‘I think your memory is playing tricks on you, pireni. There were some very memorable scenes in our film. Steamy too. Award-winning, even.’
‘For the best short film?’ she snapped.
‘I was thinking more hair and make-up,’ he said, his eyes glittering.
She couldn’t resist. ‘Yours or mine?’
‘Oh, definitely mine,’ he whipped back.
There was a silence, and then both of them started to laugh.
Prudence stopped and bit her lip. ‘Can’t we stop this—please, Laszlo?’ She saw the indecision on his face and for a moment she faltered, and then she said quickly, ‘It’s brutal. And senseless. We’re just going round and round in circles, and all this name-calling isn’t going to change the fact that your grandfather wants his collection catalogued and I’m here to do it. So let me do it, Laszlo: for him. For your grandfather.’
Their eyes locked: hers bright and desperate, his, dark and unreadable. She swallowed hard, trying to find the words to change his mind.
‘If I lose this contract you won’t just be punishing me,’ she said steadily. ‘Other people will suffer—people you’ve never met...people who’ve done you no harm.’
She held her breath and watched his face, trying not to let her desperation show.
‘Please, Laszlo. Please don’t make this personal. Just
let me do my job and then I’ll be out of your life for ever.’
There was a tense, expectant silence as he studied her face. She wanted this job, badly, and he wondered idly just how far she would go to get it back. Immediately prickling heat surged through him and his groin grew painfully hard. He gritted his teeth, shocked by the intensity of his body’s response.
It would be easy to give her a chance. His chest tightened painfully. But why should he? After all, she had never given their marriage a chance, had she? His face hardened. Did she really think that she could somehow emotionally blackmail him into forgetting the past and the harm she had done to him? And what about his family? What about their pain?
He remembered the long days and nights spent watching his grandmother’s health fade, the years spent living with the guilt of not having given her the great-grandchildren she’d so longed for.
Prudence held her breath, watching a sort of angry bewilderment fill his eyes. The tightness around her heart eased a little: maybe all was not lost yet.
‘Can’t we just forgive and forget?’ she said softly. He looked up and she hesitated. ‘Please, Laszlo. I don’t believe you really want to do this.’
His face was stiff with tension. Slowly he shook his head. ‘Then you clearly don’t know me at all, Prudence.’ His mouth was set in a grim line. ‘I want to let you stay. For my grandfather’s sake, you understand. But I can’t,’ he said simply. ‘You see, I’m half Kalderash Roma. We don’t forget or forgive.’
He paused and his voice, when he spoke again, was like the sound of a tomb sealing.
‘And you’re still fired.’
Prudence gazed at him in shock, her ragged breathing punctuating the silence in the room. A sense of impotent despair filled her and then something else: a hot and acrid frustration that burnt her stomach to ash.
‘I see. So it’s not your choice.’ Her hands curled into fists. ‘How convenient for you to be able to blame your stubbornness and your spite on genetics.’
His narrowed gaze held hers. ‘I’m not blaming genetics. I’m blaming you.’
‘But not yourself?’ She stared deep into his eyes. ‘Nothing is ever your fault, is it, Laszlo?’ she asked flatly. ‘You just saunter through life, expecting everyone around you to take responsibility for the nasty, boring bits.’ Smiling bitterly, she shook her head. ‘I thought husbands and wives were supposed to give and take. Not in our marriage, though!’
She tensed as he stepped towards her, his eyes suddenly gleaming like wet metal.
‘So now you’re my wife? Interesting! As my charms clearly weren’t sufficient to persuade you of that fact seven years ago, I can only imagine that my grandfather’s wealth is a more compelling reason for you to belatedly acknowledge our marriage.’
Prudence glared at him. ‘How dare you? I couldn’t care less about your grandfather’s wealth.’
‘Just about my poverty?’ he said bleakly.
‘No!’ Biting back the hundred and one caustic responses she might have made, she shook her head. ‘This isn’t about wealth or poverty. This is about what’s happening here and now. About how you’re prepared to make everyone suffer—me, Edmund and all the people who have worked so hard to make this happen.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘All because you’re so blinkered by your stupid male pride that won’t see sense!’
‘And you’re so blinkered you couldn’t see beyond my trailer to the people living inside,’ snarled Laszlo.