His chest muscles tightened, recognising exactly the feeling behind the need to sit like that. Then he fixed his shoulders and strode further into the room, swinging the door shut behind him with enough force to make her hands drop away from her face.
She jumped to her feet, going from hopeless-looking to fierce in a second. ‘I thought I told you—’
He grabbed her and kissed her. Shock tactics were the only way to go with her right now. So his lips crushed hers to stop her from yelling at him, and his hands clasped her arms to stop her from hitting out. He could feel the need vibrating from every tensed nerve ending she possessed. But she still could not stop herself from kissing him back the way she always kissed him—hungrily, greedily, helplessly.
It was his only weapon—she could not stop herself from responding to him. By the time he’d allowed their mouths to separate, his own body was aching for more. And he thought about it. Enrico stood there in front of this angry-eyed, beautiful creature and seriously considered giving in to the temptation that was rattling around inside him and just tossing them both down onto the bed and wiping out the last hour doing what they did best!
But an image of the way Luca had done that to her three years ago put such a temptation to death and he released her.
‘You—you—’
‘Quit the incoherent rant, cara,’ he interrupted, moving away from
her. ‘I don’t have time for yet another round of fighting.’
He stopped in front of the tallboy with a bunch of keys in his hand which he used to unlock the top drawer and touched a switch inside. Above the tallboy, the framed portrait of a Georgian lady hanging on the wall sprang out to reveal a safe.
Freya released a gasp because she hadn’t known there was a safe hidden there! She watched Enrico remove a thick wad of paper money and a business folder, and something very close to alarm went chasing down her spine.
‘W-what are you doing?’ she asked warily.
He didn’t answer. He just flipped the safe door shut again with long fingers and relocked the drawer.
Unable to stop herself, she took a couple of steps towards him. ‘If—if that money is to pay off Luca then you’re wasting it,’ she advised him.
‘You prefer to jilt me at the altar?’
‘I prefer not to marry you at all!’
‘Tough.’ The money went into his pocket.
‘But—don’t you see?’ she insisted. ‘Whatever you do or whatever you say he can always make the same threats again! If you pay him for his silence, he will know he’s won himself a meal ticket for life! Listen to reason.’ She took another step towards him. ‘It’s bad what he can tell the Press. He doesn’t care if it hurts Nicky. He doesn’t care if most of what he says is lies! M-mud sticks, Enrico, and he wants—’
‘My head on a pole,’ Enrico finished for her with a nod of that dark head. ‘But you confuse me. When did I say that the money is for Luca?’
Freya glanced at the folder he held in his hand. ‘Th-that has his name written on it.’
Enrico looked down at the folder. ‘So it does,’ he agreed—then dared to look back at her and grin! ‘You know, cara, I had forgotten what fantastic eyesight you have. Maybe it’s the gorgeous green colour,’ he suggested, suddenly all agitating good humour. ‘I recall now how you used to read full-page documents upside down where they lay on someone’s desk and shock everyone with your knowledge. It was a great resource to have on my side when you worked with me. I missed it when it was gone.’
‘N-not so I noticed.’
‘Look at them,’ he said as he began walking towards her. ‘Green as emeralds and as sharp as diamonds…’
Freya started backing away.
‘Warm and sexily challenging,’ he continued. ‘So excitingly come-and-get-me, yet so defiantly touch-me-not cool…’
‘Y-you’re just changing the subject.’ The end of the bed suddenly made contact with the backs of her knees.
Enrico arrived a short breath away, his eyes glinting at her, and her insides decided to enjoy the squirt of excitement that had shot down her limbs.
She put a hand out to stop him from coming closer, then had to heave in a thick breath to calm her crazily beating heart.
Sex; it was always sex with him!
Why? she asked herself. Why did it have to happen only with him? He wasn’t her type—not really. He was too rich, too good-looking and way too charismatic for a poor and ordinary little nobody like her!
‘Look…’ she tried for a common sense tone ‘…if you will just listen to me you will see that this marriage thing is—’