Boy, it had riled him—she had seen that immediately. Trouble was...and now her expression changed yet again, to a mix of anger and something else quite entirely...he had had that comeback on her...
Right through her body she could feel the heat flush. It was running right through her—through every vein, right out to the tips of her fingers—as though someone has tipped hot water into her. And to her own mortification she even felt glorious heat pooling in her core, felt her breasts start to tingle with traitorous reaction.
Oh, damn! Damn, damn, damn!
Yet she couldn’t stop herself. Couldn’t stop the memory—instant, vivid and overpowering—of the way he’d looked at her. Looked right at her. Looked her over...
Meat, she said desperately to herself. As if you were a piece of meat—that’s how he looked at you. Just as you told him.
She fought to call back the burst of satisfaction she’d felt when she’d rapped that out at him, but it was impossible. All that was possible now was to go on feeling the wonderful flush of heat coursing through her. She fought it down as best she could, willing it to leave her—to leave her alone—just as she’d told him to go, just go away...
She shut her eyes, sighing heavily—hopelessly. OK—OK, she reasoned, so face it. However rude, arrogant and obnoxious he was, he was also—yup, she had to admit it—absolutely, totally and completely drop-dead devastating.
She’d registered it instantly—it would have been impossible not to—the minute she’d turned round with Joe’s sandwich to see just who it was who’d spoken to her in such a brusque, demanding fashion. Registered it, but had promptly busied herself in making Joe’s tea, pinning her eyes on pouring it out and ladling sugar into it the way Joe needed it.
But she’d been conscious of that first glimpse of Mr Drop-dead Devastating burning a hole in her retina—burning its way into her brain—so that all she’d wanted to do was lift her gaze and let it do what it had been trying to do with an urgency she still bewailed and berated.
Which was simply to stare and stare and stare...
At everything about him.
His height...his lean, fit body, sheathed in that hand-tailored suit that had fitted him like a glove, reaching across wide shoulders and moulding his broad chest just as the expanse of pristine white shirt had.
But it wasn’t his designer suit or even his lean physique that was dominating her senses now.
It was his eyes. Eyes that were night-dark and like tempered steel in a face that was constructed in some particular way that outdid every male she’d ever seen—on-screen or off. Chiselled jaw, strong nose, tough-looking cheekbones, winged brows and always, always, those ludicrously long-lashed, gold-flecked eyes that were lethal weapons entirely on their own.
That was what she’d wanted to gaze at, and that was what had been searing through her head all through their snarling exchange.
And then, as if a switch had been thrown, he’d suddenly changed the subject...
More heat coursed through her as the physical memory of how he’d looked at her hit her again. Turning the blatant focus of his male reaction on her like a laser beam. One that had burned right through her.
The slow wash of his gaze had poured over her like warm, molten honey—like a silken touch to her skin. It had felt as though he were caressing her, as if she could actually feel his hands shaping her body, his mouth lowering to hers to taste, to tease...to arouse.
All that in a single sensual glance...
And then, when she’d been helpless—pathetically, abjectly helpless—to do anything other than tell him—beg him—to leave, what had he done? He’d laughed! Laughed at her—knowing perfectly well how he’d got the better of her, how he’d made a cringing mockery of her defiance.
The colour in her cheeks turned to hectic spots as anger burned out that shaming blush he’d conjured in her.
Damn him!
Fuming, she went on staring blindly out through the shop door. She could no longer see him. With a final damning adjuration to herself to stop thinking of him, and everything about him, she whirled around to get on with her work.
Washing up had never been so noisy, nor slicing bread so vicious.
CHAPTER TWO
‘DID YOU HAVE those flowers delivered?’
It was the first question Nikos found himself asking as he returned to his London office after his meeting that afternoon. He did not doubt that his PA had complied, for she was efficiency itself—and she was used to despatching flowers to the numerous assorted females that featured in his life when he was in the UK.