He walked towards her and for a moment Scarlet thought he was going to carry on past her and through the door, but her optimism proved premature. Instead of walking through the door he casually wrenched it from her grasp. It closed with a very decisive click.
‘I’m sorry if I alarmed you.’ He watched her rub her shoulder and the indentation between his brows deepened. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She looked from the closed door to the man—he was alarming her some more and also, much more disturbingly, he was exciting her. ‘And that would bother you?’ She delivered a brittle laugh. ‘Credit me with a little intelligence.’ Even if I’ve shown precious little of it to date. ‘You obviously get a kick out of bullying women. And you’re not sorry, so don’t say you are,’ she hissed furiously.
His eyes narrowed on her belligerent face. ‘You make it extremely difficult for a man to be sorry,’ he ground out grimly.
‘Yes, I know you don’t like me, which makes it even more difficult to imagine why you’d want to talk to me or what you’d want to say, and quite frankly I don’t want to know!’ she lied grandly as she opened the door again. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, it’s late and I’m busy.’
His even teeth flashed white in his dark face as a smile that had nothing whatsoever to do with humour formed on his sensual lips. ‘You won’t sleep tonight…’
Scarlet froze, her body stiffening as if in anticipation of a blow.
‘Curiosity killed the cat and you’re going to be wondering what I did it for,’ he warned. ‘Admit it, you will.’
Scarlet exhaled. She was light-headed with relief and willing to admit almost anything. For a split second she had jumped to the totally irrational conclusion that he possessed some insider knowledge of the dreams that had given her several nights of broken sleep recently.
Dark, erotic dreams.
Angie is always telling me I need to get out more—she’s right!
Was it possible that at some subconscious level she was as frustrated as her friend claimed? That could account for the dreams and the fact she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head.
‘I’ve told you, I’m busy,’ she repeated dismissively.
‘Well, you can tell him to clear off.’ His fine nostrils quivered in distaste. ‘I will not be dismissed.’
He might not know much about bringing up a child, but even he knew that a single mother with a series of boyfriends hardly provided the sort of stable background a child needed—his child needed.
She blinked, and tore her eyes from the nerve clenching spasmodically in the hollow of his lean cheek. This conversation was like walking in halfway through a film after the vital scene when the hero’s motivations had been explained.#p#????#e#
Roman would be the hero, of course; he had hero written all over him. She, on the other hand, would be one of the character actors, which would suit her—nobody remembered your name and you were always in work.
Fame was not something she craved.
Roman O’Hagan’s touch, however, was; you had to face your weaknesses if you were going to overcome them.
‘Him who?’ she enquired, still without the faintest idea what he was getting at.
He swallowed, the action causing the muscles in his brown throat to visibly ripple, and gave her a look of simmering hostility.
Scarlet heard a door in the hallway outside open and heard the distant murmur of voices.
‘Whoever you are so busy with,’ he elaborated, totally ignoring the warning hand she raised to her lips.
Scarlet, who didn’t want the world to know her business, closed the door. ‘Whoever?’
He shot her an impatient look and strode purposefully towards the bedroom door. Before Scarlet had any clue of his intention or could cry out in protest he yanked it open with such force it thudded loudly against the wall.
‘You can’t go in there!’
Ignoring her outraged yell, he stepped inside her bedroom. Breathless with anger, she brushed past him. ‘What the—?’ she began, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.
Roman O’Hagan is in my bedroom…talk about a reality-fantasy clash!
When Roman discovered no lover on the bed, but a neat pile of freshly laundered clothes on the bottom of a narrow single bed waiting to be put away, his sneering expression relaxed into bafflement.
‘Where is he?’
The fantasy version had not involved him growling at her contemptuously. She pulled back in alarm as her thoughts shifted in the dangerous direction of what he had done. It wasn’t soon enough to prevent a wave of warm, sexual lethargy working its way through her body.