She glanced around the opulent dining room, trying to gather her thoughts in what was becoming his blatant interrogation—and a hostile one at that. She felt wrong-footed, and tried to recover her composure.
‘It’s very...impressive,’ she said.
She chose the word carefully. Personally, she thought the opulent gilded furnishings and décor out of place on a tropical island, but she did not wish to insult the famous designer whose hallmark was evident here.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. ‘And will you be attempting to emulate this style yourself?’
She looked at him uncertainly. His question had sounded sardonic, and she wasn’t sure why.
‘I would do my best, if that was what you wanted,’ she replied neutrally.
It was the last thing she would choose herself—to impose this kind of overblown style on that devastated, hurricane-blasted hotel. It would be totally wrong for it.
She never got the chance to say so. He was nodding, his expression hardening. ‘Ah, yes—just as you “did your best” typing up those letters so atrociously!’
She flushed at the derision in his voice. To her dismay, as when he’d been correcting her hopeless typing, pushing her harder and harder, she felt tears haze her eyes. She felt her throat tightening and tried to fight it in vain, blinking rapidly to try and clear the treacherous mist that was forming.
Unhappiness twisted inside her. Why was he getting at her over this? Why was he jabbing at her with everything he said? She dipped her head, taking another mouthful of her food, though it suddenly tasted like ashes in her mouth.
* * *
Luke’s expression tightened. The revelation she’d made that the only design experience she actually had was courtesy of her father was damning. Totally damning! She obviously wasn’t a professional interior designer in the least. She was nothing but a dabbling amateur—a rich man’s daughter who’d clearly fancied the idea of interior design as something to while away the time between shopping and socialising.
Her doting father had indulged her and she had amused herself by producing interiors that were, without exception, in every property belonging to Grantham Land that he had seen since his acquisition, uniformly hideous! Flashy, ostentatious, and tasteless.
Luke’s expression tightened even more. There wasn’t a chance in hell she could come up with something that was of the slightest use to him.
But do I actually want to use anything she might produce anyway?
Would he really want anything to remind himself of her in his new hotel?
His eyes rested on her again as he faced up to the realisation. She’d dipped her head again, was mechanically eating her food, yet he could see that her expression was pinched. It irritated him. He didn’t want her looking like that—looking as if he’d hurt her feelings by what he’d said to her. What he wanted, damn it, was to feel nothing about her at all!
But he wasn’t succeeding, he wasn’t succeeding at all.
‘Talia—’ Was his voice harsh? He didn’t mean it to be, but it had come out that way.
Her head shot up and he saw, with that same spike of emotion that had made him not want to see her looking upset, that the pinched look was more pronounced than ever, that her lower lip was trembling, that there was a liquid haze over her eyes...
He dropped an oath in Greek. He was impatient. Angry. Angry at what he was fighting to crush back inside him.
‘Don’t try and make me feel sorry for you to get yourself an easier ride.’ He was proud that his voice had come out flat rather than cutting. ‘I offered you this job in good faith—and on extremely generous terms! The fact that you have financial woes is not my problem—so don’t ask for any sympathy from me on that score.’
He wouldn’t forget the hell her father had put his family through, or how he had watched them suffer before they died. Talia had lived like a pampered princess, while his own father had—
There was a sudden clatter as she dropped her knife and fork on her plate. He saw her expression change. Change totally. Suddenly she was angry, and her voice bit out as she cut across him.
‘I am not asking for sympathy!’ Her eyes flashed furiously. ‘I am extremely grateful for your commission, and I am more than willing to do any ancillary work for that you may require. But I am not going to apologise for my failings as a secretary when I simply do not have the skills or training!’
She took a heaving breath, an audib
le intake, before plunging on, even more furiously.
‘Nor is there any justification for you biting my head off every time I speak! And as for my behaviour—’ her eyes flashed again ‘—I will not be subjected to your totally unwarranted accusations that I am flirting with anyone! You have absolutely no right to make any comments of that nature whatsoever. And if you can’t tell the difference between civility and sexual come-ons, then that is your problem, not mine!’
* * *
Talia pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. Emotion was ripping her apart and she didn’t care. She didn’t care what she was saying or what the consequences would be. She had had it with the man! She wasn’t going to take one more jibe, one more put-down! Not one!