'Decent men don't pick up women.' she bit out, amazed at his effrontery in asking so many personal questions.
'By the same token decent women don't allow themselves to be picked up,' Luke retorted dryly. 'So that makes us two of a kind, wouldn't you say?'
Jemma blushed at his insulting comment. 'I would prefer not to say anything to you at all,' she shot back, but she could not deny his reasoning.
'Unfortunately that's not an option; I have no intention of leaving here until I discover what made you sleep with me—other than my undoubted charm, of course,' he said with a grin. 'As I recall you came into my arms and my bed willingly, and what followed was a wildly passionate and mutually satisfying encounter for both of us. I've rarely met a more compatible woman in the bedroom, so why the lies about your name, your married status?'
There was a long silence as they stared at each other, the air in the room heavy with the tension of two people who had shared a brief, fiercely physical episode. Jemma was trying her best to forget it had ever happened, even as an unwanted heat surged under every inch of her skin at the memory. As for being compatible with him on any level, her heart shrank at the notion, and she tore her gaze from his to focus on the window behind him, the evening sun streaming through the glass panes blinding her for a moment.
Jemma blinked; she had absolutely nothing in common with a super-rich sophisticated giant of the financial world like Luke Devetzi. Hers had been a typical middle class upbringing, comfortably provided for by a small family business. It was only after her father had married again that the house she had known as home all her life had been traded in for the lavish house in Connaught Square, at her stepmother's instigation, and that the company had expanded in leaps and bounds and the family had become very wealthy, according to her dad. Not that Jemma had noticed—she worked for her living.
'I asked you a question,' Luke prompted sharply. He could tell by the expression on her beautiful face that her thoughts had drifted away from him, and he didn't like it at all… 'Why did you lie?'
The demand in his deep voice finally captured Jemma's attention. Thinking about the past was not helping her present situation, she realized, and her own common sense told her Luke was never going to let her forget or leave her alone until he had an explanation.
Rising slowly to her feet, she glanced down at him. 'Okay, I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you what you want to know.' Her own innate honesty urged her to tell him the truth and shame the devil, and finally draw a line under the horrendous event once and for all. 'But you have to promise to leave and never bother me again—no more excuses.'
'Fair enough,' Luke agreed smoothly.
She wasn't convinced his word could be trusted, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt—mainly because she could see no other way of getting rid of him. Jemma walked across the room and picked up her favourite picture of Alan from the console table, then returned to her seat on the sofa. She looked at the photo for a while, and then, lifting her head, saw Luke had leant back on the sofa again and was watching her with hard, intelligent eyes.
'The day I met you would have been my fourth wedding anniversary,' she said flatly. She saw him grimace and knew she had scored a hit. 'But it wasn't just that. It was a culmination of…' she paused for a moment '…disasters, if you like. I had arrived on Zante two weeks earlier with my aunt, at her insistence; it was the first time I had visited the island, and in fact I didn't even know Aunt Mary had a home there. For various reasons she wanted me to go with her—the main one being she'd been told a month earlier she had a very limited time left to live. Naturally I was upset, and as it happened she died a few months later from asbestosis.'
Jemma drifted from the point, her amber eyes darkening with remembered sorrow. 'Odd, but I'd always thought of asbestosis as an industrial disease only afflicting men. But Aunt Mary reckoned she probably contracted it working in laboratories decades ago, where the perceived form of protection against fire was asbestos lining in the ceilings and walls. Anyway, it wasn't the happiest of holidays,' she continued, 'but we did try to enjoy ourselves, and I built her the rockery she had always wanted. In the process I dropped a stone on my hand. Three of my fingers were badly swollen, and my wedding ring had to be cut off.' She looked at Luke, her expressive face bleak. 'I took it to a shop in the town to be repaired, and when I met you I had just retrieved it from the jewellers. I had tried to put it back on in the shop, but my finger was still a little swollen. You wouldn't understand, having never been married, but I was upset.
'I don't usually drink, but I ordered a glass of wine from the bar while I waited for the local bus and the waiter brought a carafe instead. I had a couple of glasses, maybe more, and I was thinking about Alan and our wedding day when the accident with the wine happened and you appeared.' She stopped and, leaning forward, she very deliberately offered him the photo. 'Take a look.' He took it from her outstretched hand without comment.
