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His lips thinned and something drummed inside him.

Irritation? Surprise? Jealousy?

‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said abruptly, barely glancing at the man who had spent the past ten minutes doing his best to impress him.

His focus was entirely on Hope. Had he seen her actually touch that kid’s face?

He strode towards her without bothering to let discretion have a say.

* * *

Hope’s attention was wandering as she listened to Oscar tell her about the events management job he had at a company that was not a million miles from where she worked.

They’d spent a couple of minutes playing a game of naming restaurants he went to that she told him were out of her price bracket. She was amused at this brush with a world so different from hers and she could sense that he was fascinated by a woman so unlike any he usually hung out with.

It was pleasant and she was happy not to be on her own or worse, being babysat by Javier just because he felt she might be out of her depth.

She stilled when the expression on Oscar’s face changed and she knew exactly who was looming behind her even before he spoke.

‘Steal you?’

Javier’s breath in her ear tickled and her heart picked up speed as she slowly turned to look at him. Next to Oscar’s youthful beauty, Javier was all alpha male, oozing masculine sexuality in waves.

He was smiling but there was a coolness behind the smile. The room instantly shrank in size and the hubbub of voices and laughter became dull, background noise.

Had she done something wrong? Was he embarrassed by her? Immediately Hope decided that she wasn’t going to ask what was going on.

Oscar was asking to exchange numbers with her, but before she could be wilful and agree, Javier said, icily, ‘That won’t be happening. Now, run along and play with your friends, Oscar.’

Javier drew her away. As soon as they were on their own, she turned to him and said, ‘That wasn’t very nice.’ Her green eyes were as hard as his. She wondered whether he thought because he’d brought her here with him, because they happened to be temporary bed mates, that somehow he owned her.

With ownership comes responsibility, buddy, she thought angrily.

She felt a kick of satisfaction when he flushed darkly and looked away for a couple of seconds.

‘I wasn’t aiming for niceness,’ Javier returned grimly. ‘We’ve shown our faces. I think it would be acceptable to leave now.’

‘We’ve barely been here for an hour!’

‘I got the impression that this wasn’t your kind of thing.’

‘It’s an eye opener, for sure.’

‘So I saw. At least, your eyes were being opened to some random kid who wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with you if he spent longer than ten minutes in your company.’

‘Deal with me?’

Hope folded her arms and glared at him. Her anger was undermined by stirrings of desire at the look on his arrogant, sullen, harshly beautiful face.

‘Are you jealous, Javier?’ She looked at him in quizzical silence and felt a thrill at the thought.

Could he be jealous? If he was, what did that say about how he felt? Was it more than just a passing attraction?

‘Of course I’m not jealous!’ he scoffed, killing that thought stone dead before it had time to flourish. ‘I’ve never been jealous in my life. I’m not that kind of man.’

* * *

That all changed when Javier looked at those amazing green eyes that were staring up at him, that fall of auburn hair, the delicate features, her expression of calm intelligence…