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

he was…

      And why should that matter to her? She had no personal interest in this man. Did she…?

      Lord, she hoped not!

      The fact that he was one of the most compellingly attractive men Mac had ever met was surely nullified by the fact that he was also the man trying to force her out of her own home, by the sheer act of making it too uncomfortable for her to stay?

      She steadily returned Jonas’s piercing gaze as she shrugged. ‘I don’t see any family resemblance.’

      He smiled wickedly. ‘Maybe that’s because Amy is a woman and I’m a man?’

      Mac was well aware that Jonas was a man. Much too aware for her own comfort, as it happened. At five feet two inches tall, and weighing only a hundred pounds, in stark contrast to Jonas Buchanan’s considerable height and powerful build, she was made totally aware of her own femininity by this man. And, uncomfortably, her vulnerability…

      Her mouth firmed. ‘I really should go and circulate amongst the other guests,’ she told him as she placed her empty champagne glass down on a side table with the intention of leaving.

      ‘Maybe I’ll come with you.’ Jonas Buchanan reached out to lightly grasp Mac by the elbow as she would have turned away.

      His touch instantly sent a quiver of shocking awareness along the length of her arm and down into her breasts, causing them to swell inside her bra and the nipples to engorge to a pleasurable ache against the lacy material.

      It was a completely unfamiliar—and unwelcome—feeling to Mac. After that one brief disaster of a relationship while at university, she had spent the following six years concentrating solely on her painting career, with little or no time to even think about relationships. She wasn’t thinking of one now, either. Jonas Buchanan was the last man—positively the last man!—that Mac should be feeling physically attracted to.

      Her body wasn’t listening to her, unfortunately, as the warmth of Jonas’s hand on her arm began to infiltrate the rest of her body, culminating uncomfortably at the apex of her thighs as she felt herself moisten there, in such a burst of heat that she gasped softly in awareness of that arousal.

      She raised startled eyes to that hard and compellingly handsome face above hers, Jonas standing so close to her now she was able to see the individual pores in his skin. To recognise the lighter blue ring that surrounded the iris of his eyes, which gave them that piercing appearance. To gaze hypnotically at those slightly parted lips as they slowly lowered towards hers—

      Mac jerked herself quickly out of his grasp. ‘What are you doing?’

      Yes, what was he doing? Jonas wondered frowningly. For a brief moment he had forgotten that they were surrounded by noisily chatting art critics and collectors. Had felt as if he and the exquisitely beautiful Mac McGuire were the only two people in the room, surrounded only by an expectant awareness and the heady seduction of her perfume.

      Damn it, Jonas had been so unaware of those other people in the room that he had been about to kiss her in front of them all!

      Her appearance this evening was an illusion, he reminded himself. Tonight she was the artist, deliberately dressed to beguile and seduce art critics and art collectors alike into approving of or buying her paintings. The fact that she had almost succeeded in seducing him into forgetting exactly who and what she was only increased Jonas’s feelings of self-disgust.

      His mouth thinned as he stepped away to look down at her through hooded lids. ‘I really shouldn’t keep you from your other guests any longer.’

      Mac trembled slightly at the contempt she could hear in Jonas’s tone. As she wondered what she had done to incur that contempt; he had been the one about to kiss her and not the other way around!

      Her gaze returned to those sensually sculptured lips as she wondered what it would have felt like to have them part and claim her own lips. Jonas’s mouth looked hard and uncompromising now, but seconds ago those firm lips had been soft and inviting as they lowered to hers—

      Get a grip, Mac, she instructed herself firmly as she straightened decisively. The fact that he looked wonderful in a black evening suit, and was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever set eyes on, did not detract from the fact that he was also the enemy!

      She eyed him mockingly. ‘I would be polite and say that it’s been nice seeing you again, Mr Buchanan, but we both know I would be lying…’ She trailed off pointedly.

      He gave a humourless smile in recognition of that mockery.

      ‘I doubt very much that you’ve seen the last of me, Mac.’

      She raised dark brows. ‘I sincerely hope that you’re wrong about that.’

      His smile deepened. ‘I rarely am when it comes to matters of business.’

      ‘Modest too,’ Mac scorned. ‘Is there no end to your list of talents?’ She snorted delicately. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Buchanan.’ She didn’t wait for his reply to her statement but moved to cross the room to where she realised Magnus had discreetly been trying to attract her attention for the past few minutes.

      Jonas stood unmoving as he watched her progress slowly across the room, stopping occasionally to greet people she knew. Unlike her behaviour towards him, the smiles Mac bestowed on the other guests were warm and relaxed, the huskiness of her laugh a soft caress to the senses, and revealing small, even white teeth against those full and red-glossed lips.

      The tight-fitting silk dress emphasised the rounded curve of her bottom as she moved, and the slit up the side of the gown revealed the shapely length of her thigh. Jonas scowled his disapproval as he saw that most of the men in the room were also watching her, with one persistent man even grasping her wrist and trying to engage her in conversation before she laughingly managed to extricate herself and walked away to join Magnus Laywood.

      ‘So what did you make of our little artist…?’

      Jonas turned to look at Amy, compressing his mouth in irritation as he realised he had been so engrossed in watching Mac that he hadn’t noticed his cousin’s approach. A tall and beautiful redhead, with a temper to match, Jonas’s maternal cousin wasn’t a woman men usually overlooked!

      ‘What did I think of Mary McGuire?’ Jonas played for time as he was still too surprised at his reaction to the artist’s change in appearance to be able to formulate a satisfactory answer to Amy’s archly voiced question. ‘She seems…a little young, to have engendered all this interest,’ he drawled with bored lack of interest as he took two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one of them to his cousin.

      ‘Young but brilliant,’ Amy assured him unreservedly as she sipped the chilled wine.

      ‘High praise indeed,’ Jonas mused; his cousin wasn’t known for her effusiveness when it came to her job as art critic for The Individual.

      Amy linked her arm with his encouragingly. ‘Come and look at some of her paintings.’

      Mac continued to chat lightly with a collector who had expressed a serious interest in buying one of the paintings on display, at the same time completely aware of Jonas Buchanan and his cousin as they moved slowly through the two-roomed gallery to view her work.

      It was impossible to tell from Jonas’s expression what he thought of her paintings, those blue eyes hooded as he studied each canvas, his mouth unsmiling as he murmured in soft reply to Amy Walters’s comments.

      He probably hated them, Mac accepted heavily as she politely tried to refer the flirtatious collector to Jeremy for the more serious discussion over price. No doubt Jonas preferred modern art as opposed to her more ethereal style and bright but slightly muted use of colour. No doubt he had only agreed to accompany his cousin this evening in the first place because he had known that by doing so he would undermine Mac’s confidence.

      He needn’t have bothered—Mac already hated all of this! She disliked the artificiality. Found