ‘That’s an insult to teenage boys!’
‘And you’re a pampered princess too used to people bowing and scraping to your every need.’ It wasn’t true and Lukas knew it even as he said it. She worked far too hard and cared far too much about the job to be the princess type. Still, he wasn’t a sexist chauvinist either although he would agree that right now he had the emotional intelligence of a teenage boy.
‘Me!’
She threw him a filthy look and he just wanted to kiss the snarl from her lips.
‘If anyone here is used to people bowing and scraping it’s you. Splashing your money around, making rude comments when it suits you, threatening people.’
‘Threatening people? Who have I threatened?’
‘Me! When you told me you’d go to the Chatsfields if I didn’t agree to work for you.’
He laughed. What else could he do? ‘If you’re so paranoid about the Chatsfields that’s your problem, and as for you working for me, I think you love it.’
She stepped closer to him and he caught a whiff of apples. O Bozhe, but he loved apples. ‘I think you’re deluded so...’
Later Lukas would tell himself he wasn’t the type to grab a woman in a public bar even if they were near a darkened corner—later when he was asking himself a lot of questions. Right now he was fed up with her mouthiness. Fed up with the overpowering need to touch her that had driven him to behave like a fool in front of his men and so he did what he’d wanted to do again all week. He bent his head and captured her mouth with his own.