The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

now.

      She felt like a curiosity in a zoo, watched and discussed and picked over. ‘I wish I had never come to England now,’ she breathed, a tremor of hurt tensing her mouth. ‘I wish I had never met you.’

      ‘Too late for both wishes,’ Nikos said, then let out a short sigh. ‘Before you spin me into the manipulative villain here, Oscar called me. Santino D’Lassio succeeded in keeping your unplanned dip off the television screens but he was not so successful with the press. Oscar read about it and called me.’

      As Sophie had called her, Mia remembered, simmering down a little.

      ‘Together we decided that Brunel could become—a nuisance to you, so I employed a team to watch over you in case the nasty piece of work decided to try something again—and that was all Oscar and I discussed.’

      ‘Oh,’ she quivered. ‘I…th-thank you.’

      ‘I don’t need thanking,’ Nikos discarded with frowning annoyance. ‘It was deemed necessary to your safety so it was done. Of course, I did not expect to find out you were living it up until all hours with Kat Balfour’s crazy friends!’

      ‘They are not crazy, and it was only one night!’ Mia fired up all over again. ‘And what business of yours is it who I see or what I do with my free time? You blew me off. You told me I was a very big mistake!’

      ‘For your own good.’

      ‘It is a very big shame it did not run to contraception too!’ Mia threw out with simmering sarcasm.

      He straightened his broad shoulders. ‘Fair point,’ he acknowledged.

      Mia wanted to get up and hit him! Instead she heaved in a deep breath, let it out again slowly, then put down the sandwich. ‘I can’t eat this now,’ she sighed.

      ‘My fault again?’ He sighed too. ‘But at least try to eat it. I promise I won’t say another word while you do…doctor’s orders,’ he reminded her.

      Doctor’s orders…Because of the baby, he meant. Reluctantly she picked up the sandwich. True to his word, he did not utter another word while she ate. When she’d finished he pushed her glass towards her in a silent command for her to finish that too.

      ‘Tulio has nothing on you,’ she sniped, snatching up the glass.

      To her surprise he husked out a soft laugh. ‘I’m beginning to like Tulio,’ he confided. ‘He sounds like my kind of guy. I’ll look forward to meeting him when we go to visit your aunt…’

      Mia looked at him, deeply suspicious as to where he was leading her with that cool statement. The moment she made contact with his rich dark eyes and saw a golden light burning there, it made her shift tensely on the stool.

      What was he up to—what was he thinking? Why was she reading the glint as the burn of promised complete and total possession in those eyes—so much so that she began to feel threatened?

      Mia moistened her lips and felt them tingle when he lowered his eyes to watch the careful little gesture.

      ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You are not going anywhere near Tia Giulia.’

      He took his time bringing his eyes back up to hers. ‘Why not?’ he asked softly.

      A sizzling fizz of heat began to fire deep down in her body. That there was something else going on here as well as the conversation they were involved in, made her flicker a wary scan of his face. He was leading her somewhere and she did not want to look at where that might be.

      How did a man so famous for his cool self-control manage to transmit so much sexual tension without seeming to try—?

      ‘I would be too ashamed to present you to her,’ she said.

      And hit a raw nerve. Mia watched that warm possessive golden light turn off like a switch. He leant back on the stool. It was like watching a dangerous animal take a serious blow it had not been prepared for, and she suddenly felt really bad for saying what she did.

      ‘Tia is going to be ashamed of me too,’ she added in what was a huskily spoken soother to the wounded beast. ‘And—and anyway, there is no reason why the two of you should m-meet.’

      ‘No,’ she thought she heard him utter from the deep dark recesses of his taut throat.

      The atmosphere in the kitchen had suddenly gone somewhere Mia knew she did not want to follow. In fact, she decided without rhyme or reason as to why it hit her at this particular moment, she just knew she did not want to be here with him any longer.

      Her slender fingers gripping the glass, she downed the rest of her orange, then put the glass down and slid off the stool. Nikos still was not moving and she was feeling distinctly threatened as she took a wary step towards the kitchen door.

      ‘Going somewhere?’ his deep voice questioned.

      ‘T-to my own apartment…’ She took another step.

      ‘We still have a lot to talk about,’ Nikos drawled.

      Not if she could avoid it. ‘I’m—too tired to talk to you any more today,’ she said coolly. ‘We—we can talk again tomorrow.’

      ‘Too late then. We have plans to make before tomorrow.’

      Mia nipped in a taut breath, then spun around. He’d recovered quickly enough from his wounds, was the first observation that leapt out at her, though he did still look strained around his mouth.

      ‘I don’t know what is the matter with you,’ she said, adding a flick of a hand to convey her helpless bewilderment. ‘What is the planning you speak about? We don’t have to plan anything! And you should be drowning your sorrows somewhere in a bottle of whisky instead of playing this silly game with me!’

      ‘No game,’ he denied.

      ‘Then where exactly do you think you are going with this?’ she burst out, asking the question she had been trying to run away from.

      ‘I know exactly where I’m going with it, cara,’ Nikos responded grimly. ‘Even with the crushing knock-back,’ he added with a twist of his taut mouth, ‘I am simply waiting for you to catch up with me.’

      He was still seated on the stool with his long legs stretched out in front of him, looking for the world now like he was set to stay there like that for the rest of the day. But it was all just a big deception. Mia could still see that telling gleam in his eyes, a burn which reminded her of—

      She took a step backwards. ‘S-stop looking at me like that—’

      He arched one of his flat black eyebrows. ‘Like what?’

      ‘Like you…’ Running out of words she dragged in a tense breath of air and looked away.

      ‘Like I’m considering—other options to help you to catch up with me?’

      He was thinking sex, Mia saw, though she did not want to. In the space of a few short minutes he’d gone from domestic animal to wounded animal, and now he was displaying the sexual animal.

      ‘This is an—improper conversation to be having in—in the middle of a crisis,’ Mia said primly.

      ‘I’m having improper urges,’ he came back quick as a flash.

      Shocked by it, Mia gasped, her eyes widening and her pulse accelerating as he came to his feet.

      ‘Don’t you dare to come near me!’ She took another jerky step backwards and her spine made painful contact with the corner of the door frame. ‘Ouch,’ she jerked out.

      ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Nikos murmured, walking forward to reach out to draw her towards him while Mia made a weak flailing attempt to ward him off. ‘You’re so fevered and flustered you hurt yourself. Much safer here,’ he said, folding her in against his warm hard frame.

      A