Thee mou, how beautiful she is!
It turned out nothing could change that—nothing! Not even the hideous discovery of who she really was and why she had come here.
Not to find me again—not to seek me out after abandoning me that morning, after that unforgettable night together. No, not for that—
Anger rose within him, cutting across the sudden overwhelming longing that was flooding through him as she stood before him, so incredibly, savagely beautiful. She was having exactly the same effect on him that she had had from his very first moment of seeing her, desiring her...
Turbid emotion filled him, mingling anger and desire, and it was a toxic, dangerous mix. It was impossible to subdue. It steered him now, formed the thoughts that swirled wildly in his head—thoughts he should not be having.
I should send her packing. I should tell her to get out of my office and get out of this villa she wants to keep for herself. I should have nothing more to do with her. She is my enemy’s daughter and she walked out on me as if I were nothing to her.
He could hear the words in his head and knew what they were telling him. It was the only sane thing to do.
But the words that came out of his mouth were not those words. He lifted his hands, as if making an accommodating gesture. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I don’t see why not.’
Even as he spoke the words he regretted them. But he could not call them back—would not. Something was starting to burn within him—a slow fire he knew he should extinguish to prevent it rekindling the passion he felt for her.
At his words he saw her expression lighten. He smiled and went on. ‘I am prepared to offer you a short-term lease—say three months—while you make alternative arrangements for your accommodation.’
He spoke briskly, in a businesslike fashion, watching her all the time.
He could see her eyes lighting up, see the visible relaxation of her stance at his reassuring agreement to what she’d come here wanting. She was getting what she wanted, despite what she had done to him.
His expression changed, becoming bland—deliberately, calculatingly so. ‘I’ll have a lease drawn up and rent set. I would think, given the size and location of the villa, something like thirty thousand euros a month should cover it.’
He watched her face whiten. Her reaction—such obvious outrage at his reply—made the anger inside him spear him again. But he would not let it show. Instead he smiled again, though it did not reach his eyes.
‘In life, Ms Grantham,’ he said, his voice silken, ‘we cannot have what we cannot pay for.’
He pushed his chair back, the movement abrupt. He stood and gave a shrug of deliberate indifference.
‘If you can’t pay the rent you must vacate the villa,’ he spelt out bluntly.
His eyes never left her, never showed any expression. Even though they wanted to sweep over her glorious body, concealed as it was beneath that fussy over-styled outfit she was wearing. It didn’t suit her—however expensive it had been.
Absently, he wondered at its difference in style from the simple yet stunning dress she’d worn at that party. He wrenched his thoughts away from where they must not go. His eyes from where they must not go either...
He saw her expression change, as if her own self-control was very near the edge. It must be a shock to her, he found himself thinking, bitterness infusing his every thought and his mouth thinning. Daddy’s darling daughter, realising her pampered lifestyle was over, that her doting father was no longer there to grant her every whim and wish.
‘No!’
He heard her cry out in protest at his brutal spelling out of the harsh truths of life, saw her face working.
‘Everything else has gone—but not that...not the villa too!’
For a moment so fleeting that Luke thought he must have misheard there seemed to be real fear in her voice, real despair...real desolation. She was staring at him, her expression pinched, and he thought he caught something vulnerable in the way she stood there, as if life had dropped a weight on her that she could not shoulder.
He felt a different emotion rise within him—one that made him suddenly want to blurt out that of course she could stay in the damn villa, that he didn’t give a damn about any rent. It made him want to surge to his feet, close the distance between them, take her into his arms and hold her close, t
o tell her he would make everything all right for her, all right for them both, that he never wanted to lose her again.
But then it was gone. She was only repeating what she’d said before, just more insistently. As if she was assuming, taking it for granted.
Of course she was Gerald Grantham’s daughter, was she not? She had never had to think of paying for anything at all. A rich man’s princess of a daughter, who got everything she wanted handed to her on a plate by an indulgent father.
‘I absolutely cannot lose the villa! I just can’t!’ Her eyes flared suddenly, widening as her long lashes swept down.
His mouth tightened again at the declaration of entitlement in her words. Her protest should have been like a match to his anger, and yet it gave rise to a quite different emotion. It was an emotion he should not let himself be feeling, but his eyes, his senses, were hungry to revisit it.