Closing the door in their faces, Hana exhaled, sagging against the door. But she could still smell the sweet scent of roses wafting through the air, messing with her mind. Her eyes narrowed. She started to reach for her cell phone, to call Antonio and tell him angrily what she thought of his ploy.
Then she stopped herself. That was just what he wanted. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction!
Hana paced the length of the hotel suite, trying not to think about him. She wouldn’t remember all the days they’d spent together, or the night he’d taken her virginity, or the fact that she carried his child inside her. She wouldn’t!
Two minutes later, the hotel suite’s doorbell rang.
“Oh, for the love of...” Choking back a curse, she looked through the peephole again. Her hands trembled as she opened the door.
Another line of hotel employees stood in the hallway, weighed down with chocolates and elegant treats with the distinctive wrapping of the finest candy boutiques in Tokyo. And the uniformed staff member at the back held a silver tray spread just with different Kit Kat flavors, the sakura with its wrapper of delicate pink blossoms, sweet potato, wasabi, green tea and other, even more exotic flavors that she knew from experience were notoriously hard to find, exclusive only to certain cities in Japan.
She ground her teeth. This was a low blow—he was perfectly aware she had a sweet tooth. Antonio knew just how to tempt her.
No! She wouldn’t give in to weakness!
“Take it all away,” she told the hotel staff firmly, and shut the door again.
Hana’s hands shook as she went to the low table that held a tray with a traditional tea service. She filled the kettle with water, waited, then poured hot steaming water into the delicate ceramic cup and placed herbal leaves to steep. She took deep breaths of the fragrant chamomile and tried to calm down. Peaceful, she told herself. The world is my oyster. He doesn’t exist.
Then she heard another loud knock.
Setting the cup down hard on the table, she stalked to her door. Opening it, she glared at the unfortunate hotel staff, all standing there sheepishly holding large black velvet boxes.
“What now?” she snapped.
“I’m sorry, Miss Everly,” the first one said unhappily, bowing, “but we were ordered to bring you this.”
Glancing at the others, he gave a signal. And all five of the uniformed staff opened their flat, wide black velvet boxes at once.
Hana almost screamed.
Five necklaces sparkled at her from black velvet, each more ridiculously over-the-top than the last, necklaces that must have cost many millions of yen, that would have made Marie Antoinette blush. Brilliant diamonds, as big as robin’s eggs, emeralds, sapphires, all gleamed and glistened and whispered wickedly sensual desires to her.
Against her will, she snapped back to the memory of Antonio’s husky voice when her body had been naked against his in the bedroom of his palacio.
“I’d like to see you in jewels,” he’d breathed, brushing back a long dark tendril of her hair, kissing down her collarbone. “Jewels and nothing else.”
But she hadn’t cared about jewels that night. Just having Antonio in her arms, after two years of helpless, hopeless desire, she’d felt like the world was exploding around her with passion and joy.
Did he really think she could be bought?
“Take them...away,” she croaked out to the hotel staff.
The employees looked at each other with wide eyes. “You don’t want these jewels, Miss Everly?” one ventured.
“No!” she nearly shouted. Closing the door, she sagged back against it. Why was Antonio doing this? To torture her? How dare he send her flowers, candy and jewels! Enough!
Stomping across the penthouse suite, she grabbed her cell phone from her purse. Turning it on, she dialed. She took a deep breath.
“Yes?” Antonio answered innocently on the second ring. His voice was calm, while her emotions felt like they were spiraling out of control. It enraged her further.
“Stop sending me gifts.”
“Yes, I heard you sent them all back.” He paused. “It surprised me that you resisted the candy.”
Her cheeks burned, as she remembered all the times over the last two years when he’d teased her about her love of chocolate. All the times she’d eaten candy in the middle of the night, as he had a glass of scotch—each of them picking their own particular poison as they worked long, laborious hours on various deals. But it wasn’t candy that was most forbidden. She could resist chocolate, if she needed to.
Antonio Delacruz was the most dangerous temptation. Definitely bad for her health.