Ryzard Vrbancic had seen her, however, and she was still flopping like a fish out of water, gasping for air, waiting for the boot that would send her careening off the boat.
Everything in her cringed with a need to hide, but maybe seeing her again like this would repel him into moving along.
Yanking tight the tie on her robe, she marched to the open French doors and said, “I’m not interested in any offers from you. Please leave.”
“I thought you were dressing,” he remarked, squeezing fresh lemon across raw oysters in their half shell. They were arranged on a silver tray of ice. Next to them sat a tapas platter of fritters, flatbread, shredded meat, guacamole, salsa and something that looked like burritos but they were wrapped in a type of leaf.
Her stomach growled. She tried to cover the sound with her hand, but he’d heard.
“You’re hungry. Eat,” he urged magnanimously. As if he wasn’t trespassing in her room.
“I prefer to eat alone.” She indicated the door, not subtle at all.
He picked up an oyster and eyed her as he slurped it into his mouth, chewed briefly, then swallowed. Raw oysters were supposed to be an aphrodisiac. She’d always thought they were disgusting, but what he’d just done had been the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. She followed the lick of his tongue across his lips, and a wobbly sensation accosted her insides.
Reacting to him made staring him down even more difficult than it already was, but she held his gaze, inner confidence trembling as she waited for another flinch to overtake him like the one this morning. His expression never wavered, though. He let his gaze slide to her scarred cheek, but then it went south into her cleavage, where the swells of her breasts peeped from between her lapels. His perusal continued over her hips, lingered on the dangling ends of her belt and ended at her shins, one white, one mottled.
Involuntarily, her toes curled as she reacted to his masculine assessment. She couldn’t tell if she was passing muster or being found wanting. She told herself it didn’t matter, that she didn’t want his approval or any man’s, but in her heart she yearned for a hint of admiration.
He pulled out a chair. “Sit down.”
Swallowing, telling herself to keep a straight head, she deliberately provoked a reaction to her flaws by saying, “I’m not supposed to go in the sun.”
He shrugged off the protest. “It will set in twenty minutes.”
“Look, I’m running out of ways to tell you to get lost without pulling out the big one. I don’t want anything to do with you. I was against giving you that letter in the first place, and I’m sorry I came here at all. We won’t work for you.”
He finished another oyster, but she had his full attention. She could feel it. When his tongue cleaned his lips, she imagined he was licking her all over.
Ignore it, she chided herself.
“Why?” he asked.
Why what? Her brain had lost the plot, but she quickly picked it up, reminding herself of his flaws.
“Because I don’t like your methods. You’re no better than the criminal you replaced.”
“I’m a lot better than the criminal I replaced. Check my human-rights record,” he growled while a flush of insult rose to his cheeks.
It was enough antagonism to give her pause and make her reconsider deliberately riling him, but despite how much she hated herself for having sex with him, she was still aware of a pull. She desperately needed to cut him down and out.
“You’re living pretty large while your countrymen starve. How many people died so you could eat raw oysters and watch the sun set?”
“You know nothing about what I’ve lost so my people can eat,” he said in a lethal tone.
As he spoke, he turned aside to toss his empty shell on the cart, but she glimpsed such incredible pain she caught her breath against an answering stab of anguish. She quickly muffled it, but something in her wavered. Was she misjudging him?
She shook off the thought, scoffing, “Did I strike a nerve? Do you not like having your repulsive side exposed?”
He shot her a fierce look and she thought, Shut up, Tiffany.
“You’re acting out of bitterness, and it’s not with me. We promised not to be cruel.”
That gave her a niggle of guilt, which she didn’t like at all. She looked at her perfectly manicured nails.
“You might have promised,” she said haughtily. “I didn’t.”
“You like to deliberately hurt people? You do have an ugly side.”
That lifted her gaze, and his expression made her heart tremor where it clogged the base of her throat. He had very patrician features. Very proud and strong. Right now they were filled with contempt.
Shame lunged in her. She might have been spoiled and self-involved, but she never used to be mean. But she was angry. So angry. And there was no one to take it out on. She had to look away from the expression that demanded she apologize.
She wavered, uncertain of her footing, but she had enough unscrambled brain cells to remember he was a dictator, not some do-good pastor.
“What do you expect, a welcome mat?” she hazarded, tucking her fists behind her upper arms, affecting a bravado she didn’t feel. “You’ve invaded my territory—”
“You’re not angry I’m here. You’re angry you had to face the man you made love to last night. That I saw your secret. You’re not repulsive, Tiffany.”
“As I said, you’re stepping into places you haven’t been invited.”
“I was invited.” He picked up an oyster, and his tongue curled to chase and catch the slippery flesh before he pulled the morsel into his mouth.
Inner muscles that were still vaguely tender from their lovemaking clenched involuntarily, sending a shimmer of pleasure upward to her navel and down the insides of her thighs.
When he took a step toward her, she took a hasty one back, bumping into the rail of the balcony.
He raised his brows as he pulled out her chair another inch, reading way too clearly what kind of nervousness she’d just revealed.
“I want you to leave,” she insisted.
“We’ll clear the air first.”
She almost mumbled an adolescent, I don’t want to clear the air. Because she didn’t. She wanted to hit and bite and push away.
She wanted to be left alone to die of loneliness.
Oh, don’t be such a baby, Tiffany.
It was true, though. She was like a wounded animal that snarled at anyone who tried to help it. It was the source of the horrible tension with her family. They didn’t know what to do with this new Tiffany who hated her life and everything in it.
She glared at Ryzard, loathing him for being the man to show her how twisted she’d become. He’d caught her in a moment of terrible weakness last night, playing pretend that she was normal. He’d sliced past the emotional scar tissue she’d grown, and he seemed to still be doing it. That made him dangerous.
“The sun is about to set. It won’t hurt you to be out here,” he said.
She whipped around to see how close it was to the horizon. She hadn’t been in the sun for more than a handful of steps between a house and car in two years. As she stepped into its rays, the heat on her face felt good. The fading red ball filled her with rapture as it lowered toward the sea.
Holding her breath, she strained her ears.
The band started below, making her slap a hand on the rail in disappointment. “I wanted to hear it!”
“Hear what?” he asked, standing next to her.
“When the sun touches the water.”
He gave her a skeptical look that said, Aren’t you a bit old for that?
She turned away, hiding that yes, she clung to certain childish fantasies that reminded her of easier, simpler times. Being lighthearted and silly didn’t come naturally to her anymore, and she desperately longed to find that part of herself again. Tiny moments of happiness were like bread crumbs, hopefully leading her back to a place of acceptance. Maybe even contentment.
“You’re really quite sensitive, aren’t you?” he mused.
“No.”
“And contrary.” He waved at the chair he’d pulled out for her. “I have some questions for you. They’re important. Sit.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“No, you’re as aloof and touchy as a wet cat. The purring version is worth all the scratching and hissing, though.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” she rushed to state, unnerved by the suggestiveness in his remark.
“We won’t. Not yet,” he agreed, and his touch on her shoulder nudged her to sit.
She did, mainly to avoid the way the light contact of his hand made her stomach dip in excitement, and partly because her mother was lecturing her in her head. The members of their family, in all their greatness, were ambassadors, obligated to set an example of good manners and rising above the unpleasant. Such an annoying legacy.
She was also starving. Taking care of herself had become a habit through her recovery. Good food was one of her few real pleasures these days, and this stuff looked awesome.