‘A great deal of cash for a single transaction.’ She was proud of the fact that her voice didn’t falter.
‘Don’t you consider yourself worth it?’ he asked silkily.
‘Every cent,’ she said, folding the cheque and meticulously creasing the edge before folding it again.
‘Consider it in the light of a retainer.’ His deep voice was taut with anticipation as his hooded eyes feasted on the jerky movements of her gloved fingers, waiting for her to contemptuously tear the folded square into tiny pieces. ‘Naturally I’ll expect to command your exclusive services. I have numerous overseas clients who like to be entertained in style while they’re in town, men who prefer a more intelligent, sophisticated companion than is usually supplied by the local escort agencies...’
Jane’s fingers tightened involuntarily on the cheque and she saw the infinitesimal muscular shift in Ryan’s body as he braced himself for an explosion.
Instead, she tapped the slim column of paper against her lips, then smiled sweetly as she trailed it down her throat and tucked it into the scooped neck of her dress, where it nestled securely in the lacy cleavage of her bra. Then she put her elbows on the table and leaned forward to enjoy the fruits of her pre-emptive strike, laughing huskily into the congealing triumph on Ryan Blair’s face.
‘Why, thank you, Ryan, the money will definitely come in handy...but I hope you don’t mind if I think over that exclusivity clause? I don’t like to close down my options before I thoroughly investigate the market.’
For a moment he didn’t move, then the full realisation that she was calling his cruel bluff detonated in his consciousness.
‘You don’t mean that,’ he said hoarsely, his eyes lowering to the spot where the cheque had disappeared.
‘Don’t I?’ She flipped her hair back over her shoulder with a carelessly provocative gesture, fired with a wild glee. He was about to find out that she could bluff as well as he—and better! ‘Why not? I’m desperate and, as you pointed out, desperate people take risks that they normally wouldn’t even consider taking...’
His black-browed scowl betrayed his thwarted frustration. Muscles flickered in his hard jaw and she could almost hear his teeth grinding. Oh, yes, revenge was indeed sweet! thought Jane dizzily. No wonder Ryan had pursued it with such relentless fervour...
‘What happened to the famed Sherwood pride?’ he sneered. ‘What would Daddy say if he knew his little girl was doing business on her back?’
Jane wondered why his insults persistently nagged on the paternal theme. Did he imagine he was trampling on sacred memories? She had no illusions about her father’s business morality—and, far from being his protected ‘little girl’, she had been toughened fast and early by his insensitivity and rigid expectations. He had seen nothing wrong with accepting dates on Jane’s behalf from men whom he shrewdly judged might be useful to him—which made Ryan’s choice of humiliation rather ironic.
Maybe his taunts were more revealing of the vulnerabilities in his own background!
‘I wonder what your father would say if he knew you’d turned into a pimp!’ she flashed back.
Dark colour flooded his hard face. ‘My father was killed twenty years ago,’ he grated.
Curious at the lingering intensity of grief in his voice, Jane felt a pang of shame. ‘I’m sorry...was it an accident?’
‘No.’ His denial held a wealth of repressed anger that sent a prickle down her spine.
‘He was murdered?’ She was jolted by the idea of anyone daring to deprive Ryan Blair of anything that was rightfully his. He would have been at a vulnerable age for a boy—just entering his teens. It was difficult to visualise him as a child but she imagined he had been aggressive even then, a dark, intense little boy with a fiercely possessive streak.
Jane’s hand crept unconsciously to her breast, flattening over the small, prickly piece of paper that now felt the size and weight of a boulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated nervously as the silence stretched. ‘It must have been a difficult time for you...’
Ryan’s raw laugh of contempt made her regret her momentary display of compassion. Like her father, he obviously viewed it as a weakness to be turned against her.
‘Still, maybe it explains what a bastard you turned out to be,’ she rallied spitefully. ‘Your mother obviously couldn’t teach you any manners. I bet you were a hellion as a teenager.’
He bared his teeth. ‘I still am, sweetheart. And let’s leave my mother out of this...she’s no part of our fight.’
Fortunately by this time Jane was feeling no pain whatsoever, and she was able to ignore the pressure on her injury and bat her long, mascaraed eyelashes at him, her eyes bright with reckless exhilaration.
‘Are we fighting?’ she said with honeyed innocence. ‘I thought this was the way you always conducted your business...you know—threats, insults, physical maulings...’
His temper was momentarily leavened by a flicker of admiration at her sheer audacity.
‘You want to be mauled, sweetheart, you’re going the right way about it.’ He lifted her hand in a parody of politeness and took a stinging nip out of her wrist, just below the ruffled edge of her glove.
‘You just can’t bear to lose, can you?’ she hissed as a fierce tingle shot up her arm and radiated down over her breasts, drenching her with a hateful awareness. ‘And stop calling me sweetheart.’
‘Just getting you in the mood.’ His hard glance shafted over her shoulder. ‘Dan’s on his way back to the table and he’s the one who’ll be doing the mauling. I hope you’re ready to earn your money because I understand he prefers his sex rough... He may like you to be a lady at the table but it’s a slut he wants in bed.’
His bluff had failed, so now he was trying to frighten her into giving his ten thousand dollars back.