Suddenly her heart was beating like a drum and she found herself babbling. ‘It’s been seven years, Laszlo. Our lives have moved on. We just need to tie up all the loose ends.’
It was the wrong thing to say. She watched his shoulders stiffen with a tension that thinned the air between them.
‘Is that what I am?’ he said, his gaze probing her face with such fierce intensity that suddenly she was holding her breath. ‘A loose end?’
She ignored his question. ‘I don’t want this hanging over me. Without a divorce we’ll both be trapped by something neither of us wants any more. I want my freedom.’
‘Freedom?’ Laszlo demanded.
She flushed. ‘I want closure. I want to move on,’ she said urgently.
‘You want to move on...’ Laszlo lifted his eyebrows. He looked at her impassively but there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.
‘Stop repeating everything I say! Yes, I want to move on.’ Prudence jerked her chin up. ‘I have a career now. And if I meet someone...’
Suddenly he was no longer coolly aloof but intent and alert.
‘Did you have a particular someone in mind?’
He spoke softly—courteously, even—but there was no mistaking the hostility and challenge in his voice.
Prudence stared at him, transfixed. ‘No. I don’t. Not that it’s any concern of yours.’
His eyes clashed with hers and she tensed in their glare.
‘No concern of mine? And how do you come to that conclusion, pireni?’
‘Easily,’ she said irritably. ‘We haven’t seen or spoken to one another for seven years. We have no claim on each other whatsoever.’
Laszlo’s eyes lifted to hers and with shock she saw passion and possession in their burnished depths. ‘And yet here you are: my wife.’
Heat rose up round her neck, coiling tendrils over her face and throat.
Shaking her head, she took a small, hurried step back from the intensity of his eyes.
‘You know what? Forget it! Let’s just leave it to the lawyers.’
Her heart was thumping and her palms felt suddenly damp as he shook his head slowly.
‘I don’t believe in divorce.’
She stared at him in silence, her skin prickling beneath his gaze. ‘So what are you saying?’ Her voice rose. ‘That we carry on as though none of this happened?’ It was her turn to shake her head. ‘Laszlo, that’s insane! Why on earth would you want to do that? You don’t even like me.’ She paused, her colour rising betrayingly. ‘And I certainly don’t like you!’
‘Is that right?’
He gave her an infuriating smile and she gritted her teeth together.
‘Yes, it is. It’s been a long time since I’ve been susceptible to your charms.’
Her pulse twitched at the lie and she had to clench her hands to stop them covering the tips of her breasts, which were pushing treacherously against the thin fabric of her blouse.
‘Are you sure about that?’ he whispered.
Transfixed, Prudence caught her breath. Her skin was taut and tingling, as though a storm was about to break, and as his eyes travelled questioningly over her trembling body she felt a slow, rippling swell of tension rise up inside her. He stepped towards her and her stomach plummeted. She knew she should protest, or push him away, and she opened her mouth. But no words came, for something in his gaze had drained the last atom of resistance from her.
‘Let’s just see, shall we?’ he murmured softly.
Imprisoned by a hope, a longing she knew she should resist, she felt her body melt as he brought his lips down on hers with a fierce urgency. And then there was no one but him, his insistent mouth on hers, and a swimming giddiness tugging her down into darkness.