Tall, Dark & Rich: His Christmas Virgin / Married by Christmas / A Yuletide Seduction. Carole Mortimer

was far too physically aware of this woman already; he didn’t need to feel any more so. In fact, he was somewhat relieved when the waiter chose that moment to deliver their first course to them.

      What the hell had he been doing, all but suggesting that Mac ask him out on a date this evening? Meeting her for lunch was bad enough, without prolonging the time he had to spend in her disturbing company. In future, Jonas decided darkly, he would just stick to taking out his usual beautiful and sophisticated blondes!

      ‘The reviews of your exhibition in Sunday’s newspapers were good,’ he abruptly changed the subject.

      She nodded. ‘Your cousin was especially kind.’

      ‘Amy is a complete professional; if she says you’re good, then you’re good,’ Jonas said.

      ‘I went to the gallery after seeing you this morning. It seems to be pretty busy,’ Mac told him distractedly, still slightly reeling from what she was pretty sure had been an invitation on Jonas’s part for them to spend the evening together too. An offer he had obviously instantly regretted making.

      Which was just as well considering Mac would have had to refuse the invitation! Going to his office was one thing. Having lunch with Jonas so that they could discuss what was going on with her warehouse was also acceptable. Going out on a proper date with him was something else entirely…

      In spite of the fact that Jonas Buchanan was so obviously a devastatingly attractive man, he simply wasn’t Mac’s type. He was far too arrogant. At least as arrogant, if not more so, as Thomas Connelly, the art critic who had considered her nothing but a trophy to parade on his arm six years ago.

      She picked up her fork to deliberately spear one of the succulent prawns swimming in garlic, before raising it to her mouth and popping it between her lips. Only to glance across the table at the exact moment she did so, her cheeks heating with flaming wings of colour as she saw the intensity with which Jonas was watching the movement.

      Dark and mesmerising, his eyes had become a deep and cobalt blue. There was a slight flush to his cheeks too, and those sculptured lips were slightly parted.

      Mac shifted uncomfortably. ‘Would you like to try one?’

      That dark gaze lifted up to hers. ‘What?’

      She swallowed hard, feeling strangely alone with Jonas in this crowded and happily noisy restaurant. ‘You seemed to be coveting my garlic prawns, so I was offering to let you try one…’

      Damn it, Jonas hadn’t been coveting the prawns on Mac’s plate—he had been imagining lying back and having those full and red lips placed about a certain part of his anatomy as she pleasured him!

      What the hell was the matter with him?

      In the last fifteen years he had never once mixed business with pleasure. Had always kept the two firmly separate. Since meeting Mac he seemed to have done nothing else but confuse the two, with the result that he was now once again fully aroused beneath the cover of the chequered tablecloth. Hopefully there would be no reason for him to stand up in the next few minutes or his arousal would be well and truly exposed!

      ‘No, thank you,’ he refused quickly. ‘I would prefer not to smell of garlic during any of my business meetings later this afternoon.’

      Mac gave an unconcerned shrug of her shoulders. ‘Please yourself.’

      ‘I usually do,’ Jonas said dryly.

      ‘Lucky you,’ she said.

      Jonas considered Mac through narrowed lids. ‘Are you saying that you don’t?’ he taunted. ‘I thought all artists preferred to be free spirits? In relationships as well as their art?’

      Mac didn’t miss the contempt in his tone. Or the underlying implication that, as an artist, she probably slept around.

      It would have been amusing if it weren’t so obvious that Jonas had once again meant to be insulting!

      Oh, Mac had lots of friends, male as well as female, both from school and university, but that didn’t mean she went to bed with any of them. That she had ever been intimately involved with anyone, in fact.

      After that fiasco with Thomas, Mac had become completely focused on what she wanted to do with her life. Which was to be successful as an artist in her own right.

      From the time she was twelve years old, and her art teacher had allowed her to paint with oils on canvas for the first time, Mac had known exactly what she wanted, and that was to become a successful artist first, with marriage and children second. She had become slightly sidetracked from that ambition during that brief relationship with Thomas, but if anything the realisation of his arrogance and condescension had only increased that ambition.

      ‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the ladies’ room.’ She placed her napkin on the table before pushing back her chair and standing up.

      Jonas raised dark brows. ‘Was it something I said?’

      Mac frowned down at him. ‘That necessitates my needing to go to the ladies’ room?’ she drawled derisively. ‘Hardly!’

      Nevertheless, Jonas was left sitting alone at the table feeling less than happy, both with himself, and with his earlier biting comment. He knew very little about her personal life—the fact that he had an erection every time he was in her company really didn’t count! He certainly didn’t know her well enough to have deliberately cast aspersions upon the way she might choose to live her private life.

      He forced himself to continue eating his own food as he waited for Mac to return.

      And waited.

      And waited.

      After over ten minutes had passed since she’d left the table, Jonas came to the uncomfortable conclusion that she might have walked out on both him and the restaurant!

      Deservedly so?

      Maybe. But that didn’t make the experience—the first time that a woman had ever walked out on Jonas, for any reason—any more palatable than the prawns he had just forced himself to finish eating.

      He stood up abruptly to place his own napkin on the tabletop and make his way across the restaurant to the door through to the washrooms, determined to see exactly how Mac had made her escape. Only to come to a halt in the doorway and feeling completely wrong-footed as he came face to face with Mac, who was standing in the corridor in laughing conversation with one of the waitresses.

      She looked at him curiously. ‘Is there a problem, Jonas?’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Your food is getting cold.’

      ‘Oh, dear.’ The waitress gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Mac,’ she said, before hurrying off in the direction of the kitchen.

      Leaving Mac alone in the hallway with an obviously seriously displeased Jonas.

      Well, that was just too bad!

      Jonas had been deliberately insulting before she left the table, and when she’d bumped into Carla as she was leaving the ladies’ room Mac had felt no hesitation in stopping to chat; Jonas Buchanan could just sit alone at the table for a few more minutes and stew as far as she was concerned.

      She raised dark brows as he stepped further into the otherwise deserted hallway and quietly closed the door behind him, enclosing the two of them in a strangely tense and otherwise deserted silence. Mac shifted uncomfortably as Jonas walked stealthily down that hallway towards her. ‘I thought you said my food was getting cold?’ she prompted, suddenly nervous.

      ‘It’s already cold, so a few more minutes isn’t going to make any difference,’ he dismissed softly.

      Mac moistened dry lips as Jonas kept walking until he came to a halt standing only inches away from her. Very tall and large, his close proximity totally unnerving. ‘Why do we need to be a few more minutes?’ She glanced up at him uncertainly.

      Jonas was enjoying