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‘It might surprise you,’ she said with a decided edge to her voice, ‘but I want more from a potential marriage than the idea that my attractiveness, or lack of it, won’t be an obstacle.’
Mateo’s eyes widened as he acknowledged her tone, the rise and fall of her chest. She saw his lips compress and his pupils flare and knew he didn’t like her sudden display of emotion. Well, she didn’t like it, either.
She was far too agitated for either of their own good, and their reasonable, scientific discussion had morphed into something emotional and, well, awful. Because she really didn’t want any more explanations about how he was willing to sacrifice sexual attraction on the altar of—what? His duty? Their compatibility? Logic? Whatever it was, Rachel didn’t want to know. She’d had enough of being patronised. Enough of being felt as if she’d just about do. She’d had enough of that before this absurd conversation had even begun.
‘Please.’ She raised one hand to forestall any explanations he might have felt compelled to give, throwing her napkin onto the table with the other. ‘Please don’t say anything more, because I really don’t want to hear it. Any of it. I am not going to marry you, Mateo, end of. Thanks anyway.’
She rose from the table on unsteady legs, her chest still heaving. She had to get out of here before she did something truly terrible, like start to cry.
But before she could even grab her coat, Mateo had risen from his own seat and crossed the small table to take her by the arms, his grip firm and sure.
‘If you will not believe my words,’ he said in a voice bordering a growl, ‘then perhaps you will believe my actions.’
And then he kissed her.
It had been a long time since Rachel had been kissed. So long, in fact, that she’d sort of forgotten she had lips. Lips that could be touched and explored and licked. Lips that Mateo was moving over with his own, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth before delving inward, making her knees weaken. She’d never known knees to actually do that before. She’d considered it a metaphor rather than scientific fact.
His lips felt both hard and soft, warm and cool. A thousand sensations exploded inside her as she parted her own lips, inviting him in. He reached up and cupped her cheek with his big, warm hand, his thumb stroking her skin, making her both shiver and shudder. Everything felt as if it were on fire.
The kiss went on and on, deeper and deeper, fireworks exploding all over her body. She’d never been kissed like this. She’d never felt like this.
Her hands came up of their own accord to clutch at his hard shoulders, fingers clawing at him, begging him for more.
And he gave it, one knee sliding between her own willing legs, the length of his hard, taut body pressed against hers for one glorious second before he stepped away, looking as composed to Rachel’s dazed gaze as if they’d just shaken hands.
While she...she was in pieces. Pieces, scattered on the floor, with her mind spinning too much to even start to pick them up.
‘I think that proves,’ Mateo said in a clipped voice as he straightened his suit jacket, ‘that attraction is not an issue.’
He stood there, a faint smile curling his mouth, his eyes gleaming with unmistakable triumph, while Rachel was still gasping and reeling from what had obviously been an unremarkable kiss to him. Meanwhile it had rocked her world right off its axis. Heaven only knew if she’d be able to straighten it again.
Standing in front of her, his arms folded, his eyebrows raised, he looked so confident, so utterly assured of his undeniable masculine appeal, that Rachel wanted to scream. Claw the face she’d just kissed. Had he really felt it necessary to prove how in thrall to him she could be?
While he seemed almost at pains to show how utterly unaffected he was—his expression composed, his breathing even, his manner bland.
Damn him.
‘If you thought that was meant to win me over, you were wrong,’ Rachel choked out, unable to hide the tears of mortification that had sprung to her eyes. She couldn’t stand another minute of this utter humiliation. When she’d felt it once before, she’d vowed never to expose herself to it again, and so she wouldn’t. This meeting was over.
While Mateo looked on, seeming distinctly nonplussed, she grabbed her coat and yanked it on, winding the scarf tightly around her neck, needing as many barriers between him and her as she could get.
‘Rachel...’ He stretched out one hand, his brows knitted together. He didn’t understand. He thought she should be grateful for his attention, for the fact that he could kiss like a cross between Prince Charming and Casanova. And that made Rachel even more furious, so her voice shook as she spoke her next words.
‘You might think you’re God’s greatest gift to women, Mateo Karr—whatever, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to fall into your lap like a plum ripe for the picking. As much as you so obviously thought I would.’ She jabbed a finger into his powerful pecs for good measure, making his eyes widen.
‘So you’re handsome. So you’re a good kisser. So you’re an out-and-out prince. I don’t care! I don’t care a—a fig about any of it. I am not marrying you.’ And with that final battle cry, the tears she’d tried to keep back spilling from her eyes, Rachel stalked out of the room.
CHAPTER SIX
WELL. THAT HADN’T gone exactly as he’d expected. In fact, it hadn’t gone the way he’d expected at all—a failed experiment, if there ever was one.
Because if he’d truly been conducting an experiment, Mateo acknowledged with a grimace, he would have first made his aim.
To convince Rachel Lewis to marry him, and that physical compatibility would not be an issue for them.
And his prediction? That she would agree, and it wouldn’t. And the variables? Well, how attracted they both would be, he supposed. And those had been variable indeed.
In fact, he didn’t really like to think how variable their attraction had been. He’d been acting on instinct at first, sensing that Rachel needed proof that physicality between them would not be a problem. And from the moment his lips had brushed hers—no, from the moment he’d put his hands on her arms, felt her warm softness, and drawn her to him—he’d known there was no problem at all.
