.

been responsive, he acknowledged with self-disgust. Claiming that he had seduced her during this week’s interview would be the icing on the cake as far as any female reporter was concerned!

      ‘If you’re hoping for a repeat performance I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed!’ he gritted out as he turned from closing the door and found Tyler still luxuriating in the bed. ‘I have that lunch appointment I told you about in—just over an hour,’ he announced after glancing at his watch. ‘But maybe we can pick this up again later?’ he added with a deliberately insulting raise of an eyebrow.

      The colour flooded Tyler’s cheeks as she scrambled to sit up, turning away from him as she did so. ‘Where are my shoes?’ she asked as she looked around dazedly.

      ‘Your boots are in the other room,’ Zak said. He still remembered his amazement the night before, when he had gone to remove her footwear before putting her into bed and found she’d been wearing a pair of yellow desert boots. ‘Tell me, Tyler, do you wear military clothes to make up for your lack of height and stature?’

      She stood up abruptly and frowned. ‘And do you take lessons in rudeness along with acting, or does it just come naturally?’

      ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’ Rudeness wasn’t usually a part of his character; only Tyler Wood, it seemed, brought out that side of his nature. ‘Er—I think maybe you should take a shower or something before you leave,’ he advised as she turned to march determinedly through to the adjoining sitting-room.

      ‘No, thank you,’ she answered tightly, sitting down to pull on one of her boots, wrinkling her nose delicately because he hadn’t quite managed to erase the smell from the carpet the night before.

      ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Zak dismissed. ‘I’ll call Housekeeping back and get them to shampoo the carpet while I’m out.’

      ‘You know…’ she paused to glare up at him, obviously not happy at being reminded of her illness the evening before ‘…if you had anything of the gentleman about you then you wouldn’t have slept in the same bed as me last night!’

      ‘There’s only the one bed,’ Zak protested, leaning against the doorjamb between the two rooms as he watched her, his arms folded across his chest.

      ‘Then you should have slept on the sofa in here!’ she snapped, pulling her second boot on and tying it so tightly Zak was sure it must be cutting off the blood circulating to her foot.

      ‘It happens to be my bed,’ he reminded her.

      ‘Yes, but—I would have been happier if you had left me on the sofa,’ she insisted, standing up.

      ‘Oh, I couldn’t have done that,’ he assured her mockingly. ‘What if you had been sick again? You might have choked on your own—’

      ‘Please don’t talk about that any more!’ Tyler practically shrieked, picking up from the table all the articles Zak had emptied from her pockets the night before.

      ‘I really think you should take advantage of the bathroom facilities before you leave, Tyler,’ Zak reiterated as he once again took in her appearance.

      Her eyes flashed as she looked up. ‘I don’t—oh, no!’ she groaned as she caught sight of herself in a mirror, reaching up a hand to her hair as it stood up in the best likeness to an annoyed porcupine Zak had ever seen. ‘You could have told me!’ she growled as she marched past him into the adjoining bathroom.

      ‘I thought I just did,’ he called out over the sound of water running, grinning unabashedly as she came back from the bathroom, her hair now wet and spiky. ‘Not much of an improvement, really,’ he teased.

      ‘You—’ Tyler broke off, drawing in a controlling breath before speaking again. ‘I didn’t notice my appearance putting you off a few minutes ago!’

      ‘No. Well, a woman in your bed is worth two that aren’t,’ he deliberately misquoted.

      Her eyes flashed deeply brown. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were that desperate!’

      Zak’s smile widened at her attempts to insult him, easily guessing the reasons behind it—embarrassment, mainly—but having no intention of helping her out. The fact that she didn’t appear in a very good light either should be enough to discourage her from writing about it. Should be…

      His mouth firmed as he straightened away from the doorframe. ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know I’m not even the slightest bit desperate,’ he assured her. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have to shower and change before my luncheon appointment.’

      ‘I—of course.’ Tyler looked flustered now. ‘Can we meet up again later today?’

      ‘Okay,’ he said, wondering now about her personal life. Did she have parents still alive? Did she have siblings? Where had she gone to school? Was there a current man in her life? Those thoughts were immediately followed by the question, why did he want to know?

      He had been forced into agreeing to have Tyler Wood in his life for a week, and when that week was over he had no intention of ever setting eyes on her again. So why should he care about the answer to any of those questions?

      He sighed. ‘I’ve been invited to a party later this evening, so you may as well come with me.’

      ‘If you’re sure I wouldn’t be intruding—’

      ‘I thought you were already doing that,’ Zak responded with brutal honesty.

      Tyler winced. ‘I’m sure there must be someone in your life at the moment—’

      ‘If there is I can assure you that you aren’t ever going to meet her!’ Zak cut in harshly.

      ‘If you resent my being here so much, why did you agree—?’ She broke off as he steadily returned her gaze, blond brows raised. ‘You didn’t agree, did you?’ she acknowledged with another wince.

      He gave a derisive smile. ‘You already know that I didn’t.’

      Tyler grimaced. ‘I thought your initial—lack of cooperation was because I wasn’t the man you thought you had agreed to be interviewed by. But now I realize it’s much more deep-rooted than that.’

      ‘Much more,’ he confirmed grimly. ‘Although that doesn’t change the fact that the agreement was made, with or without my consent,’ he continued as she frowned. ‘Now, I suggest you come back to the hotel about eight o’clock this evening. That way I can be sure that you have dinner before we go on to the party. God knows what the speculation would be like if you were to faint halfway through the evening!’

      Her cheeks coloured furiously. ‘I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, thank you—’

      ‘Really?’ Zak was deeply sceptical. ‘I haven’t seen much evidence of that so far!’

      Her eyes flashed. ‘I told you, it was the brandy that made me ill; the fact that I hadn’t had dinner yesterday evening had nothing to do with it!’ She glared across at him.

      His gaze narrowed on her speculatively, taking in the hollows of her cheeks, the slenderness of her body, her wrists so delicately thin they looked as if they might break if any pressure was exerted on them. In fact, Tyler Wood was altogether too slim.

      ‘Tyler, I gave you the brandy because you almost fainted, presumably from lack of food. Which brings us back to the fact that you still haven’t told me why you didn’t eat dinner yesterday,’ he probed.

      ‘There wasn’t time.’ Once again her gaze seemed to be avoiding meeting his.

      Zak didn’t buy that explanation; there had been plenty of time for her to eat in between their parting yesterday morning and meeting up again in the evening. Unless she had been expecting him to give her dinner yesterday evening? That would certainly explain why she looked so uncomfortable about the subject…

      ‘Just be back here, and dressed for an