Chapter Three #2
His irritation deepened. He’d walked himself into a trap, which was incredibly short-sighted, not to mention very unlike him.
Because of course he didn’t want to march her there at gunpoint.
He could, if necessary, but…was it really necessary?
He was a man who got what he wanted when he wanted it and did not like being denied.
Most of the time everyone fell in with his wishes because he was simply too powerful, too rich and too dangerous not to.
Zoe, however, was not everyone. She was his one-time foster sister and she had no fear of him—there was certainly only annoyance in her silver eyes right now, for example—and so he was in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation of having to use a hammer to crack an egg.
Still, he was the one who’d brought up his security and he couldn’t back down, not without giving in to her, and he couldn’t do that.
‘If necessary,’ he said curtly.
Zoe’s stare became as sharp as a needle. ‘Is that how we’re going to do this? If I say no you’re going to use security to force me? Good thing we’re not conceiving this baby the old-fashioned way.’
The words shouldn’t have had any effect on him at all, and yet the moment she said them, a vision popped into his mind, of her in his bed, her black hair spread over the white cotton of his sheets, her eyes dark with desire.
Naturally, as soon as he imagined that, her gaze flickered again, almost the same flicker that he’d seen just a moment before when he’d said the word ‘conceive’.
That thin thread of desire tightened abruptly and he could tell that she, too, was aware of what she’d just said and was also thinking about it, because her cheeks had become even more flushed.
‘Who’s to say we can’t?’ he said, very, very unwisely.
Her flush deepened into red and she reached forward and pushed his hand very decisively off her laptop. ‘Not in a million years,’ she snapped. ‘Now, for God’s sake, let me bloody work.’
Hacking computers was all about finding a weakness and exploiting it, and he’d spent too many years doing just that not to know a weakness when he saw one. And he was looking at one right now.
She was blushing and if he wasn’t much mistaken, the pulse at the base of her throat, just above the neckline of her T-shirt, was racing. He knew what attraction looked like in a woman and attraction was written all over her lovely face.
Interesting. He hadn’t anticipated that would factor anywhere in this little scenario, and back in the church he’d been vaguely horrified at himself for feeling it for her. But…perhaps it would come in handy at some point.
‘Dinner,’ he said, sitting back in his seat. ‘Tonight. We can discuss it.’
* * *
Zoe’s heart was beating uncomfortably fast, her cheeks burning. It was galling. All he’d done was lean forward and push her laptop closed. He wasn’t even that near and yet…the look in his blue eyes had made her mouth go dry.
She didn’t understand what was happening to her and she didn’t like it one bit. Just as she didn’t like anything to do with Archimedes Athineos. Her new husband.
She still couldn’t believe she was on a plane heading to Greece, let alone being married to her erstwhile foster brother, yet here she was doing exactly those things.
Deciding early on that she wasn’t going to speak to him if she didn’t need to, she’d packed the minimum amount possible—she didn’t need much anyway—and as soon as he’d picked her up that evening, she’d opened her laptop and had proceeded to ignore him, though it hadn’t been easy.
She’d been uncomfortably aware of him sitting next to her in the car, the heat of his thigh right next to hers, that delicious scent of his filling the confined space.
She’d been glad once they’d transferred onto the plane, so she wouldn’t have to sit next to him.
But then he’d commandeered the seat opposite her, again with his long legs out in front of him, taking up as much space as humanly possible.
She might have been able to ignore that if he hadn’t spent the past half an hour staring at her. She’d attempted to ignore that as well, but his stare had a weight to it, a pressure that was incredibly distracting.
Even as a kid she remembered him having a kind of tense, kinetic energy. He could never sit still unless he was at the computer screen. He always had to be doing something. Even now, even with that energy contained, she could still feel it steadily burning, bright and hot as a flame.
She hadn’t wanted to say anything to him, or even acknowledge that she was aware of his stare, but in the end she’d had to say something. He was too distracting and she didn’t like how it made her feel antsy and restless herself.
She hadn’t expected him to ask her why she’d changed her mind, though, or that he’d insist on having dinner with her, for reasons she couldn’t begin to imagine.
She was still furious with him for insisting they live in Greece without even asking her, and now he was insisting on dinner, again without asking her.
Especially when his reasons for wanting dinner were ‘because he said so’.
His peremptorily shutting her laptop had been egregious, as was the mention of a ‘security guard’ escorting her to this stupid dinner, and she’d unfortunately let her temper get the better of her and made that dig about conception.
And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she hadn’t said them.
Because she’d seen a spark in his blue eyes, a hot spark, and felt the small flame that had flickered into life when he’d kissed her leap higher in response.
And she didn’t want it to. She didn’t want to see that spark in his eyes either, because her being attracted to him was one thing, but knowing that attraction was reciprocated was quite another.
She didn’t want to get into anything physical with him.
In fact, he was the last man she’d ever sleep with, because again, there was that trust issue and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
She’d spent too long being furious with him, and physical attraction was too complicated to deal with right now, especially when they were going to be spending a year living in the same house together.
Yet telling herself all of that made no difference to the race of her heart, or the way her skin had tightened.
Or how painfully conscious of him sitting opposite she was, with his long powerful legs stretched arrogantly out in front of him, his intense blue gaze on her as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.
No one had looked at her like that for a very long time, if they ever had.
‘Well?’ he said impatiently.
‘Is that a request?’ she shot back. ‘Because it didn’t sound like one, in which case you don’t need a response, do you?
’ She was half inclined to refuse again, just to see if he’d make good on his threat to have a security guard drag her to the dinner table.
After all, why not make this as difficult for him as possible?
He shifted in his seat, frowning. ‘It’s just dinner, Zoe, not an interrogation.’
‘Really? Well, you mentioned having a security guard escorting me to the dinner table so, as you can see, I’m a little confused as to what you’re actually asking for.’
He let out a breath as if frustrated. ‘I want to talk to you. It’s been fifteen years, and I’d like to know how you’re doing.’
Well, that was better than ‘because I said so’.
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation in his voice. ‘Is that so wrong?’
‘No, of course it isn’t. But it does beg the question as to why you waited fifteen years to “see how I was doing”.’
His hard mouth tightened, blue eyes glinting. ‘I got caught up in work. Life got in the way, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘I see.’ She heard the lie in his voice and didn’t quite know whether to call him on it.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Did you miss me?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said stoutly. ‘I never thought of you.’
He stared at her in silence for a moment, his gaze sharp, and she could feel herself beginning to blush yet again. Especially when one corner of his mouth lifted.
‘So you did miss me,’ he said, a satisfied note in his voice.
She didn’t want to look away, didn’t want to give him any kind of surrender, and yet she couldn’t hold his gaze any longer, so she glanced down at her laptop, opening the screen again. ‘If you want me at dinner, you can send a security guard,’ she said. ‘I’m not coming otherwise.’