Priceless: Bought for the Sicilian Billionaire's Bed / Bought: The Greek's Baby

‘It’s okay. I mean, I’m okay,’ she amended, trying to pull her hand away.

‘Maybe you are,’ he objected as he drew her towards the warmth of his body. ‘But I’m not.’

Her eyes opened wide, startled by pleasure and shock. ‘What … what are you doing?’

‘This,’ he said, his voice distorting savagely as he stared down into her pale face. ‘I have to do this.’

She knew he was going to kiss her—she could read it in the fractional dilation of his eyes. She could sense it in the sudden tension in his body and in the raw tang of masculine desire which made her forget everything she had vowed last night as she’d listened to the ticking of her bedside clock and waited for the alarm to ring. He was going to kiss her and, although she knew she should stop it, she could no more have stopped it than willed the earth to stop turning.

‘Salvatore …’ she whispered.

The ‘sir’ had gone once more, he thought, with grim satisfaction. ‘Sì,’ he agreed arrogantly, her breath warm against his lips. ‘That is my name.’

With a groan, he drove his mouth down on hers. She tasted sweet and minty, as if she had just brushed her teeth. Had she done that specially, hoping that he would kiss her? The thought that she had been anticipating this—wanting this—made him harder still.

He pulled her closer, his hands reaching down to cup her buttocks, and for the first time he appreciated how small she was. Positively tiny. In the car their bodies had been on a level, but now she seemed to slip into his arms and disappear into them, melding into his body like a pocket Venus.

Jessica clutched onto his shirt as his lips beguiled her, the palms of his hands skating with arrogant possession over her bottom. On and on his mouth continued to plunder hers until suddenly her knees threatened to give way—and perhaps he also sensed too that things were getting out of hand because he stopped kissing her, though he didn’t let her go. She gazed up at him uncertainly, in a daze.

His blue eyes looked almost black and his breathing was ragged and there was an odd kind of expression on his face, as though he liked what he was doing but despised it all at the same time.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he said flatly. ‘Come back to my apartment.’

Jessica swallowed. Stay focussed. Don’t behave like you’re expendable. You may have a lowly job but that doesn’t mean you don’t have pride. ‘No,’ she answered stubbornly. ‘I can’t.’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘Forget the cleaning for tonight.’

Jessica almost laughed. He thought that her refusal was solely about some loyalty to the dust levels in his office! Was that the only kind of thought he believed her capable of? ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Salvatore stilled as he heard the note of determination which had crept into her voice. He had allowed her a token show of defiance last night—but she was trying his patience now. Was she daring to bargain with him?

‘What did you mean?’ he demanded dangerously.

But Jessica was not going to be bowed or bullied simply because he was in a position of authority. She lifted her chin up and stared at him. ‘You think I’m just going to come back with you to your flat and let you make love to me?’

‘Why, are you planning to go all demure on me when we both know that’s what you want, cara mia?’

Jessica took a step back, needing the space and looking at him with a kind of defiance. ‘Life isn’t just about doing what you want, Salvatore, it’s about doing what’s right, too.’

Dark eyebrows rose in haughty surprise. ‘Don’t tell me we’re going to start talking morals now?’

Jessica shook her head, hurt now, but impatient, too. ‘Is it because I clean your offices that you think you can just pick me up like an ornament and put me down again? Do you treat all women like that? No, of course you don’t! If I were someone else—you’d at least do me the courtesy of going through the motions of normal behaviour. You might ask me out to the theatre, or take me out to dinner. You might at least pretend that you’re interested in getting to know me as a person, rather than how quickly you can get me into your bed!’

Her breathing was all over the place and she stared at him with a boldness he had rarely seen directed at him, and certainly never by a woman.

‘Finished?’ he questioned.

Go on, then, thought Jessica. Sack me, and see if I care! ‘Yes,’ she said.

Salvatore’s lips twisted into an odd kind of smile. ‘I think I get the drift. You’re objecting not because I want to go to bed with you, but because I have not gone through the necessary rituals which society demands?’

‘Are you making fun of me?’

‘Not at all. For who am I to argue in the face of such a passionately put plea?’ Such passion boded well for the bedroom, he mused as he looked down at her flushed cheeks with some amusement. ‘What is it they say? The mouse who roared. Very well—I have heard you, my little mouse, and we shall play the games according to your rules.’ He glimmered her a mocking look. ‘So will you have dinner with me, Jessica?’

She swallowed. ‘As another pretend date, you mean?’

He shook his head and this time his tone was almost gentle. ‘No. As a real one this time.’

She was so taken aback that for a moment words completely failed her. ‘When?’

He gave a low laugh. ‘How about Tuesday?’

Jessica stared at him. How could he go from such urgency to a day which seemed ages away? ‘Tuesday?’ she questioned tentatively.

‘Sì, that is the first evening I have free. I’m flying to Rome for the weekend.’

‘Rome?’

‘Mmm. Ever been there?’

‘No. Never.’ She wanted to ask him who he was going to Rome with, but that was none of her business.

He moved a little closer and he could see the sudden wild darkening of her eyes, the instinctive way that her lips parted. He should kiss her now, take her here and have done with it—it wouldn’t be hard to overcome her coy reluctance.

Yet he had never been forced to wait. Nor to dance attention to a woman’s demands, and it was oddly exciting. Why not let her enjoy her brief moment of power while it lasted? Soon he would have her exactly where he wanted her. ‘So are you going to see me on Tuesday?’ he murmured.

‘Yes, I can do Tuesday,’ she whispered.

He stared down at her for one long moment, drifting a contemplative finger over the outline of her lips and feeling them tremble beneath his touch. He read her silent plea to have him kiss her once more, to seal the agreement in another traditional way—and with a brief, hard smile he turned away. Let her simmer. Let her wait as she had forced him to wait.

‘Until then, cara,’ he said softly.

And holding onto her stinging hand, Jessica was left weakly staring after him as he walked out of the room without another word.

CHAPTER SIX

THE restaurant took Jessica’s breath away. She’d heard of it, of course—but never actually imagined eating there. It was right in the middle of London’s theatre-land and so anonymous from the outside that you wouldn’t know it was there. A secret door opened straight onto the pavement. You stepped in from a crowded and busy street and it was like entering a different world.

It was a large yet intimate space with stained glass windows filtering in coloured light while keeping it private from prying eyes outside. Although it was a Tuesday evening, it was packed out. One of those places where it was impossible for mere mortals to get a table at short notice, though Salvatore had managed it without any trouble.

He seemed to be known here, thought Jessica as they were shown to their table. The waiters beamed. The sommelier nodded at him with a smile. Were staff in places like this taught to remember the names of all their influential customers, she wondered—or was it Salvatore’s bright blue eyes and dark, towering presence which would always stamp him indelibly on people’s minds?

She had never felt more self-conscious as they wove their way through the linen-draped tables. She saw a couple of faces she recognised from TV and spotted a well-known author who had won a literary prize last year and whose book she had at home.

The women all looked very thin and very beautiful. A couple of them glanced up as they passed and Jessica was certain she wasn’t imagining their faint frowns. They looked as if they were trying—and failing—to place her.

What’s a guy like him doing with a girl like her? their carefully made-up eyes seemed to ask—or was that just her own insecurity talking? All the same, she wondered what they’d think if they knew the truth!