He glanced at his watch, managing to look both impatient and bored in the same instant. ‘Is that all you have to say before you leave?’
‘No, as a matter of fact, it’s not. For as much as you might be able to dismiss me from your office and continue living in your precious little world of denial, you’re going to have to face the fact some time that your sister is all grown up now and she and Jake will soon be married, with or without your seal of approval—which I’m sure you appreciate, given Monica’s age, she doesn’t actually need.
‘Naturally, I don’t need to tell you that she’d be happier if you could dredge up some semblance of support for her at this, one of the most important times of her life, but the marriage is going to go ahead whether you like it or not. In which case, it might be better and easier for all concerned if you just accepted that fact now rather than fighting it, wouldn’t you say?’
She wanted to sag with relief after completing her impromptu speech, but there was no respite, not from the steel-like glare that held her pinned to the spot, nor from the fury drawing his features into a tight mask.
Beyond the glass walls of the office the sun continued to blaze in an azure sky. The diamond-flecked waves along the shore were studded with swimmers taking advantage of the warm winter sun, while inside the temperature had dropped below freezing.
Suddenly the door slammed shut with a crash that made the walls shudder and Sophie jump with them as Daniel stormed away along the length of the windows. Just as suddenly he stopped and turned, his hand slashing through the air. ‘I don’t have to accept anything! Not when there will be no wedding!’
‘You really think you can stop them?’ She dragged in a breath, shaking her head, realising that arguing was futile and that she would do better to try and persuade. ‘Look, Mr Caruana,’ she said, taking a tentative and what she hoped was a conciliatory step forward, ‘Monica and Jake are crazy about each other. You should see them together—this is a true love-match.’
His left palm cracked down so hard on his timber desk that she flinched. ‘She does not love that man!’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Don’t you think I know my sister? Monica likes to think she’s in love. She always has. She’s been in love with fairy tales for ever, in love with the idea of being in love, always waiting for a knight in shining armour to come riding over the hill and rescue her. But if there’s one thing my sister doesn’t need it’s rescuing. Not by anyone.’
No? With a brother like him, rescuing by a knight in shining armour sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea, if not a necessity. ‘I’m not actually talking fairy tales, Mr Caruana. I’m talking about love—deep, abiding love.’ She hesitated, wondering how far she could go before overstepping the mark from ‘cool and professional’ to tripping into ‘foot in mouth’ territory. Then she figured that, with all that had gone before, she was already there. ‘I gather from your reaction that you’re unfamiliar with the concept.’
The sudden tightness of flesh against cheek and jaw was his first response. ‘I’m talking reality!’ was his second, before he took to pacing again, eating up the floor in long, fluid strides. She would have liked to ignore him, but she was compelled to watch. Compelled to admire the big-cat-like grace and economy of his movements, even when anger seemed to be the prime motivator behind his motion.
Whoever his tailor was, he was a genius, she thought guiltily; there was no way he’d bought those trousers off the rack. The fabric moved over the tight musculature of his behind and thighs like it was part of his very flesh.
‘How much do you think my sister is worth?’ He wheeled around so suddenly she had to drag her eyes north, and her wayward thoughts with them. ‘How many millions?’
Sophie shrugged, struggling for nonchalance as she reined in thoughts that had no place in this confrontation. ‘And that’s relevant because?’ It seemed a fair question to her—she’d never given two thoughts to Monica’s wealth or otherwise—but it only appeared to make him madder.
‘Are you really that naïve, Miss Turner?’ Three long steps brought him closer—perilously closer. Now there was only a pace between them, and even that seemed shrunken and almost vibrating with tension, a tension that inexplicably made her breasts ache and her nipples harden. ‘Do you have any idea how many men have come sniffing after my sister, hoping to find a way to the Caruana fortune?’
She forced herself to concentrate on his words instead of the shimmering sensations of the flesh, kicking up her chin in a futile effort to appear taller, even though he had at least six inches on her five-foot-eight frame. ‘And you’d know that was their motive, because…?’