'That's my favourite photo of Alan, and when I looked up into your eyes that day—so blue and so concerned, just like Alan's—and you asked me my name, in my befuddled state I said Mimie, because that was what Alan always called me. Then in a daze of sadness and confusion I simply followed where you led. I admit I behaved badly, and by the time I came to my senses I was horrified. Perhaps it was the reflection of the water or something.' A puzzled frown briefly marred her smooth brow. 'Because actually your eyes are nothing like Alan's—yours are grey, like granite,' she said with a glance at him. Seeing the thunderous frown on his face, she realised she was digressing. 'Anyway, I dashed into the bathroom, got dressed, and forced my ring back on my finger. You know the rest.'
'My God!' Luke exclaimed, white hot fury engulfing him. To hear this woman he had made love to say she had been horrified afterwards was bad enough, but as for the rest…! 'You expect me to believe you slept with me because I reminded you of your husband?' he demanded scathingly. And, dropping the picture, he leapt to his feet and crossed the space dividing them. 'I look nothing like the man,' he snarled.
He had never been so insulted in his life, and he was damned if he was going to let Jemma get away with such a damaging blow to his pride. Angrily he studied her, his eyes raking over her body. The cotton top she was wearing was pulled tight across her high, firm breasts as she perched on the edge of the sofa, her hands clenched into the soft fabric either side of her like some exotic bird ready for flight.
Shocked by the extent of his fury, Jemma saw the dark flush across his high cheekbones, the icy glitter in his eyes, and too late realised it had probably not been the best idea in the world to tell such an arrogant man the truth.
A man with an ego the size of Luke Devetzi's wasn't exactly going to be pleased to discover he had been used as a stand-in for another man. It was ironic, in a way, and the briefest of dry smiles curved her lips as she recalled Jan telling her how Luke was renowned for using women. But, discretion being the better part of valour, Jemma didn't voice her thoughts; instead she slipped along the sofa and stood up, as far away from him as she could get. 'I didn't say you looked like him. I said your eyes appeared blue—a trick of the light.' She attempted to mollify him. 'But it's not important now, because you promised to leave me alone if I told you the truth, and I have.' As far as Jemma was concerned she had kept her part of the deal and she wanted him gone.
'Oh, I'm leaving all right.' Luke stepped towards her, and for a moment Jemma thought her ordeal was over and he was going. 'But first I'm going to prove to you that you're fooling no one but yourself.' And before she could react to his outrageous statement, he reached for her and pulled her against his hard body, his sensuous mouth capturing hers with punishing ferocity.
CHAPTER FOUR
For a heartbeat she was frozen in shock as he tried to force her lips apart. But only for a heartbeat. Not again, Jemma vowed, incandescent with rage at his caveman tactics and his total disregard of his promise to leave. Curling her hand into a fist, she lashed out at him and brought her knee up hard, aiming for the most vulnerable part of the man. With lightening reflexes he jerked away. But, caught off balance, he
fell back and took her with him and they landed in a tangled heap on the sofa.
Winded, and before she knew what had happened, Jemma was flat on her back, with the weight of his body pinning her down. She tried to lash out at him again, but he caught her hands and secured them firmly above her head with one of his.
'Oh, no, you don't,' he grated. 'I won't tolerate violence from anyone, and certainly not from a she-devil like you.'
'What do you call this, then?' she cried, trying to wriggle from beneath him. But in reaction to her movement she felt the hardening potency of his masculine arousal against her thigh and realised her mistake. The last thing she needed was a rampant, raging Luke—the heat that suffused her own body she put down to temper.
His hard mouth curved in a lethal smile. 'A lesson in how to greet your lover,' he rasped, and she knew he was going to kiss her. She whipped her head to one side to avoid him, and his mouth closed over the rapidly beating pulse in her neck. She gasped as his firm lips trailed up to her ear. Blowing gently, he added, 'Because, however much you wish it wasn't true, I am your last lover. Not your long-dead husband.
Fury at his comment battled with a rising tide of excitement that she fought to control. She wanted to deny him, but the warmth of his breath in her ear, the familiar male scent of him, the weight of his body on hers, evoked a multitude of memories she had sternly suppressed.
With finger and thumb Luke grasped her chin and turned her face to his. 'You know I'm right,' he murmured, and his teeth nipped at her lower lip, demanding that she give him access and abandon herself to the sensual awareness that had simmered beneath the surface between them ever since they had met again last night.
Later she would realise just how cunning he had been, but now, as he stroked his tongue gently across her lips, she ached to give in to his erotic demand and lose herself in the heady pleasure of his kiss. Still she tried to resist the shattering sexual impact of his mouth, teasing and tasting hers, and she might have succeeded if he had remained forcible, but he was too experienced a lover to be so crass. And when his hand dropped from her chin to slip up beneath her cotton top and cup one firm breast, an arrow of excitement shot from her breast to her groin.