Brazilian's Nine Months' Notice

‘No.’ He looked at her, speechless, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Short of lifting her to one side, Luc had no option but to listen to what she had to say. ‘I want to know what my job involves. The others have already started their working day. I want to start mine. And I don’t want to be late when I report for duty. So, if not with you, then where should I be?’

He scanned the corridor over her head, as if he had other, more important places to be. ‘Look, Emma...’ His stare returned to fix on her face.

She was looking. She met his stare unblinkingly as Luc went on, ‘I really don’t have time for this—’

‘Then make time.’

His head slowly lowered until his dark eyes were on a level with hers. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said softly.

He could put all the menace he wanted into his tone. She hadn’t come halfway around the world to sit twiddling her thumbs. ‘I’m sure you heard me the first time.’ She tried for pleasant. She even added a helpful smile. The familiar beat of arousal was back, but she blanked it, along with the mesmerising tone of his voice and Luc’s dark stare. ‘I was ignored in the meeting. No one explained how I could contribute to any of the projects under discussion, and as I don’t have any files or papers to help me understand I’m relying on you to tell me.’ She managed to keep calm, but inwardly she was fuming. Forget the lust and the compelling attraction. The way Luc was treating her was insulting.

‘What’s to understand, Emma? You have a beautiful apartment in the centre of Rio. You have a wardrobe of clothes a princess might envy.’ He cast a disapproving look at the chain-store suit she had chosen to wear. ‘Yet you put this rag on and insult me.’

‘I chose this outfit because it belongs to me. I didn’t set out to upset you. Shouldn’t I be the one who is insulted to find a wardrobe of clothes appropriate for a billionaire’s mistress, not only installed on your jet but here in what you term my apartment? I have no intention of becoming your mistress, Luc, so you can take those clothes out of my apartment and send them back.’

‘Is this how it’s going to be?’ he demanded.

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘You’re not afraid of anything,’ the man she had given herself to so joyfully remarked coldly. ‘Why do you continue to deny yourself like this?’

‘Because I can. Because I’m not the woman you seem to think I am. You accepted that I was upset in London because of my parents’ death, and that I was behaving out of character, and yet now you seem to think that I will gladly fall into line because it suits you.’

‘I’m trying to make you as happy as I can while you’re here, while you seem to be doing everything in your power to put hurdles in my way.’

‘Shall I spell it out to you?’ she suggested. ‘An apartment, however beautiful, together with wardrobes full of expensive clothes is only going to make me feel more awkward, not less. You brought me here under false pretences. You told me that I’d have a job—a proper job. I expected to live in staff quarters and dress like my peers—either in a uniform you provide or in my own suitable clothes. I did not expect you to wheel me out like some sort of pampered moll, and then have to find my place amongst people who work hard for a living. How the hell did you think that was going to work out?’

‘Have you quite finished?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes.’ She glanced at the door. ‘You can leave me to find my own way around. I can’t think what I could possibly learn by shadowing you.’

‘Really?’

It was Luc’s turn to block her way, and to her amazement there was a smile hovering around his mouth as if her rebellion had pleased, even aroused him. She guessed it made the hunt all the more entertaining for him. Too bad there wasn’t going to be a hunt. ‘Yes, really,’ she stressed, staring steadily into his mocking eyes.

‘Are you suggesting I consider myself so far above you in status—in every way possible—that I don’t think your small, feminine brain could possibly accommodate the complexities of my complicated day?’

Oh, she hated it when he did this. He had turned her anger into the urge to smile back. ‘I don’t know what you think, Lucas, but I do know I’m going to make a success of this job, with or without your help.’

‘With would be better, surely?’ he murmured.

His expression had softened. There was humour in his eyes. Luc was at his most dangerous now. ‘I’m afraid my defence mechanisms have just kicked into place, along with my urge to work,’ she said, glancing at the door. ‘So, if you’ll excuse me?’