He didn’t want to be here.
The fact that he had conducted a sizeable amount of profitable business already, with more in the offing, was of no interest.
Only one thing was of interest to him.
Getting Portia Lanchester back to his hotel suite.
She was wearing a long, classic-cut dress of deep blue. Had she done it deliberately? he wondered. Picked the colour he had first seen her in? She had dressed her hair the same way as well, in a tight French pleat that exposed the bones of her face, the line of her neck. The dress was high cut, very nearly a cheongsam, but with a round neckline, not a high standing collar. It was sleeveless, however, and every now and then his own sleeve would brush against her bare arm.
He could feel her tense whenever it happened.
He glanced at her profile. Her cheekbones were stark, her jaw set. Her skin looked ashen.
Around her neck, the diamond necklace he had hired for the evening looked garish. She had accepted it passively, making no comment as he fastened it around her neck before they set out. Only the sudden tensing of her whole body as he stood behind her had revealed her reaction to him.
Anger bit through him again. What the hell business had Portia Lanchester to flinch away from him like that? She had sold herself to him—and he had every intention of ensuring he got value for money from her.
And that included a willing woman in his bed.
He shifte
d his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. Thinking of bed and Portia Lanchester right now was not a good idea. It was close on forty-eight hours since he’d first had her, and it had simply whetted his appetite. He wanted her again—now—badly.
With scarcely contained frustration he tuned back into the conversation about global shipping.
At his side Portia Lanchester stood, stiff as a piece of wood, repeatedly sipping her champagne, her face a mask of tension.
All the way back to the hotel Portia leant into the corner of the back seat of the limo and stared out of the tinted window. Despite the hour, Singapore was still awake. People thronged the wide, litter-free pavements, tourists evident by their shorts and the cameras slung around their necks.
She looked out at them, dissociated, dispassionate.
She had drunk too much champagne, she knew. It creamed down her veins, flowing like an insulating blanket over her ragged nerves.
But she needed it. Needed something, anything, to keep her going.
To protect her through the ordeal that she knew awaited her.
Diego Saez would want to take her to bed again.
And when he did she would be unable to stop her body responding to him, catching fire, igniting with the flame he lit in her.
And she knew it would be a torment that would be unbearable.
But she would have to bear it. That was the very, very worst of all.
Don’t think! Just don’t think.
She went on staring out of the darkened car window.
When they walked inside the hotel everything seemed very far away. Unreal.
The swoop of the lift as it bore them upwards hollowed her out.
Cocooned in her haze of champagne, she walked into the suite and halted. What did he want her to do? Go into her room? His?
She stood, waiting for instructions. The room seemed to be moving in and out.
‘Portia?’