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

before, let alone gone to a hotel room with him, and she had no intention of doing the latter now with Jonas, either. Much as she might secretly ache to do so. It sounded wild. Liberating. Dangerously exciting…

      She deliberately fell back on anger as the solution to her predicament. ‘Whether I want you or not, an afternoon in a hotel bedroom with a man I barely know—and who I really don’t want to know any better—is really not my thing,’ she told him scornfully. ‘If you’re feeling frustrated, Jonas, then I’m sure there are any number of women you could call who would be only too happy to spend the afternoon satisfying you!’

      Jonas’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘I’ve never been that desperate for sex, Mac.’

      Including sex with her, she knew he was implying. Which was no doubt true. Jonas was young, handsome and rich enough to attract any woman he decided he wanted. He certainly didn’t need to trouble himself over one stubborn artist, who obviously irritated him as much as she aroused him.

      And Mac had aroused him. She’d felt the hard evidence of that arousal pressed against her own thighs as Jonas kissed her.

      Her mouth firmed. ‘I suggest we just forget about lunch,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m really not hungry any more, and I doubt you are either—’

      ‘Not for food, anyway,’ Jonas muttered.

      ‘I—’ Mac broke off suddenly as the woman who had interrupted them earlier now came back out of the ladies’ room, her gaze averted as she passed them and returned to the dining room of the restaurant. Mac’s embarrassment returned with a vengeance. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain to Luciano that you had an appointment you had to go to rather than intending any slight to the preparation of his food.’

      ‘I moved my afternoon around. My next appointment isn’t for another hour,’ Jonas told her.

      Her eyes widened. ‘You want us to go back to the table and finish eating lunch together?’

      After what just happened between us? Jonas inwardly finished Mac’s question. And the answer to that was no, of course he didn’t want them to return to the table and carry on eating lunch together as if nothing had happened. But neither did he appreciate Mac dismissing him as if the last few minutes had never happened at all.

      His mouth thinned. ‘Obviously not,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’ll settle the bill and explain to Luciano that you had a previous appointment.’

      Mac frowned. ‘I asked you out to lunch—’

      ‘I’m paying the bill, Mac,’ Jonas repeated firmly.

      Mac continued to look up at him frowningly for several long seconds before giving an impatient shrug. ‘Fine. Whatever.’ Her tone implied she just wanted to get out of here. Away from him. Now.

      A need she followed through on as she turned swiftly on her heel and marched down the hallway back into the restaurant, the door swinging closed behind her.

      Jonas remained where he was for several more minutes after Mac had gone, eyes narrowed and his expression grim as he recognised that she was no longer just a problem on a business level, but had also become one on a personal level, too.

      Perhaps one that would only be resolved once they had been to bed together…

      Mac was barefooted and belatedly eating a piece of toast for her lunch when she went to answer the knock on her door later that afternoon, a brief glance through the spy-hole in the door showing her that she didn’t know the grey-haired man standing at the top of the metal staircase dressed like a workman in blue overalls and a thick checked shirt. ‘Yes?’ she prompted politely after opening the door.

      ‘Afternoon, love,’ the middle-aged man returned with a smile. ‘Bob Jenkins. I’ve come to replace ya window.’

      Mac’s brows rose. ‘That’s great!’

      He was already inspecting the broken window next to the door. ‘Had a break-in, did ya?’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘Too much of it about nowadays. No respect, that’s the problem. Not for people or their property.’

      ‘No.’ Mac grimaced as she recalled the mess that had been left in her studio.

      ‘It will only take a few minutes to fix.’ Bob Jenkins gave her another encouraging smile. ‘I’ll just go and get my things from the van.’

      Mac had made him a mug of tea by the time he came back up the stairs with his tools and a pane of glass that appeared to be the exact size of the one that had been broken. ‘How did you know which size glass to bring?’

      The glazier took a sip of tea and put the mug down before he began working on the window frame. ‘The boss is pretty good at judging things like this,’ he explained.

      Mac sipped her own tea as she watched him work. ‘Was that the man I spoke to on the telephone this morning?’

      ‘Don’t know about that, love.’ Bob Jenkins looked up to give her a grin. ‘He just told me to get over here toot sweet and replace the window.’

      Mac had no idea why, but she had a sudden uneasy feeling about ‘the boss’. Maybe because she didn’t recall telling the man at the glazier company she had called this morning what size window had been broken. Or expected anyone to arrive from that company until tomorrow…

      She eyed Bob warily. ‘Exactly who is the boss?’

      He raised grizzled grey brows. ‘Mr Buchanan, of course.’

      Exactly what Mac had suspected—dreaded—hearing!

      After their strained parting earlier Mac hadn’t expected to see or hear from Jonas ever again. Although technically, she wasn’t seeing or hearing from him now, either; he had just arrogantly sent one of his workmen over to fix her broken window.

      Why?

      Was Jonas treating her like the ‘fragile little woman’ who needed the help of the ‘big, strong man’?

      Or was Jonas replacing the window because he knew that he—or someone who worked for him—was responsible for it being broken in the first place?

      ‘Of course,’ Mac answered the workman distractedly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Bob?’

      ‘No problem,’ he assured her brightly.

      Mac was so annoyed at Jonas’s high-handedness that she didn’t quite know what to do with all the anger bubbling inside her. What did he think he was doing, interfering in this way, when she had already told him that she had arranged for a glazier to come out tomorrow?

      An arrangement he had instantly expressed his disapproval of. Enough to have arranged for one of his own workmen to come out and replace the window immediately, apparently! Were Jonas’s actions prompted by a guilty conscience? Or by something else? Although quite what that something else could be Mac had no idea. It was enough, surely, that Jonas was sticking his arrogant nose into her business?

      Too right it was!

      ‘What can I do for you this time, Mac?’ Jonas took his briefcase out of the car before locking it and turning to face her wearily across the private and brightly lid underground car park beneath his apartment building.

      He had been vaguely aware, as he drove home at the end of what had been a damned awful day, of the black motorbike following in the traffic behind him. He simply hadn’t realised that Mac was the driver of that motorbike until she followed him down into the car park, stopped the vehicle behind his car and removed the black crash helmet to shake the long length of her ebony-dark hair loose about her shoulders. The black biking leathers she was wearing fitted her as snugly as a glove, and clearly outlined the fullness of her breasts and her slender waist and hips. Jonas couldn’t help thinking of how they were no doubt moulded to her perfectly shaped bottom, too!

      But there was no way that Jonas could mistake the obviously hostile demeanour on her face for anything other than what it was as she climbed off the motorbike;