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‘No.’ Rosie shook her head. ‘I won’t do it. I’m not thinking of me, but—’
‘Doña Anna and the islanders?’ he interrupted. ‘Yes. I know your passion where they’re concerned. But if you really want the best for them, you should leave the island to me.’
She huffed incredulously. ‘Do you think there’s even the slimmest chance of that?’
He shrugged. He’d up his offer if he had to. He did so, naming an amount that would make most people reach for a chair. Rosie didn’t even blink. But then, it was as if all the emotion she had so successfully suppressed in life broke free. Snatching up the documents, she ripped them to shreds in front of his eyes.
‘That’s what I think of your offer!’ she blazed.
Enraged, she was magnificent, but he remained focused on the deal. ‘Everything has its price,’ he said calmly.
‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ she exclaimed, frowning with frustration. ‘Even you don’t have enough money to tempt me to sell my share of the island. You can’t calculate everything in terms of money. When we were on the beach and you told me how much Doña Anna had done for you, and I told you I understood, beca
use she’d done the same for me, I thought we were beginning to understand each other. But we’re further apart than ever, because it’s all about money for you. You don’t care about the island. The only thing you care about is your bottom line. And winning,’ she raged.
‘That’s easy for you to say—you don’t have people depending on you for their jobs.’
‘There’s plenty of work on the island,’ she argued.
‘Growing vegetables?’
‘Why not?’ she blazed. ‘What’s more important—another golf club, or more food, good organic food?’
‘Another of your little fantasies,’ he suggested.
‘If you would only agree to help the islanders with your connections, instead of driving on with your plan, I believe this island could be successful in every way.’
‘Just as you believe you can live here with no visible means of support.’
‘If I have to, I will.’
‘But you don’t have to,’ he roared.
His tone shocked her. She had shocked herself. She was facing Xavier, braced for battle, when they were both usually so controlled. Somehow, combined, they were combustible. And now she couldn’t stop. ‘You can’t buy the island, and you can’t buy me!’
‘Actually. I can,’ he said with infuriating confidence.
She huffed incredulously ‘You seriously think you can put a price on me?’
‘I’m a businessman. That’s what I do,’ he countered.
‘You’re only a businessman thanks to the aunt you neglected—the aunt who gave you everything to help you become the man you are today. Do you think she’d be proud of you now?’
‘I would think so, yes,’ he said calmly, though niggling at the back of his mind was his aunt’s unreasonable demand for him to provide an heir. What on earth had caused her to put that in her will?
His apparent composure rattled Rosie. It was as if a dam had been breached and now a lifetime of suppressed passion came flooding out.
‘I don’t agree,’ she snapped. ‘Doña Anna expected more of you than this. I’m guessing that’s why she gave me a say in her will.’
He could have told her that he’d sent regular payments to his aunt for years, but that she had distributed the money to the islanders, rather than keeping anything back for herself, but he was done trying to reason with Rosie Clifton.
Passion roared between them as she whirled around to stalk away. Catching hold of her, he brought her back. Cupping her face, he made her look at him, and then he finished the kiss he wished he’d started the night before. Rosie made angry sounds deep in her throat. He countered these with a lifetime of experience in seduction that only succeeded in making her madder still, but her lips were soft and warm, and he could be very persuasive. He had never felt such a desire to kiss a woman before, and within a few moments she was fighting to keep him close as animal instinct took over.
He wanted her. That was all he knew. He wanted her now—here on the library table. No waiting. No thought. Just sensation. Need and passion combined inside him, driving the primal urge to mate. His hands claimed her buttocks. He pressed her hard against his straining erection. She responded by throwing her head back, and groaning with need as she thrust her hips hungrily against his.
Fortunately for both of them, an alarm bell went off in some part of his brain. One of them had to show restraint. Unfortunately, as Rosie showed no sign of letting him go, that had to be him.
Her face was flushed with passion as he held her at a safe distance. Her eyes were as black as jet. She wiped the back of her hand across kiss-swollen lips, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done. ‘My answer’s still no,’ she said.
