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Kerry could not dredge her mind as fast as he could from the past. ‘Luciano—’
‘To save us both from extending this meeting, I’ll cut to the base line. The repossession order on the castle will proceed.’
Kerry stared at him in shock. ‘You’re not even giving me a chance to—?’
‘To what?’ Leaning back against the edge of his fancy desk, Luciano surveyed her with grim golden eyes and a cynical slant to his beautiful mouth. ‘To witter on about great-uncles and the like and try to make me feel guilty about sins I never committed? Let’s not pretend that you came here today with any intent other than to try and make me feel bad. Business is business, Kerry. Wake up and join the real world.’
As he spoke, Kerry had become so pale that the sunlight coming through the windows made her hair glitter like fire illuminating snow. For a minute, he thought she might be on the brink of passing out on him. His aggressive jawline clenched as he sensed his own readiness to move forward and catch her. No, he wasn’t about to back down. Kerry had the fragile build of a fairy in a child’s story book, and could not help looking pathetic when she got bad news. But he was no longer the stupid bastard who had once been possessed by a need to protect her from every hurt, was he? So why the hell did he feel sick to his stomach?
Utilising every atom of courage she possessed, Kerry flung her head back, copper and russet ringlets cascading back from her taut cheekbones. ‘I already live in the real world. I wouldn’t have come here to try and persuade you to change your mind if I didn’t. All I’m asking for is more time—’
‘Kerry…’ Luciano trailed his heated gaze from the fiery gleam of her hair just as the pink tip of her tongue snaked out to wet her full lower lip. Desire exploded like a burning flare in him and ricocheted through every hard angle of his big, powerful frame. He wanted her but only on his terms. What his terms would be he had no idea but he had no intention of allowing lust to interfere with business. ‘I won’t change my mind.’
‘Do you realise how many people are depending on the castle to give them a living?’ Kerry prompted sickly.
While Luciano shrugged, he took note of that point. It would be foolish to antagonise the locals before he had even decided what to do with the castle. In the short term, he would instruct that staff should be r
etained and that any business-related arrangements dependent on the estate continue without interference.
‘So you didn’t even glance at my business plan?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Am I allowed to ask what plans you have for Ballybawn?’
Luciano’s expressive mouth quirked. ‘I haven’t made any yet.’
‘My grandparents only occupy a few rooms…couldn’t you let them stay on even as tenants?’ Kerry pressed doggedly in a last-ditch attempt to find a compromise. ‘The castle is very big. I could move them somewhere where they wouldn’t get under anybody’s feet.’
‘How many ways are there to say no?’ Luciano angled back his arrogant dark head, the better to study her.
‘Is there n-nothing I can say…nothing I can s-suggest or offer to make you think better of forcing my grandparents to leave their home?’
He spread his hands in a negative motion and continued to watch her.
Burning colour began to banish Kerry’s strained pallor. Never in her life had she been more conscious of anything than she was of his smouldering gaze wandering at a leisurely pace over her tense figure. The accelerated rate of her own heartbeat made her breath catch in her dry throat. Stressed as she already was, thinking straight became an even greater challenge. As his attention lingered on the swell of her breasts, an unsettling combination of angry bewilderment laced with a faint stab of forbidden excitement tugged at her. Her mind, she acknowledged in cringing dismay, had no control over her own body.
His insolent gaze skimmed back to her hot face. ‘Are you offering me sex as an inducement?’
Utterly taken aback by that lazily voiced enquiry, Kerry gasped in furious rebuttal that he should dare to even ask her such a thing. ‘Are you c-clean out of your mind?’
‘Not at all. I’ve had an amazing number of offers in that line since I walked out of that court a free man,’ Luciano told her with a shameless lack of hesitation. ‘It seems that the very concept of a guy having been locked up and deprived of certain pleasures for five years appeals to the female imagination.’
‘Not to m-mine!’ Kerry slung him a scandalised look. ‘Is this what you call sticking to the issue?’
‘We’ve got nothing else to discuss—’
‘H-h-haven’t we? Well, I’m telling you now that I won’t leave the castle unless I’m carried out of it!’ Kerry declared tempestuously.
‘Thank you for the warning but it really wasn’t necessary. I could lift you with one hand. But I urge you not to encourage your grandparents into a similiar stand. For their sake, not for mine.’
Kerry trembled. ‘I won’t let you do this to them. I won’t involve them but I won’t go without a fight!’
‘I enjoy fights. And if you’re still around when I arrive to inspect my latest acquisition, be prepared to end up in my bed, cara mia.’ Luciano met her enraged look of disbelief with a sensation of intense pleasure and anticipation.
‘You’ll regret saying that t-to me!’ Kerry hissed like a spitting cat.
No, he didn’t think he would. Warning his victim added a keener edge to the challenge. And challenges were the very spice of life to Luciano.
