“As you wish, Professor,” he said then.
He did not sound in the least compliant. His dark eyes shone with a potent mixture of amusement and triumph, hard and hot. It connected with her belly, her breath.
“Okay,” she said, while her heart did cartwheels in her chest and she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from him, no matter what. “Then I guess we have a deal.”
Ivan’s black eyes blazed.
And Miranda was left with the unsettling notion that she’d done exactly what he’d expected her to do. That he’d led her straight here and she’d walked directly into his trap.
As if he’d known precisely what she would do, what she would say, when she’d come to him tonight.
As if he’d planned it.
CHAPTER FOUR
IVAN insisted on starting this game of theirs immediately. And in Paris.
“That is unacceptable,” he’d told her that first night in Washington when Miranda had protested that she could simply meet him in a few days in Cannes, where, they’d agreed, they would use the annual film festival as an opportunity to show off their brand-new fake relationship. “We will go to Europe together, of course.”
He’d dismissed her protest with a certain casual ease and expectation of instant obedience that had knotted her stomach. Miranda had not cared for the uneasiness that had moved through her then, whispering suspicions she’d been afraid to look at too closely. What had she gotten herself into with this man? But she’d been afraid she knew.
“What do you plan to wear on the red carpet?” he’d asked in the same tone. He’d waved a hand dismissively over the tailored black trouser suit she wore that until that moment she’d thought was both professional and pretty. “This?”
Miranda had refused to curl up in humiliation, as she’d been fairly certain he’d intended she do. She’d wondered if that was what he was really after—if this was his revenge, to strip her down and try to embarrass her. If so, she’d thought, eyeing him across the coffee table, refusing to cower, he was in for a surprise. She’d survived far worse than this. She would survive him, too.
“I own dresses, thank you,” she’d informed him. Through her teeth. “I’ve even attended fancy events before, believe it or not.”
“This is not a negotiation, Professor,” Ivan had replied, still lounging there on that cream-and-gold sofa in that ostentatious hotel suite. His voice had been firm. “I have a reputation to uphold. A woman who appears on my arm must live up to certain expectations, a certain standard. We are not talking about a cocktail party filled with self-satisfied academics at your university or uppity Greenwich, Connecticut, yacht club members—we are talking about the world stage.”
She’d reminded herself then that she’d already hated him on principle alone for years, so it wasn’t as if there had been any further to fall.
“And on this world stage of yours, fashion is everything?” she’d asked, unable to keep the derision from her tone and not, she’d admitted to herself, trying too hard.
He’d only watched her, those impossibly dark eyes seeing far too much, brooding and amused at once.
“On my particular stage,” he’d replied, not quite mocking her, not quite putting her in whatever he thought her place was, she’d decided; not quite, “fashion is a statement of intent. A declaration of purpose. It is taken very seriously, like it or not.”
“Fine,” she’d said stiffly. She’d reminded herself of her greater goals, the plans she’d been so eager to put into action. The book she would write, exposing him, that would make all of these humiliations, large and small, worthwhile. That would allow her to continue reaching out to those, like her, who were tired of his brand of lauded violence. “If you want to throw your money around, that’s your prerogative.”
“Thank you,” Ivan had said in that too-dark voice of his. She’d had the wild notion that he knew the way that sardonic tone moved over her skin, into her flesh. The way it had teased at her, like the lick of a dark flame. His black gaze then had mocked them both. “I do so appreciate your permission.”