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

for the past three days?’

      She looked startled. ‘Sorry?’

      ‘I asked where you’ve been for the past three days,’ Jonas repeated firmly.

      Mac gave an irritated frown. ‘I can’t see how that’s any of your business!’

      ‘It is if it has any bearing on the unwanted graffiti outside,’ he reasoned.

      ‘I don’t see how it can have.’ Mac sat forward and put her empty coffee mug down on the bamboo table. ‘If you must know, I went to visit my parents in Devon,’ she explained as Jonas continued to look at her questioningly.

      ‘Oh.’ He looked frustrated. ‘As you said, that’s not particularly helpful.’

      It also wasn’t the answer he had obviously been expecting. ‘Where did you think I’d been, Jonas?’ Mac asked.

      ‘How the hell should I know?’ he retorted tersely.

      Was he being defensive? It certainly sounded that way to her. But why did it? Jonas had made it more than clear on Monday evening that he wasn’t interested in becoming involved with her—or indeed with any woman who was so physically inexperienced!

      Thinking about what had happened between the two of them that evening perhaps wasn’t the right thing for her to do when they were sitting here alone in her home. Well…alone apart from the two men she could see outside the window painting the wooden cladding!

      She stood up suddenly. ‘I don’t think we’ll achieve anything further by talking about this any more today, Jonas.’

      He looked up at her mockingly. ‘Is that my cue to politely take my leave?’

      Mac felt the warmth of the colour that entered her cheeks. ‘Or impolitely, if you would prefer,’ she said sweetly.

      What Jonas would prefer to do was something he dared not allow himself.

      The last few minutes spent here with her, in the warmth and beauty that she had made of her home, made him strangely reluctant to leave it. Or her. Just the thought of going back alone to the cold and impersonal sterility of his own apartment was enough to send an icy shiver of revulsion down the length of his spine.

      What was it about this woman in particular that made Jonas want to remain in her company? That made him so reluctant to leave the warmth and vitality that was Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire?

      ‘Have you ever done any interior designing other than your own?’ he heard himself asking.

      Mac raised an eyebrow. ‘Not really. A room here and there for my parents, but otherwise no. Why?’

      What the hell was he doing? Jonas wondered, annoyed with himself. The last thing he wanted—the very last thing—when he moved into his new apartment next year was a constant reminder of this unusual woman because he was surrounded by her choice of décor!

      ‘No reason,’ he replied coldly as he stood up decisively. ‘I was just making conversation,’ he explained. ‘You’re right, I have to get back to the office.’

      Mac stood near the door and watched beneath lowered lashes as Jonas strode over to place his empty coffee mug on the breakfast bar, her gaze hungry as she admired the way his brown leather jacket fitted smoothly over the width of those shoulders and how his legs appeared so long and lean in his snug faded jeans.

      She wasn’t over him!

      Mac had thought—and hoped—that three days in Devon would put this man and that mad desire she had felt for him on Monday evening into perspective. Looking at him now, feeling the wild beat of her pulse and the heated awareness washing over her body, she realised that all she had done was force herself not to think about him. Being with Jonas again, and once more totally aware of that unequivocally passionate response to him, showed her that she hadn’t forgotten a thing about him since she’d last seen him.

      She moistened dry lips, instantly aware of her mistake as she saw the way Jonas’s dark gaze fixated on the movement as he walked slowly towards her. ‘I really do need to go out and get some things in for dinner,’ she said desperately.

      Jonas came to a halt only inches away from her. ‘Why don’t I take you out to dinner this evening and you can do the food shopping tomorrow?’ he prompted huskily.

      Mac blinked her uncertainty, part of her wanting to have dinner with him this evening, another part of her knowing it would be reckless for her to even think of doing so. ‘I thought we had already agreed that the two of us seeing each other again socially was not a good idea?’

      ‘It isn’t,’ Jonas acknowledged wryly.

      ‘Then—’

      ‘I want to have dinner with you, damn it!’ he bit out fiercely.

      Mac gave a rueful smile. ‘And do you usually get what you want, Jonas?’

      ‘Generally? Yes. As far as you’re concerned? Rarely,’ he said bluntly.

      Mac was torn. An evening spent alone, after being with Jonas again, now stretched in front of her like a long dark tunnel. Alternately, spending any part of the evening with him presented a high risk of there being a repeat of Monday evening’s disaster…

      ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I—no.’

      Jonas eyed her speculatively. ‘That’s a definite no, is it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Yes, that’s a definite no? Or yes, I’ve changed my mind and would love to have dinner with you this evening, Jonas?’ he drawled.

      He was teasing her! It was so unexpected from this normally forcefully arrogant man that Mac couldn’t stop herself from laughing softly as she gave a slight shake of her head. ‘You aren’t making this easy for me, are you?’

      Jonas had no idea what had possessed him to make the invitation in the first place, let alone try to cajole her into accepting it. Especially when he knew that spending any more time with this woman was the very last thing he should do.

      He had been telling himself exactly that for the past three days. To no avail, obviously, when the first time he set eyes on her again he was pressing her to have dinner with him!

      Even now Jonas couldn’t bring himself to retract the invitation. ‘It can’t be that difficult, Mac,’ he cajoled. ‘The answer is either yes or no.’

      Mac looked up at Jonas quizzically, wondering why he had invited her out to dinner when he was so obviously as reluctant to spend time alone with her again as she was with him.

      Except the two of them were alone right now…

      Alone, and with the sexual tension between them rising just as obviously. The very air that surrounded them seemed to crackle with that awareness; she was so aware of it now that her heart raced and her palms felt damp.

      She drew in a sharp breath. ‘I think that has to be a definite no.’

      ‘“I think” is surely contradictory to “definite”?’ Jonas pressed.

      Because Mac was having a problem thinking at all in Jonas’s company!

      Because she really wanted to say yes?

      Maybe. No, definitely! But the part of her that could still reason logically—a very small part of her, admittedly!—knew it really wasn’t a sensible thing for her to spend any more time in his highly disturbing company.

      ‘I don’t want to go out to dinner with you, Jonas,’ she stated very firmly—at the same time aware of a sinking disappointment in the pit of her stomach. An ache. A hollowness that instantly made her want to retract her refusal. She bit her bottom lip, hard, to stop herself from doing exactly that.

      Jonas looked down at Mac through narrowed lids, physically aware of everything about her; the slender and sexy elegance of her body, the long silky length