‘The knee is fine so long as I pace myself,’ she answered coolly.
He ignored what she had said. ‘All night serving behind a bar. All day working behind a reception desk. It’s no wonder you look so worn out.’
Her chin came up, green eyes beginning to burn with resentment. ‘I have to eat, like anyone else.’ She said it almost accusingly. He noted it with a sudden darkening of the eyes. ‘And I liked my job,’ she added. ‘I will always be grateful to the manager of the Tremount for taking me on, considering how—worn out I look and how many hours I had to take off to attend the necessary hospital appointments. He was good to me.’
He rejected all of that deridingly. ‘You were good to him, you mean. Neither of you knew it, but he was lucky enough to acquire one of the most experienced hotel executives in the game when he took you on.’
She was surprised to hear him say that—yet not surprised when she considered how naturally she had seemed to fall into hotel routine. It probably should have occurred to her sooner that she might have worked in the trade before.
‘And the need to worry about where your next meal is coming from,’ he went on flatly as he levered himself away from the door, ‘is now well and truly over.’ He eyed her critically. ‘And priority number one, once I’ve dealt with this bit of—business, is to get you fitted out with some decent clothes. You’re used to luxury, not tat, Samantha,’ he said.
‘Anything else about me which doesn’t meet with your approval?’ she mocked, stung.
‘Yes.’ His eyes began to glint. ‘The way you’re wearing your hair. It makes you look like a toffee-nosed prude when I know for a fact you’re an absolute witch. It isn’t fair to give wrong impressions about oneself to others. It means they fall into nasty little traps they can’t get out of.’
‘Is all of that supposed to imply something specific?’ she demanded, stiffen
ing at his criticism.
‘Of course,’ he drawled. ‘But that’s for me to keep to myself and you to find out for yourself.’ Then he straightened. ‘Now I’m off,’ he announced. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I—’
‘You said I don’t have to worry about eating again,’ she cut in, anger simmering nicely now. ‘Does that mean I have you to rely on for food, or do I have money of my own stashed away somewhere?’
‘You have a very healthy bank account,’ he informed her, naming one of the big high street banks.
‘So all I have to do is walk into one of the branches and prove who I am to get at my own money?’ He confirmed it. She smiled. ‘Then, watch out, signore,’ she responded—acid-sweet. ‘Because if I am the witch you call me, I may just decide to disappear on you for a second time. I wonder if you’ll experience a sense of déjàvu if I do?’
He was standing in front of her before the last word had trailed into taunting silence. ‘Just try it.’ He growled. ‘And this time I promise you I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to!’
She defied the warning burning in his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you the first time?’
‘Where is your evidence to say that I didn’t?’ He challenged her right back.
‘You were out of this country barely a month after I disappeared; that says a lot, don’t you think?’
‘I was out of the country. Yes,’ he hissed back at her. ‘But why I was out of the country is just one more question you’re going to have to search that—’ reaching up he pressed a fingertip to her temple ‘—closed mind of yours to find the answer to.’
Her reaction managed to shock the pair of them. She shrank back from him so urgently that she almost toppled over. ‘What was that for?’ He snarled, automatically reaching out to steady her.
Once again she pulled away. ‘I h-hate it when you touch me,’ she choked with an awful little shudder.
His eyes went black, a furious anger suddenly flaring on the sting of her insult. ‘Hate?’ He flicked the word at her in a thin silken tone that had her throat closing over. ‘Well, let’s just try this as a little exercise to test the strength of this so called hatred—’
And the next thing she knew she was being held fast by a pair of angry hands and his mouth was against her mouth. Her senses went into a complete tail-spin, sending shock waves ricocheting through her body as the most horrendous feeling of familiarity completely overwhelmed her.
She knew this mouth. She knew its feel and its shape and its sensual mobility as it coaxed her own mouth to respond. His tongue ran a caress along the line of her tightly closed lips and she recognised the light, moist gesture as his way of making her open up and welcome him.
But, worse than that, she wanted to. She wanted to respond so much that she began to whimper, having to fight herself as well as the kiss as sensation after frighteningly familiar sensation went clamouring through her system. Heat began to pool deep down in her abdomen, desire licked a taunting flick across her breasts.
It was too much. She couldn’t bear it.
Her stick hit the balcony floor with a hard clatter as her hands snapped up to push him away. But they didn’t push, they clung to his shoulders. And she was being assailed by yet more hot waves of familiarity. She knew his height against her own height. She knew his width and the superior power in his much stronger body.
And she knew the pleasure in feeling small and frail and oh, so feminine when held against him like this.
Maybe he sensed it. Maybe he was reading her body language. Because his hands shifted from her shoulders and began to smooth their way down her back to her slender waist. She groaned as he drew her hard up against him because—God help her—she let him do it.
Let his lips crush her own apart and let their tongues make contact and let him taste her and simply surrendered the battle to this hot and seductive taste of passion.